United States of America: Act relating to mental health warning labels for social media platforms (AB 56) was passed by California State Assembly

On 29 May 2025, the California State Assembly read Assembly Bill No. 56 for the third time, passed it, and ordered its transmission to the Senate. The Bill establishes the Social Media Warning Law under Chapter 25 of Division 20 of the Health and Safety Code. It requires covered social media platforms to display a black-box warning to users each day they first access a platform, after three hours of cumulative active use, and at least once per hour thereafter. The warning reproduces text from the United States Surgeon General’s advisory on social media and youth mental health, stating that social media is associated with significant mental-health harms and has not been proven safe for young users. The Bill authorises the State Department of Public Health to modify the warning through regulation, excludes services such as electronic mail, cloud storage, and internal messaging, and provides that compliance does not limit liability under other laws. It becomes operative on 1 January 2027.