United States of America: Preliminary injunction enjoined Amendments to Consumer Data Protection Act to Prohibit Addictive Social Media Feeds (Chapter 703, 2025)

On 27 February 2026, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted a preliminary injunction in the case of NetChoice v Attorney General of Virginia, blocking the enforcement of Senate Bill 854 (SB 854). The Bill would prohibit social media platforms from providing addictive algorithmic feeds to minors and introduce compliance requirements, including commercially reasonable age verification mechanisms and a default one-hour daily usage limit per platform for users under the age of 16, which may be adjusted only with verifiable parental consent. Additionally, the amendments restrict platforms from using age verification data for unrelated purposes and prohibit them from degrading service quality, withholding features, or increasing prices for users who are subject to these limitations. The Court found a potential loss of First Amendment freedoms in the law and reasoned that this potential constitutes irreparable harm and that the public interest is served by upholding constitutional rights.