What's depressing to me is just how self-serving all this is. The original bill was AB 1043. Who supported that, breaking with other tech companies? Why Meta of course [1][2]! Meta likes this because it pushes liability onto the OS providers. Guess who doesn't have an OS? Google's support is a little stranger given Android. It seems like AB 1043 also shifted liability to third-party app developers instead of the app store so, conflicting goals?

Likewise, you'll have Microsoft and maybe Apple pushing for Linux to be included for, again, entirely self-serving reasons. Microsoft is never one to miss an opportunity to benefit Windows.

All that's going on here is competing corporate interests. Likely nobody in power actually cares the actual end users.

As much as libertarians chafe against it, I think we've demonstrated that something has to be done in relation to children online. Advertising to children, harmful impacts of social media, cyberbullying, addictive behavior and selling the data of minors needs to stop. How we get there is unclear. Meanwhile, everyone responsible is just trying to limit and shift their legal liability and that's it.

[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances...

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_b...