Illinois bill limits how social media companies can target feeds to
children
[June 04, 2026]
By Nikoel Hytrek and UIS Public Affairs Reporting (PAR)
SPRINGFIELD — Lawmakers on the final day of the General Assembly passed
a bill to regulate how minors interact with social media and other
online platforms to make them less addictive.
The goal of House Bill 5511, the Children’s Online Social Media Safety
Act, is to prevent children under the age of 18 from being exposed to
harmful content and addictive features by requiring social media
companies to confirm a user’s age through the device’s operating system.
The bill doesn’t prevent children from downloading or using social media
apps. During device set-up, parents would set the child’s age, which
would adjust certain design features in apps such as algorithmic feeds,
the visibility of the child’s profile and what media can be shown to
them.
The bill passed the Senate unanimously on Monday with a vote of 57-0. It
passed the House a second time on Monday with a 113-0 vote.
Gov. JB Pritzker proposed the bill during his February budget address,
and he celebrated its passage on Monday and said he would sign it.
“I am proud the Illinois General Assembly passed the Children’s Online
Social Media Safety Act, marking an important milestone in our efforts
to improve kids’ safety and privacy online, mitigate the harmful effects
of social media on mental and physical health, and prevent financial
scamming,” Pritzker said in a statement.
Efforts to pass some kind of measure in Illinois have been ongoing for a
few years.
“This legislation is about recognizing a simple reality: children are
not miniature adults,” Sen. Willie Preston, D-Chicago, the bill’s
sponsor, said at a Saturday committee meeting. “These platforms invest
billions of dollars into capturing attention, maximizing engagement,
keeping users online for as long as possible. When that system is
directed at developing minds, the consequences will be and have proven
to be devastating and sadly irreversible.”
The bill previously passed the House in April with a bipartisan vote of
82-27. The Senate version mainly increased privacy protections for
minors and altered definitions to target the most harmful platforms.
“While this legislation is not perfect, lawmakers cannot continue
waiting for the perfect solution while technology continues to evolve
around us,” Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, said in an emailed statement.
She helped work on some of the bill’s language and has advocated for
youth social media protections for years.
What’s in the bill
The bill prohibits social media companies from using a minor’s viewing
history or data stored on the device to determine what shows up in their
feeds.
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Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz speaks on the House floor on May 21,
2026. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
Instead, feeds for minors will only be allowed to show information the
user requested or searched for, or was posted by a creator the user
follows. Youths will also be able to see media that is a direct, private
message to them.
Under the bill, platforms would be required to establish some default
privacy settings for minors, shield a minor’s precise location and limit
digital currency transactions. Social sites and apps would also be
prohibited from sending notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
The Illinois Attorney General’s office would enforce the law, which
takes effect in 2028, if signed. Violators would be liable for fines up
to $2,500 for each child for unintentional violations and up to $7,500
per child for intentional violations.
Lobbyists for tech companies raised concerns that the bill may violate
the First Amendment and warned that it will likely face lawsuits. But
the governor’s office said in a Saturday committee that the bill’s
language is modeled after legislation in other states that have survived
court challenges.
Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, the House sponsor, said she doubted
social media companies would ever be completely on board.
“I’m not sure we’re ever going to get complete neutrality from social
media companies that are going to be asked to comply with this act in
order to keep our kids safe from addictive algorithms that are frankly
designed to keep them glued to these devices,” she said on the House
floor. “But this is an incredibly important measure to address the most
dangerous features of these devices, which is that they’re designed to
be addictive to children.”
Nationwide effort
As of April, at least 19 states have laws regulating social media for
children on the books, though many have been blocked or tied up in court
because tech companies claim they violate the First Amendment and
privacy rights.
In March, a New Mexico jury determined that Meta, the parent company of
Facebook and Instagram, had knowledge the platform harmed children’s
mental health and concealed information about child sexual exploitation
on its platforms. The company was fined $375 million for violating New
Mexico’s youth social media law.
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