NetChoice sues New York over social media warning labels

NetChoice filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan on Nov. 14, 2026, seeking to stop New York’s new law that makes social media platforms show state-approved warning labels for potentially addictive features. The trade association is the plaintiff, and Attorney General Letitia James is the defendant in the case.

Governor Kathy Hochul signed Senate Bill 4505, amended by Senate Bill 8827, in December 2025. The law covers platforms built around algorithmic feeds, infinite scrolling, and autoplay. The amendment dropped push notifications and like counts. It left addictive feed, autoplay, and infinite scroll as the covered mechanics.

Starting Jan. 1, 2027, New Yorkers will see a state-written warning lasting at least 10 seconds. The warnings show up when users log in and at set times after hours of use, with no way to skip them.

On first daily display, the message covers at least 25% of the screen or window. Once a user passes three hours of active use, the notice runs for no less than 30 seconds every hour after and covers at least 75% of the screen. The label states that excessive use may be associated with significant mental health harms, drawing on U.S. Surgeon General recommendations that social media has benefits, but heavy use may be tied to serious mental health harms.

A platform may omit the warning when it reasonably finds the user is over 17 years old, but the statute offers no way to make that finding and the attorney general has published no rules. The complaint says the attorney general may write enforcement rules, but the law sets no standards for the age exemption. To avoid interruptions, users will probably have to prove their age, either through government-issued ID or another method.

New York’s SAFE for Kids Act takes effect Jan. 25, 2027, and defines age assurance as any age estimation, inference, or verification. The chatbot law S.9051-B, signed Oct. 28, allows full features only when platforms use age-check methods allowed under article forty-five, which are the same methods used in the SAFE for Kids Act.

NetChoice argues the mandate violates the First Amendment by turning websites into government mouthpieces. NetChoice calls the law an effort to block, burden, and browbeat social media users. In its federal court filing, NetChoice says the measure forces members to spread the state’s internet safety message, violating First Amendment protections. The group says these pop-ups are unlike fixed product labels because they interrupt repeatedly, block access to protected speech, and infringe on free expression.

The group is asking for declaratory and injunctive relief and says the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by compelling speech, forcing users to view the message, and relying on vague definitions of coverage. The suit points to Wooley v. Maynard, a 1977 Supreme Court ruling that free speech includes the right not to speak. The suit also says the label has no state attribution and must look like it came from the website itself.

Platforms may not hide the label in terms of service or use designs that purposely block or undermine the law’s purpose, a phrase the statute does not define. The complaint says that if the phrase covers blocking platform responses, it amounts to an unconstitutional viewpoint-based restriction. The attorney general can impose civil penalties of up to five thousand dollars for each violation, plus restitution, disgorgement, and damages. Displaying the label also does not waive, release, limit, or defend against any claim, including one based on failure to warn.

The complaint lists Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr, and X as platforms covered by the law. Under the original bill, the mental health commissioner would have written the label, updated it yearly, and set timing and duration, but the amendment removed that role and placed the text and timing in the statute itself. Earlier versions did not include the over-17 exemption, but the amendment put it in.

NetChoice says a National Academies review did not support the idea that social media changes adolescent health across the whole population, and a meta-analysis of 46 studies could not back claims that these platforms harm youth internalizing disorders. The suit also says the warning text lacks support from the surgeon general’s advisory it cites, which addressed excessive and problematic social media use. NetChoice argues the statute converts contested policy and science judgments into factual warnings that private speakers must repeat.

It counts more than 30 members, including Alphabet’s Google and YouTube, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, Snapchat parent Snap, and ByteDance’s TikTok. The group has brought many cases challenging rules that regulate social media companies. In Colorado, a federal court halted a similar social media warning law on First Amendment grounds, and NetChoice has also challenged comparable bills in California. The Colorado case, NetChoice v. Weiser, saw the law stopped in November 2025, with the appeal now pending before the Tenth Circuit and no argument date set.

The office of Attorney General Letitia James, which enforces state laws, declined to comment right away. When the SAFE for Kids rules were announced in July, James was asked if they raised privacy concerns and said, “not a question of privacy.” That month, Reclaim The Net reported that James was pressing TikTok to adopt more age-gating, meaning checks on everyone’s age.

Reclaim The Net said in January that New York has turned scrolling into a public health intervention. Paul Taske of NetChoice said, “The First Amendment forbids New York from forcing private speakers to serve as government mouthpieces, and that includes compelled state-scripted warnings on speech.” Taske also said New York has the right to share its views on social media but no right to make private websites say them.