Democrats and Republicans running for the U.S. Senate this year have found rare common ground: blaming social media companies for a decline in children’s mental health and promising to rein them in.
Nowhere is the pairing stranger than in Texas. James Talarico, a Democratic state lawmaker and former seminarian, has endorsed banning social media for children under 16 and co-authored a bill aimed at explicit deepfakes. Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general seeking the same seat, has sued the big platforms, accusing them of hooking young users and failing to keep sensitive videos from children. Mr. Talarico did not respond to a request for comment, KFF Health News reported. A spokeswoman for Mr. Paxton said in a statement that he would “hold Big Tech accountable when it breaks the law.”
They are hardly alone. At least 35 Senate nominees this year have sponsored bills to curb social media, opened investigations or publicly attacked the companies. Juliana Stratton, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Illinois and a Senate candidate, posted in June: “We’re protecting our children, not those profiting off their online presence.”
The companies are paying real money. In late August, Meta settled with a coalition of 48 states, the District of Columbia and three territories for $17 billion, promising to change its policies and settings to protect children. Weeks earlier, a New Mexico state court had ordered Meta to pay nearly $950 million after finding the company a “significant contributing factor to the current mental health crisis.” Roblox disclosed $91 million in legal settlements in the first half of 2026, including for “youth-related consumer protection and digital safety matters,” and YouTube settled several youth-related cases this year. A Kentucky school district won $27 million from social media companies, and about 1,000 more districts, including Los Angeles, have filed their own suits.
In Congress, the Kids Online Safety Act is edging toward passage. The bill would require platforms to adopt safeguards such as limiting users’ ability to communicate with minors; one version drew 91 yes votes in the Senate. Donald Trump Jr. wrote in December 2024 that it should pass “ASAP.”
Industry is spending heavily to shape the outcome. Apple supports the bill. Meta has put $10 million into television ads promoting its teen accounts and, according to The Wall Street Journal, gave about $10 million to Securing American Greatness, a nonprofit aligned with President Trump. Roughly 70 companies, trade groups and nonprofits have lobbied senators on the bill. “Any youth safety legislation must put parents in the driver’s seat,” said Ed Patterson, a Meta spokesman, arguing that blanket bans push teenagers toward less safe platforms.
The Washington Post has reported that the Trump administration has tried to tie the bill to its AI agenda, including legislation that would make state-level AI regulation harder. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Advocates say the fight is lopsided. “You have the whole industry and all their lobbying dollars,” said Allison Ivie, chief policy officer at the Eating Disorders Coalition. “It’s not a balanced fight by any means.” The public shares the suspicion: in 2024, the Pew Research Center found that 78% of Americans believed tech companies held too much political influence and 64% that social media hurt the country.
The science is less settled than the politics. A third of young people report persistent sadness or hopelessness, about 10% more than a decade ago, according to 2025 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though other metrics have improved. “The science is crude and messy,” said Sandro Galea, dean of public health at Washington University in St. Louis, who chaired a National Academy of Sciences report on the subject. Researchers have proposed other causes: the economy, fraying social ties, firearms, the pandemic.
Still, the public health establishment is massing against the platforms. The Department of Health and Human Services held a three-hour event in early September urging families to live off-screen, the latest in a string of surgeon general warnings under both the Biden and Trump administrations. “The evidence keeps building on the real and potential dangers of unregulated access for children,” Jerome Adams, Mr. Trump’s first surgeon general, said.
The backlash has gone global. Britain and Australia recently banned social media for children under 16, and the European Union has threatened Meta with a fine of up to 6% of revenue over what it calls “addictive designs.”
On Capitol Hill, the pressure shows no sign of easing. Committees keep summoning tech executives, more often to berate them than to listen, and investigators continue to collect testimony from whistleblowers. Last year, Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former United Nations diplomat who later joined Meta, told the Senate what she said she had seen inside the company.