House approves Pritzker initiative to regulate social media algorithms
[April 17, 2026]
By Ben Szalinski
SPRINGFIELD — A bill to regulate social media companies and the features
they make available to minors is advancing in the Statehouse.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House voted 82-27 to pass House
Bill 5511, also known as the Children’s Social Media Safety Act. Gov. JB
Pritzker proposed the bill, which is designed to make social media
scrolling less addictive for children.
“What this bill is really designed to address is the weaponization of
your data, your personal habits in a way that keeps kids glued and
addicted to the screen,” bill sponsor Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz,
D-Glenview, said.
The bill does not limit social media use to certain ages but does
require platforms to allow users setting up an account to input their
age, which would trigger certain settings on the device for users under
18 years old.
The bill mandates that information used to generate a social media feed
cannot be “persistently associated with the user’s device” and based on
content the user previously shared or interacted with. Users must follow
the creator of the content or person who shares it to see the content in
their feed. Additional content could only be provided to the user when
they search for it.
The bill would also require social media platforms to have default
privacy settings for minors that would stop addictive feeds, location
sharing and transactions with digital currency. Platforms would also be
prohibited from sending notifications to minor users between 10 p.m. and
7 a.m.
Companies that violate the law would have to pay fines.
The changes would take effect in 2028, and despite cracking down in some
areas, Gong-Gershowitz said there won’t be restrictions on the content
kids see.
“This bill does not include any content moderation or allow parents to
monitor what children are doing online,” Gong-Gershowitz said. “It
simply targets a harmful design feature like addictive algorithms that
are designed to keep kids online. Children can still see the same
content.”
Pritzker, some Republicans back it
Pritzker called on lawmakers during his February State of the State
address to advance regulations.
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Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview, takes a picture of the
vote board in the Illinois House after the passage of a bill in May
2023. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
“Everywhere I go, parents tell me one of their deepest concerns is the
impact social media is having on their kids,” Pritzker said in his
address. “It’s a challenge unique to this generation. And it is made
worse by the perverse incentive that social media companies seem to have
to keep kids scrolling no matter what the cost to their physical and
mental health.”
Tackling children’s addictions to social media has been a bipartisan
priority in Springfield in recent years and nine House Republicans
joined Democrats in advancing the measure to the Senate.
“Up until this point, we haven’t had a lot of guardrails when it comes
to social media use in our state,” Rep. Nicole La Ha, R-Lemont, told
Capitol News Illinois. “Being a mom of school aged children, I think
it’s really important that we start to have those conversations.”
La Ha said she is looking forward to using parental controls to make
sure the content her kids see on their feeds is appropriate for their
age.
Other Republicans said they supported the concept of the bill but would
vote against it until more changes were made in the Senate.
Pritzker is also pushing lawmakers to tax social media companies based
on the number of users they have in Illinois.
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