Kids Over Clicks: Michigan Senate Passes New Privacy Mandates

On April 29, 2026, the Michigan Senate fundamentally altered the digital landscape for the next generation. By passing the “Kids Over Clicks” legislative package—a robust quartet of bills designated as SB 757, 758, 759, and 760—lawmakers have issued a direct challenge to the “engagement-at-all-costs” business models that have defined Silicon Valley for decades. This isn’t merely a set of guidelines; it is a comprehensive regulatory overhaul designed to dismantle the predatory architectures of social media and the burgeoning risks of unregulated Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The core of the Kids Over Clicks initiative represents a shift from reactive moderation to proactive “safety-by-design.” For too long, the digital ecosystem has operated on a “move fast and break things” ethos, where the “things” broken were often the mental health and privacy of minors. This legislation marks the first time a state has so aggressively targeted the technical mechanics of addiction—specifically the algorithms and metadata harvesting cycles that keep children tethered to their screens. By mandating the highest privacy settings by default and banning “addictive” feeds without explicit parental consent, Michigan is attempting to return the “off switch” to parents and users alike.

Dismantling the Dopamine Loop: The SAFE Act (SB 757)

The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, introduced as Senate Bill 757, is perhaps the most technically disruptive component of the package. It targets the very heart of modern social media: the personalized, data-driven feed. Traditionally, platforms utilize complex machine learning models to analyze thousands of data points—including hover time, scroll speed, and interaction history—to serve a never-ending stream of content designed to trigger dopamine releases.

Under the Kids Over Clicks mandate, “covered operators” are now prohibited from providing these addictive feeds to minors unless they obtain verifiable parental consent. This effectively forces a return to chronological feeds or non-personalized discovery for the under-18 demographic, significantly reducing the “rabbit hole” effect where algorithms steer vulnerable users toward increasingly extreme or harmful content. Key technical restrictions under SB 757 include:

• Notification Blackouts: Platforms are barred from sending “engagement-driving” push notifications to minors between 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM, and during school hours (8:00 AM to 4:00 PM) throughout the academic year. This is a direct attempt to combat “sleep deprivation” and “classroom distraction” caused by algorithmic pings.
• Algorithmic Transparency: The bill empowers the Attorney General to audit the specific parameters used in “addictive feeds,” ensuring that engagement metrics do not override user safety protocols.
• Elimination of Infinite Scroll: By targeting design features that impair decision-making, the act moves to curtail the “infinite scroll” and “autoplay” functions that prevent natural stopping points in digital consumption.

The Kids Code Act: Privacy as the Immutable Default

While SB 757 tackles the “how” of engagement, Senate Bills 758 and 759—collectively known as the Kids Code Act—address the “what” of data. These bills mandate that any digital service likely to be accessed by children must implement the highest privacy and safety settings by default. This “Privacy-by-Default” framework is a significant departure from the current “Opt-In” reality, where users must navigate labyrinthine menus to protect their information.

The Kids Over Clicks framework recognizes that the metadata trail—the digital exhaust of browsing habits, precise geolocation, and device identifiers—is the primary fuel for AI training models and predatory ad-targeting. To protect this, the legislation implements several high-level technical barriers:

Prohibition of Precise Geolocation Harvesting

Unless strictly necessary for the core functionality of a service (such as a map application during active use), platforms are banned from collecting or retaining precise geolocation data from minors. This prevents the “tracking of the physical child” by data brokers who often aggregate this information to build profiles for targeted advertising or, in worse cases, enable physical stalking risks.

Data Minimization and Metadata Protections

The act requires data minimization, meaning platforms can only process the minimum amount of personal data required to provide a specific feature. Crucially, any information gathered for the purpose of “age verification” must be deleted immediately after the verification process is complete. This prevents companies from using the very process of “protecting” kids as a backdoor for additional data harvesting.

Auditability and the Death of the “Shadow Profile”

The Kids Over Clicks package mandates that covered service providers must undergo an independent audit by January 1 of each year. These audits must detail how the service is designed with respect to minors, specifically focusing on whether the platform’s design features encourage “excessive or compulsive” use or facilitate the profiling of children for commercial gain.

The LEAD Act: Guardrails for the AI Frontier

Perhaps the most forward-looking aspect of the Kids Over Clicks package is Senate Bill 760, the Leading Ethical AI Development (LEAD) for Kids Act. As we move further into the age of generative AI, the rise of “AI companion chatbots” has presented a new, psychological threat. These chatbots, often marketed as supportive confidants, are powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) that can mimic human emotion with startling efficacy.

The LEAD Act recognizes that children are uniquely susceptible to the “emotional blurring” these systems provide. The legislation prohibits operators from making “advanced chatbots” available to minors if those systems are foreseeably capable of:

• Mimicking Human Emotion: Acting as a personal confidant or encouraging a child to form a deep emotional attachment to a non-human entity.
• Prioritizing Engagement over Safety: Using conversational tactics to keep the child interacting with the AI, even when the child expresses a desire to stop.
• Encouraging Harm: The bill specifically targets chatbots that suggest or facilitate self-harm, illegal activities, or explicit interactions.

This is a landmark move in the field of Ethical AI. By holding developers liable for the “foreseeable” psychological impacts of their models, Michigan is setting a precedent that safety must be baked into the weights and biases of the AI itself, rather than added as a superficial “filter” after the fact.

Enforcement, Fines, and the “Michigan Model”

Legislation without teeth is merely a suggestion, and the Kids Over Clicks package provides the Michigan Attorney General with significant enforcement power. The financial stakes are designed to be more than just a “cost of doing business” for Big Tech titans.

Under SB 758 and 759, the Attorney General can seek civil fines of up to $50,000 per violation starting January 1, 2027. For a platform with millions of minor users in Michigan, a single systemic failure in privacy settings could result in catastrophic financial penalties. Furthermore, SB 757 allows for fines of $5,000 per violation for addictive feed infractions, along with actual damages. This dual-layer fine structure targets both the systemic design (high-level fines) and individual harms (per-violation fines).

Crucially, the legislation includes a “non-retaliation” clause. Platforms are prohibited from withholding, degrading, or increasing the price of a service because a user or parent has exercised their rights under the Kids Over Clicks laws. This ensures that privacy is not a luxury good but a fundamental right for all Michigan citizens.

The Legal Battlefront: Product Design vs. Free Speech

As expected, the passage of Kids Over Clicks has met fierce resistance from industry trade groups like NetChoice, which represents giants like Meta, Google, and Amazon. The central legal conflict revolves around the interpretation of the First Amendment. Industry advocates argue that regulating algorithms is a form of regulating “editorial speech,” which they claim is protected under the Constitution.

However, proponents of the Michigan legislation, including legal experts like Professor Nancy Costello of Michigan State University, argue that this is a matter of product liability law, not free speech. “These are product designs aimed at maximizing business revenue,” Costello noted during committee testimony. “This is about the mechanism of the delivery, not the content of the message.” By framing the issue as one of “defective product design”—where the defect is the addictive nature of the interface—Michigan aims to bypass the traditional Section 230 protections that have shielded Big Tech for decades.

A Paradigm Shift in Digital Governance

The Kids Over Clicks mandates represent more than just a set of rules; they represent a fundamental reassessment of the value of human attention. By forcing platforms to prioritize the safety and development of minors over the optimization of ad-targeting algorithms, Michigan is leading a national movement to reclaim the digital town square.

The success of this legislation will depend on the technical rigor of its enforcement and the ability of the state to weather the inevitable legal storms. However, the message from the Michigan Senate is clear: the era of treating the psychological wellbeing of children as a secondary metric to shareholder profit is coming to an end. As other states look to the “Michigan Model,” the Kids Over Clicks initiative may well be remembered as the moment the digital world was forced to grow up.