Newsom Backs Teen Social Media Ban After Daughter’s Birthday Party Phone Moment
The governor who couldn't bring himself to say "put the phones down" at his own daughter's party is now asking the state to say it for every family in California.
Dan Frieth
February 21, 2026
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California Governor Gavin Newsom watched seven teenagers ignore each other at his daughter’s birthday party, all of them staring at their phones, none of them talking. His response to that moment wasn’t to ask the kids to put them down. It was to call for a law that would ban an entire generation from social media and ignore the constitutional rights of all Americans.
“I had a birthday party just a few weeks ago, with a lot of my daughter’s friends, and I literally stopped everybody because there were seven of them together — all of them on their cell phone at the birthday party, not one of them talking to each other,” Newsom said Thursday. “We have a generation that’s never been more anxious, less free, more stressed — and we have to address this issue.”
He addressed it by announcing support for age-gating legislation that would bar teens under 16 from having social media accounts, modeled on Australia’s ban. His spokesperson, Tara Gallegos, confirmed the position to Politico. Whether he would back an outright ban, as Australia has done, remains “in flux.”
https://reclaimthenet.org/gavin-newsom-teen-social-media-ban-california
