NetChoice respectfully opposes SB 758, the so-called “Kids Code Act.” While we share the sponsor’s genuine concern for the safety of children online, SB 758 is unconstitutional, will expose Michigan taxpayers to costly litigation and will almost certainly never go into effect as written. We urge the Committee to reject this approach and instead pursue legislation that is both effective and constitutional.
Watch NetChoice’s testimony live here: https://www.facebook.com/MichiganSenateDemocrats/videos/2596776687359516/?rdid=XxgIWJLZiEaHfwSv
NetChoice Testimony in Opposition to MI SB 758, Kids Code Act
March 4, 2026
Michigan Legislature
Michigan Senate Committee on Finance, Insurance, and Consumer Protection
Dear Chair Cavanagh, Vice-Chair Irwin, Minority Vice-Chair Huizenga and Members of the Committee:
NetChoice respectfully requests that the Committee oppose SB 758, the so-called “Kids Code Act.” While we share the sponsor’s genuine concern for the safety of children online, SB 758 is unconstitutional, will expose Michigan taxpayers to costly litigation, and will almost certainly never go into effect as written. We urge the Committee to reject this approach and instead pursue legislation that is both effective and constitutional.
NetChoice is a trade association of leading internet businesses that promotes the value, convenience, and choice that internet business models provide to American consumers. Our mission is to make the internet safe for free enterprise and free expression. Our members take teen safety seriously and have rolled out extensive new features, parental tools, and protections in recent years. We want to work with this Legislature to protect minors — but an unconstitutional law helps no one.
SB 758’s Core Provisions Violate the First Amendment
At its core, SB 758 would compel online platforms to verify the age of every user and restrict the content, features, and design of their services based on that age. Laws with identical constitutional defects have already been challenged in federal court — and are losing. Laws from Arkansas, California, and Ohio are currently enjoined. South Carolina’s Age Appropriate Design Code is subject to ongoing legal challenge. Michigan’s bill will face the same fate.
The internet has made information and speech “as diverse as human thought” readily accessible to all Americans. The First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting access to online speech — and those protections apply to minors and adults alike. The Supreme Court has made clear that the government has no “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.” SB 758 runs headlong into this principle.
The bill’s prohibition on “covered design features” including content recommendation algorithms, notification timing, autoplay, and features that quantify engagement, are content-based speech restrictions that trigger and fail strict scrutiny. These features determine what speech users see and when they see it. Regulating them is regulating speech. Platforms facing massive fines for misjudging what may be “harmful” to covered minors will inevitably over-censor, removing beneficial and constitutionally protected material along with anything genuinely problematic.
Age Verification Undermines Privacy and Anonymous Speech
SB 758 effectively mandates age verification for all users of covered online services. This scheme creates serious constitutional and practical problems. The Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down age-verification requirements online precisely because they force users to “forgo the anonymity otherwise available on the internet.” Anonymity is itself a First Amendment value — one that goes to the heart of political engagement and free discourse. Beyond constitutional concerns, mandatory age verification requires the mass collection of sensitive personal information about every Michigan resident who uses a covered service. This creates a honeypot of data subject to breach, theft, and misuse — making residents less safe, not more. Section 11(2) of SB 758, while well-intentioned in limiting secondary use of verification data, cannot cure this fundamental problem.
Again, we respectfully ask you to oppose SB 757. As always we offer ourselves as a resource to discuss any of these issues with you in further detail, and we appreciate the opportunity to provide the committee with our thoughts on this important matter (The views of NetChoice expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of NetChoice members).
Sincerely,
Amy Bos
Vice President of Government Affairs
NetChoice
NetChoice is a trade association that works to make the internet safe for free enterprise and free expression.