Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and state Sen. Dayna Polehanki sat down Thursday with parents, students, doctors, and advocacy groups to push Michigan’s legislature to act on social media restrictions targeting how platforms interact with children.

The April 17 roundtable came roughly a week after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer traveled to East Lansing for a tech accountability summit. The session centered on the Kids Over Clicks package, a set of bills from Senate Democrats that would tighten the rules around how social media companies and AI chatbot developers can market to and collect data from minors in Michigan. Supporters want it moving through the Capitol. Fast.

Polehanki is a Democrat from Livonia. She and Nessel organized the event alongside members of the Michigan Parent Alliance for Safe Schools, an advocacy group that draws membership from across the state. Their presence wasn’t symbolic. They’re the ones calling legislators, showing up at hearings, and making the case that federal law hasn’t kept up with the platforms their kids are living on.

Jennifer Tuksal, an Oakland County parent of teenagers and a Michigan Parent Alliance for Safe Schools member, told the Michigan Advance exactly what’s at stake for her family. “We are grateful to Attorney General Dana Nessel and Michigan legislators for standing with families who simply want our children to be safe when they go online, whether to chat with friends, play games or check out fashion trends,” she said. “No child should ever be exposed to dangerous content so Big Tech can keep them glued to screens to make more profits.”

That’s not a talking point. That’s a mother.

“Polehanki went further, connecting the roundtable to recent court decisions.” She said: “From social media addiction and data privacy abuses to dangerous, inappropriate chatbot interactions, the harms caused to our kids by social media and AI companies are not only disturbing and unacceptable, they’re also preventable. As courts across the nation begin to recognize the real consequences of allowing Big Tech to go unchecked, it’s more important than ever to hold these companies accountable.”

She’s got legal precedent behind her now. In March 2026, two separate courts ruled against Meta in cases directly challenging how its algorithms target young users. A New Mexico jury found Meta’s social media algorithms harmful to children’s mental health and in violation of state consumer protection law. A California judge, ruling in a separate case, found both Meta and Google negligent for allowing their algorithms to drive a youth mental health crisis. Two rulings. Two states. One month.

Advocates didn’t let that momentum sit.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act has been the federal baseline for protecting children online since 1998. That’s not a typo. The law that’s supposed to shield kids from data-hungry platforms was written before most of today’s teenagers were born, before the iPhone existed, before the algorithm became the product. Advocates at the April 17 roundtable argued it doesn’t go far enough, that it wasn’t designed for what social media and AI chatbot companies are doing in 2026, and that Michigan shouldn’t wait on Washington to catch up.

The Kids Over Clicks package is the state’s answer to that gap. The bills from Senate Democrats would create new restrictions on how platforms target minors, what data they can collect, and how AI-driven tools can engage with children. You can track the bills’ progress on the Michigan Legislature’s bill tracking page.

None of it happens without pressure. That’s why Nessel is in the room. That’s why Tuksal drove to the Capitol. And that’s why Polehanki keeps connecting the legal dots, because when courts in New Mexico and California start telling Meta it can’t treat children like engagement metrics, it gives Michigan lawmakers something concrete to act on.

The roundtable wasn’t a press conference. It was a strategy session. And the people in that room on April 17 aren’t done.