An Instagram post claimed that California reduced penalties for having sex with minors.
The post shared a screengrab of this headline: "California Legislature Passes Bill Reducing Penalties for Oral, Anal Sex with Willing Children."
The poster wrote that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law in 2020.
The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The law Newsom signed nearly three years before the Aug. 6 post did not change sentences for child sex crimes. It standardized when offenders are put on the state’s sex offender registry, a public reporting system mandated by state law.
The headline is from a September 2020 article by the conservative news site Breitbart about Senate Bill 145. Newsom signed it into law in September 2020 after the Legislature approved it.
The measure applies only to victims ages 14 to 17 and any offender within a 10-year age range of the victim.
The measure eliminated automatic registration on the sex offender registry for young adults convicted of having voluntary anal or oral sex with a minor.