California has enacted legislation that requires social media sites to give kids and teens the ability to delete their own posts.

The law, which impacts children under the age of 18, goes into effect at the beginning of 2015. While the most popular social networking sites already allow users to delete posts, they’ve never been required to do so before now—and that has been problematic for teens who sometimes post unwise or embarrassing posts and images of themselves. With many colleges and prospective employers scouring social media sites, these sorts of pictures and posts have sometimes knocked teens out of contention for scholarships and jobs.

“Kids and teens deserve the right to make mistakes without penalties for their entire lives,” says James Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, an organization that supported the measure. “This is the beginning of the reframing of the privacy issue when it comes to kids and teens, to let them control their own information and correct their mistakes.” (Reuters)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife Wendy and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.