Victims of last year’s wildfires in Los Angeles County who were unable to get mortgage relief under a state law enacted last year would get another chance with a stronger bill introduced Wednesday.

The legislation, AB 1847, by Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena), would triple to 36 months the 12 months of mortgage relief offered by last year’s AB 238, while allowing borrowers to repay the money through a deferral that extends the mortgage.

Also authored by Harabedian, AB 238 prohibited mortgage lenders and servicers from requiring borrowers to pay back any forbearance in a lump sum, but it otherwise did not specify repayment terms. It also banned late fees, foreclosures and negative reports to credit bureaus.

Borrowers told The Times that they had difficulty getting any relief and when they did, they were told if they didn’t want to pay it back in a lump sum, they would have to agree to a loan modification that could raise their interest rate.

Like AB 238, the relief can only be obtained if allowed by the underlying mortgage contract.

However, Harabedian said that most of the contracts and guidelines of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the government-sponsored organizations that hold or guarantee the majority of U.S. mortgages — do not bar loan deferrals.

“I think some people were being offered forbearance that, frankly, didn’t comply with 238 when it should have,” he said. “They weren’t given any sort of election or flexibility on how they would repay so we’re trying to perfect it now.”

Harabedian said most of the problems borrowers are facing appear to be due to companies that service mortgages on behalf of lenders, while large institutions such as Bank of America have been more generous.

The Charlotte, N.C., financial institution in December started offering 36 months of mortgage relief to its borrowers without a change to the interest rate.

Another key AB 238 amendment is the extension of relief from 12 to 36 months, which borrowers seek in 90-day increments. The deadline for applying for relief would be extended to Jan. 7, 2029.

Harabedian said 36-months of relief are necessary as it will take many homeowners years to fix and rebuild their homes after the fires in Altadena, Pacific Palisades and nearby communities, which killed at least 31 people and damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 homes.

“This extension tries to align with the full rebuild process that survivors are going to endure, and make sure that from the start of it till the end of it, they’re not under financial distress that would cause them to abandon their communities,” he said.

Len Kendall, who lost his home in Pacific Palisades, said that while he welcomed the legislation, he is still uncertain how it might affect him, including his terms of repayment.

“There’s going to have to be follow up to make sure these these servicers and lenders actually abide by the laws, because there’s no one really holding them accountable at the moment,” he said.

Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a press release that the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation has received 233 mortgage forbearance complaints, with 92% resolved in the consumer’s favor.

However, Kendall said that the agency closed his complaint even though his mortgage servicer had requested a lump sum and his repayment plan remains up in the air.

The agency told him in a letter reviewed by The Times that it “cannot intervene on behalf of individual consumers in any particular case” and that it “brings consumer protection actions when we find patterns of deception, misrepresentation or unfair business practices of statewide interest.”

A spokesperson for the agency said it worked with Kendall to ensure he received “appropriate” forbearance relief and considers the matter resolved.

He added the department is monitoring compliance with AB 238 but so far has not announced any enforcement actions against lenders or servicers.

Harabedian introduced a second bill Wednesday that would provide for mortgage forbearance statewide for homeowners whose residences are uninhabitable after a state of emergency declared by the governor or federal government.

The California Emergency Mortgage Relief Act, AB 1842, requires mortgage servicers to file a monthly report with the DFPI about the number of forbearance requests they receive during a declared emergency and how many were approved and denied, including the reason for denial.

The bill also allows a borrower to bring a civil action against a mortgage servicer for violations of the law.

The AB 238 amendments, if signed into law, would take effect immediately.

Harabedian’s office worked with the California Bankers Assn. and the California Mortgage Bankers Assn. in developing AB 238. The lawmaker said he not sure if they will support the extension of mortgage relief.

“We look forward to reviewing it with our members and working constructively with stakeholders as we have consistently done. The banking industry proactively provided relief to wildfire victims, and this effort pre-dated legislative action,” said Yvette Ernst, spokesperson for the California Bankers Assn.

The California Mortgage Bankers Assn. said it also was reviewing the legislation.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge threatened to throw grieving mothers out of court Wednesday if they couldn’t stop crying during testimony from Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who took the stand to defend his company’s app against allegations the product is harmful to children.

The social media addiction case is considered a bellwether that could shape the fate of thousands of other pending lawsuits, transforming the legal landscape for some of the world’s most powerful companies.

For many in the gallery, it was a chance to sit face to face with a man they hold responsible for their children’s deaths. Bereaved parents waited outside the Spring Street courthouse overnight in the rain for a place in the gallery, some breaking into sobs as he spoke.

“I can’t do this,” wept mom Lori Schott, whose daughter Annalee died by suicide after a years-long struggle with what she described as social media addiction. “I’m shaking, I couldn’t stop. It just destroyed her.”

Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl warned she would boot the moms if they could not contain their weeping.

“If there’s a violation of that order from me, I will remove you from the court,” the judge said.

Mosseri, by contrast, appeared cool and collected on the stand, wearing thick wire-framed glasses and a navy suit.

“It’s not good for the company over the long run to make decisions that profit us but are poor for people’s well-being,” he said during a combative exchange with attorney Mark Lanier, who represents the young woman at the center of the closely watched trial. “That’s eventually going to be very problematic for the company.”

Lanier’s client, a Chico, Calif., woman referred to as Kaley G.M., said she became addicted to social media as a grade-schooler, and charges that YouTube and Instagram were designed to hook young users and keep them trapped on the platforms. Two other defendants, TikTok and Snap, settled out of court.

Attorneys for the tech titans hit back, saying in opening statements Monday and Tuesday that Kaley’s troubled home life and her fractious relationship with her family were to blame for her suffering, not the platforms.

They also sought to discredit social media addiction as a concept, while trying to cast doubt on Kaley’s claim to the diagnosis.

“I think it’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” Mosseri said Wednesday. “Sometimes we use addiction to refer to things more casually.”

On Wednesday, Meta attorney Phyllis Jones asked Mosseri directly whether Instagram targeted teenagers for profit.

“We make less money from teens than from any other demographic on the app,” Mosseri said. “We make much more the older you get.”

Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the witness stand next week.

Kaley’s suit is being tried as a test case for a much larger group of actions in California state court. A similar — and similarly massive — set of federal suits are proceeding in parallel through California’s Northern District.

Mosseri’s appearance in Los Angeles on Wednesday follows a stinging legal blow in San Francisco earlier this week, where U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers blocked a plea by the tech giants to avoid their first trial there.

That trial — another bellwether involving a suit by Breathitt County School District in Kentucky — is now set to begin in San Francisco in June, after the judge denied companies’ motion for summary judgment. Defendants in both sets of suits have said the actions should be thrown out under a powerful 1996 law called Section 230 that shields internet publishers from liability for user content.

On Wednesday morning, Lanier hammered Mosseri over the controversial beauty filters that debuted on Instagram’s Stories function in 2019, showing an email chain in which Mosseri appeared to resist a ban on filters that mimicked plastic surgery.

Such filters have been linked by some research to the deepening mental health crisis in girls and young women, whose suicide rates have surged in recent years.

They have also been shown to drive eating disorders — by far the deadliest psychiatric illnesses — in teens. Those disorders continue to overwhelm providers years after other pandemic-era mental health crises have ebbed.

Earlier research linking social media and harms to young women was referenced in the November 2019 email chain reviewed in court Wednesday, in which one Instagram executive noted the filters “live on Instagram” and were “primarily used by teen girls.”

“There’s always a trade-off between safety and speech,” Mosseri said of the filters. “We’re trying to be as safe as possible but also censor as little as possible.”

The company briefly banned effects that “cannot be mimicked by makeup” and then walked the decision back amid fears Instagram would lose market share to less scrupulous actors.

“Mark [Zuckerberg] decided that the right balance was to focus on not allowing filters that promoted plastic surgery, but not those that did not,” Mosseri said. “I was never worried about this affecting our stock price.”

For Schott, seeing those decisions unfold almost a year to the day before her daughter’s death was too much to bear.

“They made that decision and they made that decision and they made that decision again — and my daughter’s dead in 2020,” she said. “How much more could that match? Timeline, days, decisions? Bam, she was dead.”

Meta, TikTok and Snap will be rated on their teen safety efforts amid rising concern about whether the world’s largest social media platforms are doing enough to protect the mental health of young people.

The Mental Health Coalition, a collective of organizations focused on destigmatizing mental health issues, said Tuesday that it is launching standards and a new rating system for online platforms. For the Safe Online Standards (S.O.S.) program, an independent panel of global experts will evaluate companies on parameters including safety rules, design, moderation and mental health resources.

TikTok, Snap and Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — will be the first companies to be graded. Discord, YouTube, Pinterest, Roblox and Twitch have also agreed to participate, the coalition said in a news release.

“These standards provide the public with a meaningful way to evaluate platform protections and hold companies accountable — and we look forward to more tech companies signing up for the assessments,” Antigone Davis, vice president and global head of safety at Meta, said in a statement.

TikTok and Snap executives also expressed their commitment to online safety.

Parents, lawmakers and advocacy groups have criticized online platforms for years over whether they’re protecting the safety of billions of users. Despite having rules around what content users aren’t allowed to post, they’ve grappled with moderating harmful content about self-harm, eating disorders, drugs and more.

Meanwhile, technology continues to play a bigger role in people’s lives.

The rise of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots has heightened mental health concerns as some teens are turning to technology for companionship. Companies have also faced a flurry of lawsuits over online safety.

This week, a highly watched trial over whether tech companies such as Instagram and YouTube can be held liable for allegedly promoting a harmful product and addicting users to their platforms kicked off in Los Angeles.

TikTok and Snap, the parent company of disappearing-messages app Snapchat, settled for undisclosed sums to avoid the trial.

In opening statements, one of the lawyers representing the California woman who alleges she became addicted to YouTube and Instagram as a child said the products were designed to be addictive.

Tech companies have denied the allegations made in the lawsuit and say internal documents are being twisted to portray them as villainous when there are other factors, such as childhood trauma, leading to the mental health issues of some of their users.

Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify at the Los Angeles trial. Another trial over a lawsuit that alleges Meta failed to protect children from sexual exploitation and violated New Mexico’s consumer protection laws also kicked off this week.

The new ratings were also announced on Tuesday on Safer Internet Day, a global campaign that promotes using technology responsibly, especially among young people. Companies on Tuesday, such as Google, outlined some of the work they’ve done around safety, including parental controls to set time limits for scrolling through short videos.

The ratings will be color-coded, and companies that perform well on the tests will get a blue shield badge that signals they help reduce harmful content on the platform and their rules are clear. Those that fall short will receive a red rating, indicating they’re not reliably blocking harmful content or lack proper rules. Ratings in other colors indicate whether the platforms have partial protection or whether their evaluations haven’t been completed yet.

“By creating a shared framework for accountability, S.O.S. helps move us toward online spaces that better support mental health and well-being,” Kenneth Cole, the fashion designer who founded the Mental Health Coalition, said in a statement.

A website for S.O.S. states that technology companies didn’t influence the development of the new standards and they aren’t funding the project. The Mental Health Coalition, though, has teamed up with Meta in the past on other initiatives. Meta and Google are also listed as “creative partners” on the coalition’s website.

The coalition, which is based in New York, didn’t immediately respond to an email asking about its funding.

Companies have published their online rules and data on content moderation. Those that are interested in participating in the project voluntarily hand over documents on policies, tools and product features.