New York Pushes to Regulate ‘Addictive’ Social Media Feeds for Children

Social media apps are displayed on an iPad in Miami, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2024. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

With little time remaining before this year’s legislative session ends, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing for a legislative package that’s aimed at reducing “addictive” social media use among children and teenagers.

The Democrat governor, who has been advocating for the pair of measures since October, says the algorithm-driven social media feeds are addicting young users and damaging their mental health. If the final drafts are approved before the Legislature goes into recess on June 6, she is expected to sign them.

“Platforms have become media machines—collecting data on users and curating addictive algorithmic feeds designed to keep people scrolling as long as possible,” Ms. Hochul said last month. “Often the most engaging content is psychologically damaging, and it’s hurting our young people.”

Her two-step approach to the problem—laid out in a bill dubbed the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act—would require social media companies to first use “commercially reasonable methods” to determine a user’s age and allow parents to control the feeds of children under 18.

Specifically, the proposed legislation would make it illegal to use algorithm-generated feeds for social media accounts belonging to users under 18 without parental consent. That means young users will only be shown a chronological feed of content from accounts they already follow unless their parents say otherwise.

The bill would also prohibit social media apps from sending notifications to young users during late-night and early-morning hours without their parents’ permission. This would effectively allow parents to shut down their child’s social media notifications between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.

Regarding age verification, the bill would require social media companies to verify a user’s age without relying on a government-issued ID. New York Attorney General Letitia James would be tasked with determining how the user age and parental consent verifications should work, but the system must be “commercially reasonable and technically feasible,” according to the legislation.

The original version of the bill mandated that companies provide parents with tools to limit the hours their children could spend on social media apps. Those provisions have been removed from the final draft.

Another bill, known as the New York Child Protection Act, would ban companies from collecting, sharing, or selling data about children without parental consent.

Companies that violate the proposed laws would face fines of $5,000 for every breach. Parents of the affected child would also be able to seek $5,000 in damages from the social media platform per incident.

The legislative effort has the support of Ms. Hochul, Ms. James, and a bipartisan group of state legislators. It’s also endorsed by a coalition of advocacy groups, including the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the labor union representing more than 200,000 public school employees in New York City.

“It’s going to be a fight, but it’s one we’re going to get done because the children of New York deserve protection,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at a news conference last year.

‘This Bill Is Unconstitutional’

Meanwhile, tech industry groups highlighted the risk associated with universal age verification, warning of unintended consequences.

The Chamber of Progress, an industry group that includes tech giants such as Google, Meta, and X, argued that forcing online platforms to identify the ages of their users puts more personal data at risk.

“In order to detect any users who are minors, platforms would need to identify the age of ALL users—a massive encroachment on individual privacy,” the Chamber of Progress says on its website. “In fact, estimating the age of a user will require more data, acting contrary to data minimization efforts.”

The Chamber of Progress also took issue with replacing algorithm-generated feeds with chronological posts.

“It could mean that whoever posts most recently goes to the top of a teen’s feed—even if that post is spam, hate speech, or other harmful content,” it argued.

The tech industry trade group NetChoice, whose members include Meta and X, called the proposed algorithm restriction a violation of New Yorkers’ First Amendment rights.

“This bill is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment by requiring websites to censor the ability of New Yorkers to read articles or make statements online, by blocking default access to websites without providing proof of ID and age, and by denying the editorial rights of webpages to display, organize, and promote content how they want,” Carl Szabo, NetChoice’s vice president and general counsel, said in an emailed statement.

State Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a Brooklyn Democrat who championed the bills, said on X that his Big Tech opponents “would spend big” in their lobbying effort to “protect their bottom line.”

“Thanks to the advocacy of young people, parents and educators, we’re putting our kids’ privacy and mental health first,” Mr. Gounardes wrote on June 4. “As a parent myself, I’m proud to be part of this fight.”