New legislation to regulate unhealthy social media usage by prohibiting minors from accessing addictive feeds without parental consent was unveiled on Wednesday. Governor Kathy Hochul and State Attorney General Letitia James says recent research has shown devastating mental health effects associated with children and young adults’ excessive social media use, including increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. Children also face unique risks when their data is collected online. The two bills, both sponsored by State Senator Gounardes and Assemblymember Rozic, will protect children by prohibiting online platforms from collecting and sharing their personal data without consent and limiting addictive features of social media platforms that are known to harm their mental health and development.
Multiple studies have shown that social media can cause a wide range of negative mental health effects for children and young adults. Addictive feeds, which are designed to harness personal data to serve users content to keep them on the platform for as long as possible, have increased the addictive nature of social media platforms and heightened the risk to young users’ wellbeing. Ninety-seven percent of teenagers report being online daily, and research has found that frequent social media use among adolescents can be associated with long-term developmental harms. Multiple studies have found a link between excessive social media use, poor sleep quality, and poor mental health among young people. Other research has shown that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of depression and anxiety. Additionally, research has found that for young girls, the association between poor mental health and social media use is stronger than the associations between poor mental health and binge drinking, sexual assault, obesity, or hard drug use.
Children also face various risks to their privacy online. While other states and countries have enacted laws to limit the personal data that online platforms can collect from minors, no such restrictions currently exist in New York. This current deficiency leaves children vulnerable to having their location and other personal data tracked, shared, and sold online.
The two pieces of legislation introduced Wednesday will add critical protections for children and young adults online by restricting the collection of minors’ personal data and changing how young users are served content online to reduce the harms of addictive features that keep children on social media longer.
Bill #1: Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act
The SAFE for Kids Act will require social media companies to restrict the addictive features on their platforms that most harm young users. Currently, platforms supplement the content that users view from the accounts they follow by serving them content from accounts they do not follow or subscribe to. This content is curated using algorithms that gather and display content based on a variety of factors. However, algorithmic feeds have been shown to be addictive because they prioritize content that keeps users on the platform longer. Addictive feeds are correlated with an increase in the amount of time that teens and young adults spend on social media and significant negative mental health outcomes for minors.
To address this problem, the legislation will:
- Provide users under 18 with a default chronological feed from users they already follow – the same way that social media feeds functioned before the advent of addictive feeds. Users may also search for specific topics of interest. Minors may opt in to receiving addictive feeds with parental consent.
- Allow parents to block access to social media platforms for minors between the hours of 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. and limit the total number of hours per day that a minor spends on platforms.
- Prohibit social media platforms from sending notifications to minors from 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. without parental consent.
- Authorize the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to bring an action to enjoin or seek damages or civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation. Allow any parent/guardian of a covered minor to sue for damages of up to $5,000 per user per incident, or actual damages, whichever is greater.
- Provide platforms an opportunity to cure any claim brought by the parent/guardian of a covered minor.
This legislation will only impact social media platforms with feeds comprised of user-generated content along with other material that the platform recommends to users based on data it collects from them.
Bill #2: The New York Child Data Protection Act
With few privacy protections in place for minors online, children are vulnerable to having their location and other personal data tracked and shared with third parties. To protect children’s privacy, the New York Child Data Protection Act will prohibit all online sites from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone under the age of 18, unless they receive informed consent or unless doing so is strictly necessary for the purpose of the website. For users under 13, this informed consent must come from a parent. The bill authorizes OAG to enforce the law and may enjoin, seek damages, or civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.
