Earlier this month, during a press conference to mark the signing of two new state laws aimed at shielding children under the age of eighteen from the risks of the internet, New York Governor Kathy Hochul made it clear what she thought of social media.
She said that the applications are to blame for turning “happy-go-lucky kids into teenagers who are depressed,” but Hochul insisted that the legislation she approved would assist. “Today, we save our children,” Hochul declared. “A mental health epidemic affecting young people nationwide is being fueled by Facebook feed addiction.”
Beginning in 2025, these new regulations may compel applications such as Instagram and TikTok to take some kids back to the early days of social media, before users’ “likes” shaped content and before digital companies gathered information about our preferences, emotions, and other details. In an innovative attempt to control algorithmic recommendations, the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act mandates that social media companies and app stores obtain parental agreement before allowing minors under the age of 18 to use apps containing “addictive feeds”. Even better, the SAFE Act will demand stronger age verification to prevent kids from sneaking through and restrict apps from delivering notifications to child or teenage users between midnight and six in the morning, which is essentially a legal curfew for electronics. The New York Child Data Protection Act, the second statute.
