2 N.Y. bills seek to address social media’s addictive influence on children

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. As a consequence, that data is at greater risk of falling into the wrong hands, including human traffickers and others who might prey on young people.  

The two pieces of legislation recently introduced 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 

This SAFE for Kids Act will require social media companies to restrict the addictive features on their platforms that most harm young users. 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 opt out of 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 12AM and 6AM without verifiable 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. For example, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube would all be subject to this legislation.

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 proposed 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 for the purposes of advertising, 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 and authorizes the parent/guardian of a minor to seek damages of up to $5,000 per user per incident.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, Governor Kathy Hochul, State Senator Andrew Gounardes, and Assemblymember Nily Rozic have announced their support for the proposed legislations.

“Social media platforms are fueling a national youth mental health crisis that is harming children’s wellbeing and safety,” said Attorney General James.

“Our kids are in crisis, and the adults in the room need to step up,” said Governor Hochul.