ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York state Legislature on Friday passed a bill that would let parents prevent their children from receiving social media messages suggested by a platform’s algorithm — a regulation that seeks to curtail feeds which critics claim are addictive to children.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill.
The move comes amid heightened concerns about social media use among children and an increasing push to regulate technology platforms in various ways at the state and federal level.
In practice, the bill would stop platforms from showing suggested posts to people under the age of 18, content that the legislation describes as “addictive.” Instead, children would only receive messages from accounts they follow. A minor can still receive the proposed messages if he or she has what the bill defines as “verifiable parental consent.”
It would also prevent platforms from sending notifications about suggested messages to minors between midnight and 6 a.m. without parental consent.
Legislation falls to the Attorney General Letitia James, who pushed for the bill, coming up with rules to determine both the age of the user and a mechanism to determine parental consent. The bill would go into effect 180 days after James establishes these guidelines.
“Our children are experiencing a mental health crisis, and social media is fanning the flames and profiting from the epidemic,” James said.
As with any regulatory effort against social media companies, the New York bill has received heavy pushback from the tech industry, which claims it unconstitutionally censors the sites. There are also questions from critics about how age verification would work and whether that process would undermine the privacy of young users.
Some platforms have chosen to add parental controls to their sites as regulatory pressure has increased. Meta, the parent company of social media giants Instagram and Facebook, last year unveiled tools that allow parents to, among other things, set time limits and monitor how much time their child spends on Instagram.
Other states have taken steps to regulate social media use among children, with mixed results. Utah revised youth social media restrictions earlier this year after they were challenged in court. In Arkansas, a federal judge has blocked a policy that requires parental consent for minors to create a social media account.
At the federal level, lawmakers have held multiple congressional hearings on children’s safety on social media but have not passed broad legislation on the topic.
The New York State Assembly finally passed the bill on Friday. The Senate passed it on Thursday.
