New York Attorney General Letitia James shared proposed regulations for the local government's crackdown on addictive social media feeds to better protect children online.
The legislation in question is the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, which was passed last year. It prohibits social media companies from showing users under the age of 18 feeds personalized by algorithms, unless they have parental consent.
New York's Social Media Crackdown
Feeds on apps, such as TikTok and Instagram, would instead be limited to posts from accounts that young users follow. Additionally, the law would bar companies from sending notifications to users under 18 years old between midnight and 6:00 a.m.
The proposed regulations on the law include standards for determining a user's age and parental consent. The attorney general's office said that social media companies can confirm a user's age using a number of methods, as long as they are proven to be effective and protect users' data, according to ABC News.
Some of the options that can be used to confirm whether a user is at least 18 years old include requesting an uploaded image or verifying a user's email address or phone number, and checking it against other information.
Users who are younger than 18 but want to receive algorithmic feeds and nighttime notifications will have to provide social media companies with a request consent from a parent. Many people who support the new law said that curated feeds built from user data contribute to a youth mental health crisis.
Protecting Children Online
They say that this is done by vastly increasing the hours that young people spend on social media platforms. The attorney general said that children and teenagers are now struggling with high rates of anxiety and depression due to the addictive features on social media platforms, the Seattle Times reported.
Online age check laws are now on the rise in the United States, facing opposition from groups that advocate for digital privacy and free speech. There are now more than 20 states across the country that have passed age verification laws, many of which still face legal challenges.
As a result of the new restrictions, six of the biggest and most prominent social media platforms could lose a combined advertising revenue of about $119 million annually. However, this only represents a fraction of the more than $6 billion that these organizations make every year from ad revenue in New York, as per the Times Union.
