New York bans addictive social media feeds for minors under 18
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 5:35 am
By Carolina Muñiz
Content Creator at Marketing4eCommerce
LNew York Governor Kathy Hochul signed two laws on Thursday aimed at protecting children and teens from the harms of social media. These two laws are: the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, which regulates addictive feeds on social media, and the New York Children's Data Protection Act , which addresses data collection and will go into effect within a year.
What is the SAFE Act?
The proponents of New York’s SAFE for Kids Act wrote that its purpose is to “ protect children’s mental health from the addictive feeds used by social media platforms, and from disrupted sleep due to late-night social media use .”
In the legislative text itself, its action is justified in this way:
«Addictive feeds are a relatively new technology used uruguay number data primarily by social media companies. Addictive feeds show users personalized feeds of media that keep them engaged and watching longer. They began being used on social media platforms in 2011, and have become the primary way people experience social media. As addictive feeds have proliferated, companies have developed sophisticated machine learning algorithms that automatically process data about users’ behavior, including not what they formally “like,” but tens or hundreds of thousands of parameters, such as how long a user spent looking at a particular post. In addition, the machine learning algorithms make predictions about the mood and what is most likely to keep each of us engaged for as long as possible, creating a feed tailor-made to keep each of us on the platform at the cost of everything else.»
Research shows that spending time on social media is ten times more dangerous than time spent online on non-social media. Self-regulation by social media companies has not worked and will not work, because feeds are profitable and designed to keep users on the services so kids can see more ads and companies can collect more data.
“Therefore, this bill prohibits social media companies from providing children under the age of 18 with addictive feeds, without parental consent. This bill will continue to allow those minors to view non-addictive feeds and any content available on a social media platform, such as feeds in chronological order, to ensure that children can still obtain all of the core benefits of social media and does not limit the benefits of social media companies. To achieve this, the bill requires social media companies to use commercially reasonable methods to determine a user’s age.”
Content Creator at Marketing4eCommerce
LNew York Governor Kathy Hochul signed two laws on Thursday aimed at protecting children and teens from the harms of social media. These two laws are: the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, which regulates addictive feeds on social media, and the New York Children's Data Protection Act , which addresses data collection and will go into effect within a year.
What is the SAFE Act?
The proponents of New York’s SAFE for Kids Act wrote that its purpose is to “ protect children’s mental health from the addictive feeds used by social media platforms, and from disrupted sleep due to late-night social media use .”
In the legislative text itself, its action is justified in this way:
«Addictive feeds are a relatively new technology used uruguay number data primarily by social media companies. Addictive feeds show users personalized feeds of media that keep them engaged and watching longer. They began being used on social media platforms in 2011, and have become the primary way people experience social media. As addictive feeds have proliferated, companies have developed sophisticated machine learning algorithms that automatically process data about users’ behavior, including not what they formally “like,” but tens or hundreds of thousands of parameters, such as how long a user spent looking at a particular post. In addition, the machine learning algorithms make predictions about the mood and what is most likely to keep each of us engaged for as long as possible, creating a feed tailor-made to keep each of us on the platform at the cost of everything else.»
Research shows that spending time on social media is ten times more dangerous than time spent online on non-social media. Self-regulation by social media companies has not worked and will not work, because feeds are profitable and designed to keep users on the services so kids can see more ads and companies can collect more data.
“Therefore, this bill prohibits social media companies from providing children under the age of 18 with addictive feeds, without parental consent. This bill will continue to allow those minors to view non-addictive feeds and any content available on a social media platform, such as feeds in chronological order, to ensure that children can still obtain all of the core benefits of social media and does not limit the benefits of social media companies. To achieve this, the bill requires social media companies to use commercially reasonable methods to determine a user’s age.”