Landmark NY Bill Would Restrict Social Media for Children

(OurNationNews.com) -A bill in New York is being considered that would disable standard social media algorithms from being presented to children.

If passed, the legislation would be the first of its kind in the United States. The bill does not prevent children from accessing social media platforms, but would change how content is presented to them. Platforms would be required to show children a chronological feed of the posts made by their followed accounts.

Governor Kathy Hochul supports the legislation and is reportedly close to an agreement with the state Congress to pass the bill. Supporters of the legislation say that social media algorithms are tailored to make the platforms more addicting, which is harmful to children. Detractors to the bill, including industry connected lobbyist groups, say this is a violation of the first amendment. They also claim that the bill will restrict the algorithmic features that filter out hate speech and other content that kids should not be seeing.

The bill also prevents platforms from making money from data on child accounts. Another aspect of the legislation will ban notifications between midnight and six a.m. on child accounts to prevent children from distractions while they should be sleeping.

One important aspect of the law that has received criticism is that it would require a more robust age verification system. The Open Technology Institute released a report that says age verification systems may be risky to users’ data and security. Some potential verification strategies could include “facial age estimation” or government ID. In Louisiana, digital government ID downloads have increased as a new law requires age verification for websites that have adult content.

Studies have shown that social media has negative effects on the mental health of children. Governor Hochul said the platforms are pushing addictive algorithms onto children and this legislation will put them in check. The legislation language is expected to be released and the bill could be passed into law as soon as mid-June.