25+ Orgs Urge New York State Legislature to Act Now to Protect Children On Social Media

ALBANY, NY (04/09/2024) (readMedia)-- Over 25 organizations sent a memo of support to Albany leadership calling for the passage of the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act (SAFE for Kids Act) and the New York Child Data Protection Act. The memo reads:

"The SAFE for Kids Act and the New York Child Data Protection Act afford the Legislature the ripe occasion to take meaningful action at a pivotal time in history where the online exploitation of children has risen in tandem with the decline of their mental health. These bills will help protect our children online and better allow for healthy social and emotional development."

Read the full memo attached and pasted below.

The list of supportive labor unions and organizations include the United Federation of Teachers, NYS United Teachers, DC 37, Local 372, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, NYS School Boards Association, New York State PTA, NYU McSilver Institute for Policy and Research, Latino Social Work Coalition, NYS Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Mothers Against Media Addiction, Social Media Victims Law Center, The New York Foundling, National Alliance on Mental Illness NYS, Agudath Israel of America, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Common Sense Media, #HalftheStory, Youth Represent, National Urban League, New York Urban League, Urban League of Westchester County, Urban League of Long Island, Urban League, Rochester, Urban League, Buffalo, Urban League, Broome County.

MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT:

S.7694 (Gounardes) – A.8148 (Rozic)

S.7695 (Gounardes) – A.8149 (Rozic)

We, the undersigned twenty-six organizations across New York State, strongly support two bills essential to safeguarding the well-being of minors online: The SAFE for Kids Act (S.7694 Gounardes/A.8148 Rozic) and the New York Child Data Protection Act (S.7695 Gounardes/ A.8149 Rozic).

As professionals dedicated to the well-being and safety of children, we are acutely aware of the indelible negative impacts on children's mental health associated with the manipulation of their personal data online and the intentional addictive nature of social media. In May 2023, the US Surgeon General issued an Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health stressing the harms of social media on the mental health of young people and the urgent need for policy intervention. We join in the call for immediate action in light of increasingly alarming statistics.

Research shows that youth who spend more than three hours a day on social media double their risk for depression and anxiety . More than half of teens say that social media makes them feel worse about their body image. The average time young people spend online is nine hours per day, leading to disrupted sleep cycles, poor self-esteem, and reduced engagement in necessary activities for healthy development. Multiple studies demonstrate a direct correlation between the explosion of social media and a rise in the rates of self-harm, anxiety and depression, and suicide amongst children and teens.

The need for legislative action is now. The SAFE for Kids Act and the New York Child Data Protection Act serve to balance the independence and autonomy of the child with the need to ensure that these platforms are not being designed in a way to purposefully addict minors. Specifically, the SAFE for Kids Act, inter alia, turns off addictive feeds and overnight notifications by default, and the New York Child Data Protection Act bars operators from collecting and selling children's data without consent.

The SAFE for Kids Act and the New York Child Data Protection Act afford the Legislature the ripe occasion to take meaningful action at a pivotal time in history where the online exploitation of children has risen in tandem with the decline of their mental health. These bills will help protect our children online and better allow for healthy social and emotional development. Acting on these bills will directly affect the future of our youth and state. The online protections afforded by these bills will contribute towards reduced exposure of harmful social media content to minors, lessening its unintended harms and promoting digital well-being.

For these reasons, we urge the Legislature to pass The SAFE for Kids Act (S.7694/A.8148) and the New York Child Data Protection Act (S.7695/ A.8149). Inaction is not an option.

BACKGROUND:

Parents in New York, and across the country, are noticing an immediate hit to their childrens' mental health once they begin using social media, and countless studies confirm the correlation between prolonged use of social media and mental health issues. The evidence is irrefutable: prolonged exposure to social media is wreaking havoc on children's mental health.

Multiple independent studies reveal a distressing link between prolonged social media use and heightened rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and self-harm among youth. Yet, the federal government last passed a law to protect youth online in 1998 – back when we received AOL discs via snail mail.

Several states have introduced and passed laws aimed at restricting harmful content, or platforms all together. But attempting to regulate content is legally complicated, often becoming entangled in the court system, and fails to address the root cause: social media companies purposely using addictive algorithms to keep kids online longer in order to serve them ads and profit from their doom scrolling. A recent Harvard study found that social media companies made $11 billion alone from underage users in 2022.

New York lawmakers, parents and advocates are calling for the Stop Addictive Feeds for Kids Act (SAFE) and the New York Child Data Protection Act, both sponsored by Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Nily Rozic, and backed by Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James, to regulate two of social media's most harmful tools against youth: addictive algorithms and data collection.

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. Currently, platforms supplement the content that users view from the accounts they follow by serving them additional content from accounts they do not follow or subscribe to. This content is curated using algorithms that gather and display content based on a variety of factors. However, algorithmic feeds have been shown to be addictive because they prioritize content that keeps users on the platform longer. Addictive feeds are correlated with an increase in the amount of time that teens and young adults spend on social media and significant negative mental health outcomes for minors.

To address this problem, the legislation will:

• Ban social media platforms from offering addictive feeds to any persons under 18 without parental consent. Instead, users will receive a chronological feed of content from only the users that they already follow or feeds of generally popular content – the same way that social media feeds functioned before the advent of addictive feeds. Users may also search for specific topics of interest.
• Prohibit social media platforms from sending notifications to minors from 12AM and 6AM without verifiable parental consent.
• Allow users and parents to opt out of minors accessing social media platforms between the hours of 12AM and 6AM.
• 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 $500 per user per incident, or actual damages, whichever is greater.

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 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 the Office of the Attorney General to enforce the law and may enjoin, seek damages, or civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.

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