BILL NUMBER: S7694A
SPONSOR: GOUNARDES
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the general business law, in relation to enacting the
Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids act prohibiting the
provision of an addictive feed to a minor
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to protect the mental health of children
from addictive feeds used by social media platforms, and from disrupted
sleep due to night-time use of social media.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
This bill would prohibit social media platforms from providing an addic-
tive feed to children younger than 18 without parental consent and
prohibits social media platforms from withholding non-addictive feed
products or services where that consent is not obtained.
This bill would also require that social media platforms obtain parental
consent before permitting notifications from such platform to children
between 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM.
This bill would authorize both the Attorney General to obtain relief,
including damages, when social media platforms violate this law.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Addictive feeds are a relatively new technology used principally by
social media companies. Addictive feeds show users personalized feeds of
media that keep them engaged and viewing longer. They started being used
on social media platforms in 2011, and have become the primary way that
people experience social media. As addictive feeds have proliferated,
companies have developed sophisticated machine learning algorithms that
automatically process data about the behavior of users, including not
just what they formally "like" but tens or hundreds of thousands of data
points such as how long a user spent looking at a particular post. The
machine learning algorithms then make predictions about 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.
Addictive feeds have had an increasingly devastating effect on children
and teenagers since their adoption, causing young users to spend more
time on social media which has been tied to significantly higher rates
of youth depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. Children
are particularly susceptible to addictive feeds, which provide a non-
stop drip of dopamine with each new piece of media, as they are less
capable of exercising the impulse control necessary to mitigate these
negative effects, which can stunt development and cause long-term harm.
Among girls, the association between poor mental health and social media
use is stronger than the associations between poor mental health and
binge drinking, obesity, or hard drug use.
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 and will not work, because the addictive
feeds are profitable, designed to make users stay on services so that
children can see more ads and the companies can collect more data.
This bill, therefore, prohibits social media companies from providing
children under 18 with addictive feeds, absent parental consent. This
bill will still permit those minors to view non-addictive feeds and any
content available on a social media platform, such as feeds listed in
chronological order, to ensure that children can still obtain all the
core benefits of social media and does not limit social media companies'
ability to moderate in good faith to protect children from harmful or
otherwise objectionable content. To accomplish this, the bill will
require social media companies to use commercially reasonable methods to
determine user age. A flexible regulatory standard for such methods will
incorporate both the size and sophistication of a given social media
company and the generally available technology. Existing New York anti-
discrimination laws and the Attorney General's regulations will ensure
that social media companies provide age verification methods all New
Yorkers can use and will not use age verification methods that rely
solely on biometrics or require government identification that many. New
Yorkers do not possess.
Research also shows that social media usage at night is particularly
harmful to children's health. Prohibiting social media platform notifi-
cations to minors between the hours of 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM will help to
mitigate the harms caused by late night access and the related loss of
sleep.
This legislation would make clear that New York's millions of children
do not have to subject themselves to the risk of serious mental health
consequences in order to be able to connect with each other and the
world.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
None
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Undetermined but minimal to the State of New York.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after the
effectiveness of rules and regulations promulgated by the office of the
attorney general.