New York officials have laid out the details of a new law intended to make the internet safer for children, taking aim at the design features that keep young users glued to their screens. The Safe for Kids Act was outlined by Governor Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James at a round table, where they framed the measure as a way to give children a healthier relationship with social media.
At the heart of the law is a restriction on how platforms feed content to minors. Under the Safe for Kids Act, social media companies cannot use addictive algorithms that cause children to doom scroll, targeting the endless, automatically curated feeds that critics say are engineered to maximize time spent on an app rather than a young user's wellbeing.
The law also addresses the round-the-clock pull of notifications. Nighttime notifications are banned unless a parent opts out, an effort to protect children's sleep from the constant pings and alerts that can keep them engaged with their devices late into the night. The provision puts the default in favor of fewer interruptions, while still leaving parents a choice.
Governor Hochul cast the measure in personal terms, describing it as an effort to protect childhood itself. She said it was about one simple promise, reclaiming a childhood for our kids and letting them have the carefree experience that most adults grew up with, tying the regulation to broader worries about how much of young people's lives now play out online.
The officials also pointed to the mental health stakes behind the law. The governor said social media can lead to depression and anxiety for children, echoing a growing body of concern among parents, educators and health advocates about the effects of heavy platform use on young people's emotional wellbeing.
The law includes age verification and is set to take effect in January, and enforcement will fall to the state's top prosecutor. The Attorney General said she will go after violators, signaling that companies that fail to comply with the new restrictions could face legal consequences once the rules are in force across New York.