‘Fighting to protect kids’: New York moves to ban social media giants from targeting kids

New York is following in the footsteps of other US states in taking action against social media giants to protect children.

New York is set to become the first US state to ban social media companies using algorithms to target kids with addictive content.

Under the crackdown, the platforms would need parental consent if they were to pump content into the feeds of users aged under 18 with automated algorithms.

Without that consent, minors would instead have to be shown chronological feeds of content from their friends – similar to the early experience of Facebook and Instagram.

And if families did opt in, parents would be able to block access to social media platforms for their children overnight and impose limits on the amount of time they could be online.

News Corp Australia, along with parents from across Australia, are calling on the federal government to raise the age limit at which children can access social media to 16 as part of a national campaign, Let Them Be Kids, to stop the scourge of social media.

Let Them Be Kids: SIGN THE PETITION

New York Governor Kathy Hochul compared the crackdown – which she is hoping to pass as soon as this week – to how governments had protected children from cigarettes and alcohol.

“We stopped marketing tobacco to kids. We raised the drinking age. And today, we’re fighting to protect kids from the defining problem of our time,” she wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Post.

The Post and the Wall Street Journal reported that a tentative deal had been struck by state politicians to progress the legislation.

New York is set to become the first US state to ban social media companies using algorithms to target kids with addictive content. Picture: Getty

New York will be the latest state to take action to protect children on social media, after Florida banned children under 14 from holding accounts and Utah forced the platforms to comply with age verification requirements.

But the platforms have fought back against the state-based reforms, taking legal action against new legislation and spending almost $US1m lobbying against New York’s plan.

NetChoice – a trade group representing Facebook’s parent company Meta and X, formerly known as Twitter – argued the proposal would violate the constitutional right to free speech.

“It is less unconstitutional. Unfortunately, when it comes to constitutionality, close doesn’t count. You either are or you aren’t,” NetChoice Carl Szabo told the Journal.

“This legislation continues to violate free speech protections granted to New York citizens.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Picture: AFP

Ms Hochul said in an interview on Monday (local time) that a federal response was needed to the problems posed by social media.

But with Congress continuing to debate proposals to protect children online, she said: “I, as the leader of this state, cannot ignore the signs of distress and trauma among our young people. And it’s definitely correlated to what is happening with these social media feeds.”

The new laws would be enforced by the state’s attorney general, with the Journal reporting that the social media giants had succeeded in convincing state lawmakers to drop the right for parents to sue them over any infractions.

New York state senator Andrew Goundares, a sponsor of the bill, told the Post: “I think this is huge.”

Originally published as ‘Fighting to protect kids’: New York moves to ban social media giants from targeting kids