New York Law Bans Algorithmic Feeds for Kids on Social Media

Social media is certainly a massive, powerful business, and a vital marketing and news-sharing tool. It can also be–if used in the right way–a helpful mental health tool. But recent public health and political trends show a prevailing sentiment that social media use can be very damaging to users’ mental wellbeing, particularly among young people, who are in the midst of a nationwide mental health crisis. That’s a major factor in New York governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to sign legislation designed to curb some potentially harmful aspects of social media. 

The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act, a name that’s been somewhat awkwardly rendered to fit the acronymic label SAFE for Kids Act, will force social media platforms to require parental consent before they can show algorithmically selected content to those younger than 18. Social media platforms are also banned from showing notifications between midnight and 6 a.m. without parental approval. It will come into effect 180 days after New York attorney general Letitia James finalizes the precise rules governing the way the bans will work, and details such as how age verification is enforced, CBS News reports. Breaking these rules could result in platforms being fined up to $5,000 per violation.

Algorithms that power Instagram and TikTok are part of the secret sauce that makes these apps so delicious: By building a profile of what a particular type of user likes, the apps can keep their content feeds stuffed with material that holds a user’s interest longer. This all boils down to money, of course, since longer engagement with the app means more time a user can be exposed to ads. But, like casino floor layouts, this design choice means the apps can be addictive, and that’s what SAFE is targeting: kids who spend hours upon hours each day doomscrolling. 

New York youngsters may still be able to use social media apps, presumably, but without parental consent they may have to see content exhibited in old-fashioned chronological style, which makes the experience less addictive–so the theory goes. This certainly seems to be Hochul’s hope: at the signing event yesterday, she said she felt kids weren’t living “carefree lives” because, thanks to apps on their smartphones, they are being “held captive to powerful forces outside their own control”–a.k.a. the “intentionally addictive” algorithms in question.

The news comes days after Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to mandate that social media platforms carry warning labels similar to the ones now emblazoned across tobacco products. In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Murthy said plainly that social media use was “associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents” and that a warning label on the sites would “regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.” 

There is a significant gap between “not proved safe” and “proven to be harmful,” though. And it is this proof gap, as well as questions over constitutionality and technical possibility, that critics are using against the new New York law. As news site The Verge points out, some bodies opposing the new law have suggested that algorithmic content feeds may protect kids–since with enforced chronological-only feeds, children may be exposed to sensitive, challenging content the algorithm would previously have filtered out.

All this is happening against the background of the much higher-profile divest-or-ban law facing the incredibly popular social media app TikTok. While this ban is ostensibly being enforced on national security grounds because of TikTok owner ByteDance’s links to the Chinese government, it too revolves around questions over the app’s algorithm. Even if TikTok could go on sale, it seems very unlikely any future version of the app would include the app’s all-important algorithm, which thousands of small business users in the U.S. rely on to help surface their content and products to potential new customers.