New York prepares law to limit addictive social media algorithm for minors

NY is preparing to approve a pioneering bill to restrict the absorbing algorithm of the social networks for the minorsconsidering that the content they provide is as addictive and harmful as tobacco or gambling.

State legislators have already given it the green light and now all that is missing is the governor’s signature.

“It’s crazy that the internet is not regulated for children. The last time we did anything was literally last century“, the 38-year-old Democratic state senator who has promoted this project, Andrew Gounardes, tells EFE.

Return to content in chronological order

The measure does not seek to eradicate the networks themselves, but rather their recommendation algorithm system that relentlessly shows the user the content that the platform believes they want to see – based on their information and history. For this reason, legislators propose that it be replaced by a system of publications in chronological order, like the one that existed when the networks were launched.

Gounardes’ ultimate goal – which had the support of both parties – is to make minors spend less time glued to the phone, but without intervening in what they can see, since content cannot be prohibited without interfering with the first amendment. of the Constitution, which protects the rights to freedom of expression.

The idea of ​​Gounardes, who has two small children, is that anyone under 18 can only see the following content: “Your friends, your family, your Taylor Swift fan page, but not a constant loop of information designed to suck you into an ever-deepening rabbit hole.”.

“It is not about self-control”

To create this bill, the Democrat met with teachers, teenagers and parents and heard heartbreaking stories, such as that of a family whose 16-year-old son, who was battling depression, committed suicide. His TikTok home page showed how the network had led him to increasingly depressive content, to the point of showing him “recipes for self-harm or suicide”.

For the state senator it is not about having greater willpower: “It’s the same arguments people made about cigarettes: ‘If you had more self-control, you could quit smoking.’ That is not true, we know that cigarettes are not (only) nicotine, it is a chemical dependency that forms in you and that makes you addicted”.

An idea that the surgeon general and highest health authority in the country, Vivek Murthy, agrees with, who advocated this week for introducing notices about mental health on social networks, similar to those on cigarette packs or alcohol bottles.

New York senators also met with the tech giants – Google, Meta, TikTok Snapchat, among others – to make sure they can fulfill their requests.

Although the titans collaborated with politicians, Gounardes assures that they have “11 billion reasons not to want to change the status quo”, referring to the money that the six largest social media companies earned in 2022 from selling advertising to children.

One year until its entry into force

Now the bill awaits the signature of the governor, Kathy Hochul, who celebrated the approval of legislators in X and, according to Gounardes, could sign the document this week.

The process would then take a year to implement, as state Attorney General Letitia James, who has also been in favor of the measure, will have to draft regulations on the bill and New York would give companies some leeway. of one year to comply with the law.

When up and running, the network that breaks the law would have 30 days to correct the problem or face fines of up to US$5,000 per minor user.

“California and Virginia have copied (the project) and we hope that soon this can become the national model”concludes Gounardes.