{"id":40998,"date":"2026-07-30T16:16:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/?p=40998"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:16:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:16:32","slug":"governor-hochul-and-attorney-general-james-announce-final-safe-for-kids-act-rules-to-protect-children-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/40998","title":{"rendered":"Governor Hochul and Attorney General James announce final SAFE for Kids Act Rules to protect children online"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEWYORK: Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced the release of final rules on how social media companies must restrict addictive features on their platforms to comply with the stop addictive feeds exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and protect children\u2019s mental health.<\/strong><\/p>\n

New York\u2019s pioneering SAFE for Kids Act requires social media companies to restrict algorithmically personalized feeds and nighttime notifications for users under the age of 18 unless they obtain parental consent.<\/p>\n

Algorithmic feeds and nighttime notifications are tied to depression, anxiety, eating and sleep disorders, and other mental health issues among children and teenagers.<\/p>\n

The rules establish criteria to clarify which platforms are subject to the SAFE for Kids requirements and outline standards to determine users\u2019 age and obtain parental consent.<\/p>\n

This announcement furthers Governor Hochul\u2019s nation-leading work to restrict addictive feeds, create safeguards against harmful AI companions, ban smartphones in schools, enact social media warning labels, and protect kids from predatory behavior online.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came into office, our children were in the throes of a full-blown mental health crisis, and as New York\u2019s first mom Governor, I felt a moral imperative to act,\u201d\u00a0Governor Hochul said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we\u2019re sending a clear message: our kids\u2019 mental health isn\u2019t for sale. We promised action and the SAFE for Kids Act is delivering by ensuring that any platform that targets our children with addictive feeds will face legal consequences. Instead of clicking and scrolling, our kids will be learning and growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SAFE for Kids Act leads the nation in keeping our children safe online and protecting youth from the devastating effects of unchecked social media. These rules set standards for age verification and parental control to ensure tech companies are doing their part to keep kids safe on their platforms. Young people are particularly vulnerable to addictive social media features, and my office is committed to protecting all New Yorkers from potentially harmful technologies and companies that try to take advantage of them,\u201d said Attorney General Letitia James.<\/p>\n

Algorithmically personalized feeds, or addictive feeds, recommend or personalize content for users in an endless stream based on data that the platform gathers about the user.<\/p>\n

They are designed to encourage a user to continue to use and return to a platform. Content displayed in addictive feeds is often from accounts that a user has not selected, does not follow, and is often displayed out of chronological order.<\/p>\n

Addictive feeds are known to drive unhealthy levels of social media use in minors that can affect their mental health. Research shows that children as young as 10 to 14 years old experience addictive use of social media, and the more time children spend on social media, the more likely they are to experience negative mental health outcomes such as depression, anxiety, and eating and sleep disorders.<\/p>\n

The SAFE for Kids Act addresses these mental health concerns for children by requiring social media companies to restrict addictive feeds for users under 18. Instead of the default algorithmically personalized feeds designed to keep young people on the platform, users under 18 will only be shown content from other accounts they follow or otherwise select in a set sequence, such as chronological order, unless they get parental consent for an addictive feed. Users cannot be cut off from the platform simply because they either do not want or do not have parental consent for an addictive feed. Instead, all users will still be able to access all the same content they can access now.<\/p>\n

The law also prohibits social media platforms from sending notifications to users under 18 from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. without parental consent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEWYORK: Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced the release of final rules on how social media companies must restrict addictive features on their platforms to comply with the stop addictive feeds exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and protect children\u2019s mental health. New York\u2019s pioneering SAFE for Kids Act requires social media companies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,31,1378],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-news","category-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40999,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40998\/revisions\/40999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}