Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy likened teen social media addiction to being hooked on heroin. Now some Empire State lawmakers want one more shot at cracking down on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter who are manipulating algorithms to get teens addicted.
Legislators in Albany are trying to reinvigorate a bid to curb negative effects of social media on teens with the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) For Kids Act.
Legislation regulating social media didn’t make it through state budget talks this year, but some in Albany are making a last ditch effort trying to beat the end of the legislative session.
The proposed bill prohibits the use of algorithms that provide addictive social media feeds to minors and establishes remedies and penalties for platforms that don’t comply.
“We’ve heard from teachers and medical professionals that kids are really suffering, that kids are not alright,” said Queens Democrat Assemblywoman and sponsor of the bill, Nily Rozic.
Rozic believes that social media algorithms contribute to addictive behaviors around social media use.
In bringing the bills back to life (A8148 & S7694), Assemblywoman Rozic thinks she has a chance to create a safer Internet for young people.
“We need to be doing something to alleviate the trauma and the compounding effects of social media on their mental health and wellbeing. In the Assembly alone, we have over 90 co-sponsors,” Rozic said.
Julie Scelfo, founder of Moms Against Media Addiction (MAMA), said in an interview with Fox News Digital that, “We believe protecting kids online is so much bigger than any one app. We have to update our 20th century policies to address 21st century technology. We can't just play Whack-A-Mole. We need to address the underlying problem, which is algorithms that sow harm and discord for profit.”
"For any policy to be effective, it will have to withstand First Amendment scrutiny. And we believe an effective policy is one that deals with the underlying problem of addictive and exploitative algorithms. So that's why we're very supportive of the age-appropriate design code, which would implement design reforms and additional protections for young people, supplemented by robust efforts to educate parents about the harms of social media for their kids,” Scelfo added.
There is disagreement with others believing that the algorithms do no harm and, in fact, create better content for teens and that changing how it works could end up producing more harm for kids.
“The truth is that algorithmic feeds are actually making social media use play a critical role in reducing harmful content and ensuring minors see age-appropriate posts,” said Adam Kovacevich, CEO of Chamber of Progress, a group that advocates for technology policy said in a recent opinion piece published in USA Today.
Kovacevich pointed to the potential for cutting off kids from support resources and creating barriers to accessing digital information for a whole host of topics that could be vital for kids with unsupportive families.
Algorithms are “ensuring that (teens) are seeing healthier feeds (and) better content, so if the bill bans algorithmic feeds by default for teenagers, teenagers are actually more likely to see spam, junk, hate, misinformation on their social media feeds,” Kovacevich said.
Should the bills reach New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk, there is little doubt that lawsuits will be next. First Amendment constitutional questions about editorial freedoms have been previously raised around similar legislation that targeted social media operations and methods.