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Across the nation, states are finally taking steps to make social media less addictive for kids. For example, the New York State legislature just signed off on a new bill that will make it harder for social media companies to send addictive posts to young kids. If the New York legislation succeeds in making social media less addictive for kids, it could help generate even more momentum for a nationwide movement.
What’s inside the New York bill?
There are three major provisions within the New York bill. The first and most important one concerns the types of posts that social media companies can send to kids. If kids are under the age of 18, parents can choose to have their kids only receive social media posts from accounts they already follow. By doing this, they can prevent social media platforms from finding addictive content currently getting a lot of likes and shares, and then funneling this content to young kids.
The second provision involves age verification. If children are under the age of 18, then they will need to obtain verifiable parental consent to use social media. Moreover, even if parents decide to let their kids view social media content, they can opt to block their kids from receiving any content between the hours of 12 midnight and 6am. In such a way, they can ensure that their kids are not staying up all night, scrolling through their social media feeds.
But will it work?
In theory, this sounds like an excellent first step in scaling back the amount of addictive content shown to kids. And especially the type of super-addictive content that has been specifically recommended by algorithms.
But there are some problems. For example, nobody is really sure how the mechanism for parental consent is going to work. And the process for age verification has yet to be determined. In an era when some people think we don’t need to provide official proof of identity when voting, how can we possibly expect our kids to carry around age verification documents to use social media accounts?
But perhaps the biggest problem is the presence of the Big Tech lobby in Washington, D.C. If there’s one thing the Big Tech companies don’t like, it’s anyone intruding on their turf. They’ve built a lucrative business model and don’t want to change. Companies like Meta and X have perfected the art of creating addictive social media algorithms, and they certainly don’t want parents turning off a prime opportunity to push addictive content to young users.
So, as might be expected, we’re already hearing about tech lobbying groups trying to stop this new legislation before it ever gets signed into law by New York’s governor. They are claiming that the crackdown on social media algorithms amounts to censorship of online content, and they are claiming that parents may be interfering with the First Amendment rights of their kids. Moreover, they are suggesting that any age verification efforts directed at kids might be an encroachment on their right to privacy.
Next steps
The big question now is whether the big social media platforms can innovate their way out of the mess that they created. They will need to create newer and better algorithms, and they will need to find entirely new audiences if they want to get the same amount of engagement online. Simply sending out a lot of addictive junk to our kids is no longer going to work.
