By Jasper Ward<\/p>\n
Dec 26 (Reuters) – Social media platforms with infinite scrolling, auto-play and algorithmic feeds will be required to display warning \u200blabels about their potential harm to young users\u2019 mental health \u200cunder a new law, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Friday.<\/p>\n
“Keeping New Yorkers safe \u200chas been my top priority since taking office, and that includes protecting our kids from the potential harms of social media features that encourage excessive use,” Hochul said in a statement.<\/p>\n
This month Australia imposed a social media \u2060ban for children under \u200c16. New York joins states like California<\/a> and Minnesota<\/a> that have similar social media laws.<\/p>\n The New York law includes \u200dplatforms that offer “addictive feeds,” auto play or infinite scroll, according to the legislation. The law applies to conduct occurring partly or wholly in New York but not \u200bwhen the platform is accessed by users physically outside the state.<\/p>\n It \u200callows the state’s attorney general to bring legal action and seek civil penalties of up $5,000 per violation of the law.<\/p>\n Hochul compared the social media labels to warnings on other products like tobacco, where they communicate the risk of cancer, or plastic packaging, where they warn of the risk \u2060of suffocation for small children.<\/p>\n Spokespeople for TikTok, \u200bSnap, Meta, and Alphabet did not immediately \u200brespond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n The effect of social media on children’s mental health has become a growing global concern, \u200dwith U.S. school districts \u2060suing Meta Platforms and other social media companies.<\/p>\n In 2023, the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory on safeguards for children and later \u2060called for social media warning labels like the one now required in New York.<\/p>\n (Reporting \u200cby Jasper Ward in Washington; Additional reporting by Harshita Varghese \u200cin Bangalore; Editing by Howard Goller)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jasper Ward Dec 26 (Reuters) – Social media platforms with infinite scrolling, auto-play and algorithmic feeds will…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":473374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5371,517,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,31389,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-473373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-kathy-hochul","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-social-media-platforms","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115787390278505397","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}