NY social media users face age authentication requirement starting in January

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New Yorkers will need to prove they’re adults before continuing to scroll through their social media feeds starting this January.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced detailed regulations the state plans to implement under a law enacted in 2024 to protect children from social media addiction.

Apps are barred from sending notifications to minors between midnight and 6 a.m. Children will also be restricted from viewing feeds that are based on a user’s previous likes or engagements — which the Democratic governor said are addictive.

“It's just about one simple premise: reclaiming childhood for our kids and let them have that care-free experience that most of us grew up with,” Hochul said.

Hochul initially signed the measure, called the SAFE Act, in June 2024. The new law tasked James’ office with developing regulations for age verification systems to enforce its provisions.

The regulations released Tuesday require large social media platforms to use third-party systems to document age. Government identification documents can be used, but aren’t required, according to the regulations.

It’s still relatively easy to determine whether an Internet user is over 18, said Andy Lulham, chief operating officer of Verifymy, which offers age-verification services. His company does so by scanning someone’s face or simply taking in their email address.

“It's got nothing to do with the email account or your emails,” he explained. “But it can analyze where that email address was previously used. … So it could be compared on a database where there are mortgage providers or credit card companies or utility providers, and it can build an age profile or a minimum estimated age of the user.”

Trade groups representing social media companies lobbied against the measure. Representatives for Tech:NYC, whose members include Facebook parent company Meta, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The national group NetChoice — which has filed lawsuits against other state laws that restrict social media — also didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment. Lawyers at that group previously questioned whether the New York law’s restrictions on curation amount to unconstitutional regulation of speech.

Several teenagers spoke in the governor’s office about navigating adolescence in the age of social media. They said they supported the restrictions in the new law, which could be overridden with the explicit consent of parents.

James Steyer, president of the advocacy group Common Sense Media, praised the release of the new rules.

“New York is setting a national standard for protecting kids online by focusing on curbing addictive social media feeds and limiting late-night notifications that disrupt children’s sleep and well-being,” he said. “There is more work to do to protect kids from the risks of AI and social media, but this law and its final rules are groundbreaking.”

Jimmy Vielkind covers how state government and politics affect people throughout New York. He has covered Albany since 2008, most recently as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Jimmy led a team of reporters that won a New York Press Club award for coverage of Andrew Cuomo’s downfall and was on a team that won a Gerald Loeb Award for coverage of Amazon’s HQ2 process. A native of the Capitol Region, Jimmy has two degrees in urban planning. His position is funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Reach Jimmy at [email protected] .

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