New York’s Attorney General has put forth a set of rules aimed at tackling the issue of addictive social media feeds aimed at children. These rules include provisions for verifying the age of users. The underlying legislation, the SAFE Act, prevents social media companies from using algorithms to personalize feeds for users under the age of 18 without parental approval. This will mean feeds on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram will only display content from accounts that the young user has chosen to follow.
The proposed regulations also limit the ability of companies to send notifications to under-18 users between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. Furthermore, these new rules provide guidelines on how companies should go about age verification and parental consent.