Dear Neighbor,

As a parent, I see the research about the impact that social media is having on young people and it downright scares me: youth spending more than three hours a day on social media are twice as likely to experience depression and anxiety. Prolonged use of social media negatively impacts body image and sleep patterns amongst young people. And earlier this year, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory that social media is not sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.

The scary truth is that social media can be just as harmful and addictive as tobacco. It’s imperative that we put safeguards in place to protect our youth from the harms caused by social media and the Big Tech behemoths who make billions and billions of dollars keeping our eyes - and the eyes of our children - glued to their apps.

Last week, I stood with Governor Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, and Assembly Member Nily Rozic in announcing two new pieces of legislation that would help protect young people and ensure Big Tech can’t prioritize profits over children’s well being.

Bill #1: Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act

This SAFE for Kids Act targets the most problematic feature of social media: predatory addictive algorithms. Under this proposal, social media platforms would be prohibited from using algorithms to show content to users under the age of 18, unless a parent or guardian offers verifiable consent. In other words, social media companies wouldn’t be able to pummel children with content they didn’t request to see just so the companies could drive up their ad revenue. This bill would also allow parents to turn notifications off overnight for young users between the hours of midnight and six a.m., and allow parents to limit overall usage on the platform and turn social media off overnight.

Bill #2: The New York Child Data Protection Act

With few privacy protections in place for minors online, children are vulnerable to having their location and other personal data tracked and shared with third parties. To protect children’s privacy, the New York Child Data Protection Act will prohibit all online sites from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone under the age of 18 for the purposes of advertising, unless they receive informed consent or unless doing so is strictly necessary for the purpose of the website. This will ensure that our children’s data is not just fodder for Big Tech to make more and more ad revenue.

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Winning the fight to enact these measures into law isn’t going to be easy. Big Tech is already spreading lies about what these bills do because they don’t want anything to get in the way of their profit-making. They are going to say that we want to shut the internet down for young people, that we want to make it harder for marginalized youth to find community through online spaces, and that any efforts to rein them in are violations of the First Amendment. They are wrong.

I’m geared up for this fight because I know we are on the right side of trying to protect young people. Please take a minute to sign and share our petition to support these bills and help us fight back against Big Tech’s lies.