Still on Newsom’s desk for his signature is a bill requiring school districts to limit student access to cellphones during school hours. Because Newsom called for school districts to do just that earlier this year, there is a strong possibility that he will also sign that legislation.
Authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), the legislation Newsom signed marks a growing effort to rein in the impact of all-encompassing technology that has revolutionized ways of communicating and brought significant benefits — but whose harmful effects on children are only now becoming clearer.
It is almost certainly the case that few parents, and even fewer children, are aware of the complex, and hugely effective, systems tech companies employ to keep users on their platforms, often for hours on end.
Addictive feeds are generated by automated systems known as algorithms and are intended to keep users engaged by suggesting content based on groups, friends, topics or headlines they may have clicked on in the past.
Instead, the law would make “chronological feeds” the default setting on social media platforms accessed by children. These feeds are generated only by posts from people they follow in the order they were uploaded.
“Social media companies will no longer have the right to addict our kids to their platforms, sending them harmful and sensational content that our kids don’t want and haven’t searched for,” Skinner said.
The legislation follows Newsom’s signing of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act two years ago. Authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), it requires online platforms to consider the best interest of child users and to establish default privacy and safety settings in order to safeguard children’s mental and physical health and well-being.
The law expands on previous legislation approved by Congress in 1998, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and California’s Parent Accountability and Child Protection Act(AB 2511), approved by the Legislature in 2018.
The 2022 bill requires businesses with an online presence to complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment before offering new online services, products or features likely to be accessed by children.
It also prohibits companies that provide online services from using a child’s personal information, collecting, selling or retaining a child’s physical location, profiling a child by default, and leading or encouraging children to provide personal information.
