The State of New York Required TikTok, Instagram and Other Social Networks to Warn About Their Potential Harm to Users' Mental Health

Global regulation of social media activity continues. Recently, Australia banned access to YouTube, TikTok, and other online platforms for those under 16, and now an important step has been made by New York State.

What is Known

The authorities of New York State have passed a law requiring a number of social networks to warn users about the possible harm of their use to mental health.

Primarily, this concerns TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social networks that offer an endless feed with personalized content and automatic video playback.

Thus, New York State hopes to increase the safety of children and adolescents, as Governor Kathy Hochul stated, "about half of young people say social networks make them feel worse about their bodies, and teenagers who most actively use social networks are almost twice as likely to rate their overall mental health as poor or very poor."

Warnings about the dangers of social media will be displayed for all users without the option to skip or disable them. For each confirmed case of platforms ignoring this requirement, they will be fined up to $5000.

Source: New York State Governor