Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) signed a kids’ online safety package to regulate and research social media in New Jersey to support youth mental health at a press conference at the Boys & Girls Club of Hudson County in Jersey City late this morning.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Two summers ago, the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act by a vote of 91-3. Many of you are sitting here wondering ‘well why haven’t I heard about it.’ I’m gonna tell you: Everyone from Bernie Sanders to JD Vance agreed that we had to do more to protect our kids online and hold Big Tech accountable,” Sherrill said earlier today.
“I was serving in the House at the time, and as a mom of four kids, I have seen this destructive impact every single day – I couldn’t wait to vote on it, but I never got the chance because Big Tech went to work.”
She said that while Big Tech lobbyists convinced Republican leadership in the House to kill the bill, ” they got exactly what they paid for, out kids got nothing,” that isn’t going to stop new changes from coming to the Garden State.
The “New Jersey Kids Code Act” – sponsored by Assembly members Andrea Katz (D-8), Marisa Sweeney (D-25) and Luanne Peterpaul (D-11), along with Senators Raj Mukherji (D-32) and Linda Greenstein (D-14) – codifies the New Jersey Age-Appropriate Design Code.
This will also require certain online service providers to design their products with the safety and well-being of minors in mind.
The law also limits the data companies can collect and retain from children, establishes safeguards around interactions between minors and adult users, requires platforms to set their default privacy settings for children to the highest level of privacy, and restricts certain platform features designed to keep young users constantly engaged.
“Big Tech knows they’re culpable, they know this, they just don’t want you to know this. Back in 2019, Meta studied the mental health of people who deactivated Facebook and Instagram, almost immediately, people reported they felt happier, they felt less alone,” Sherrill declared.
“But Meta buried that research because it hurt their bottom line. Instead, the tech giants launched new ‘safety tools’ to shift the blame to parents. They act like it isn’t their fault when a teen develops an eating disorder because of the videos in their TikTok feed or overdoses because of pills they bought on Snapchat or takes their own life because of relentless bullying on Instagram … These platforms have failed us, kids and parents alike.”
Sherrill signed two other bills into law A-4014/S-3411 and S-3412/A-4013, which establishes a Social Media Research Center at a four-year public institution of higher education in New Jersey and potential efficacy of warning labels and evaluating mandatory disclaimers to reduce addictive social media behaviors among children, respectively.
The research center received a $500,000 allocation in this year’s state budget, with a request for proposals expected to be granted by October.
“Age-appropriate design coding requirements start from a simple proposition: if a company knows children are using its platform, it should take reasonable steps to make that platform safer for children,” Mukherji, who sponsored all three of the bills and was present today, said in a statement.
“It’s essential that online platforms limit the use of manipulative design practices or dark patterns and adapt their services in a way that protects children and their privacy, not harms them or keeps them continuously scrolling.”
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-19) also attended today’s public event and weighed in on the impact of the legislation being signed into state law.
“For something that connects us as much as social media, users today are increasingly kept from knowing the ins and outs of how these platforms are built to work, and parents carry that weight twice as much, trying to protect their child from risks they can’t even fully see,” he noted.
“Our children shouldn’t be forced to choose between growing up in an online world and growing up healthy, and these laws will make sure that they don’t have to. This social media bill package is good for the well-being and development of children across the State and will allow parents to worry a little bit less.”
During a short question and answer session with reporters, Sherrill once again defended the state giving the City of Jersey City a $120 million aid package, the bulk of which is a $105 million loan that comes with a 15 percent municipal tax hike, as HCV first reported.
“What we have done with the financial package was a couple different things: Stabilize the city so we didn’t see mass layoffs across Jersey City, harming the people who, quite frankly, in many case, through no fault of their own, had a very bad mayor who put them in a great deal of debt,” she asserted.
“So we didn’t want to punish the people of Jersey City. And then at the same time, this is a loan because we don’t think it’s fair that the rest of the state pay for all of these actions. So over time, that money will be retuned to the state as they stabilize and come up with other ventures to grow the economy there.”
Sherrill has a cordial relationship with Mayor James Solomon and is no fan of his predecessor Steven Fulop, who unsuccessfully ran against her in the Democratic primary for governor last June.
