The move comes hours after a researcher’s resignation post has reignited fears about the direction of new technology.
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at Google’s San Francisco office in on Aug. 7, 2025. One of bills the governor signed Thursday restricts addictive social media features for kids under 16; another requires AI chatbot operators to prove their products are safe.
(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of online child safety bills Thursday, enacting some of the strongest protections for young users in the country.
The measures include Senate Bill 1119, co-authored by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, and Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, which requires operators of AI companion chatbots to assess the risks their products pose to children, document what they find and hand the results to an independent auditor. The bill also requires parental controls and in-app crisis support.
Assembly Bill 2, from Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, raises the damages a large social media company can face when its conduct harms a child. Lowenthal pursued the measure across three legislative sessions.
AB 1709 bars social media platforms from serving addictive engagement features to users under 16. It passed the Legislature without a no vote.
“We’re establishing a framework,” Newsom said in a press conference Thursday announcing the package, “so that we can really enact a more aggressive posture as it relates to enforcement.”
First partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom also spoke at the event, reflecting her behind-the-scenes engagement with the policy debate over how best to protect children online. “Today has been a long time in coming,” she said. “And this one is truly for the kids. The kids who are with us, and the kids, like Adam and Owl, who are not.”
Standing behind the documentary filmmaker were two mothers of children who died by suicide: Maria Raine and Victoria Hinks.
“This is an incredible moment,” said Jim Steyer, whose group, Common Sense Media, backed all three bills.
Just as some government procurement contracts already hold AI developers accountable to federal law, Bauer-Kahan said the bills just signed into law would establish an auditing scheme in California.
The registry will begin to take shape in January, and Bauer-Kahan said it will expand to include a new category of job with a short history: that of the AI auditor.
California already has a companion chatbot law, requiring companion chatbots to tell minors they’re talking to a machine and to route users in crisis to help. But California is not alone legislating in this space: New York’s companion chatbot law took effect last November, and Idaho, Oregon and Washington passed their own rules this year.
“It is so great to see SB 1119 signed into law,” Chris Lehane, vice president of global affairs at OpenAI, wrote in a statement. “It both meets the moment for parents and sets teens up for educational success. … Amongst several key elements, the bill treats teens as teens when it comes to making sure AI is both safe and a tool to help contribute to their ability to learn.”
Anthropic endorsed SB 813 and AB 1405 in August. In a statement, Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic’s government affairs spokesperson, praised how these bills distinguish between an AI audit, which assesses the controls necessary to comply with the law, and an evaluation, which assesses the risks posed by an AI system.
“I think that the catastrophic risks are sometimes what we talk about, but the everyday impact of these systems are what I really worry about the most,” the Assembly member told KQED. “How do we make sure [Californians] continue to thrive and have meaningful work in their lives, and that these systems aren’t being used to deny them work and healthcare? That it isn’t taking our kids and isolating them and creating a mental health crisis?”
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