California, home to the world\u2019s largest tech companies, is placing more guardrails around social media and artificial intelligence as child safety concerns escalate. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than 10 bills aimed at keeping young people safe online. <\/p>\n
From suicides to sextortion, parents and their children are wrestling with how social media and AI chatbots could be harming people\u2019s mental and physical health. The anxiety comes as technology becomes more powerful, playing a bigger role in classrooms, offices and homes. <\/p>\n
California lawmakers have tried to tackle online safety concerns for years and they\u2019ve faced intense lobbying from tech companies with deep pockets. State laws in the Golden State have a disproportionate impact on the global tech industry because so many of the top tech titans are based here. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot hand children technology engineered by some of the most sophisticated companies in the world, and then place the burden on kids to defend themselves against it,\u201d said California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom in a press conference on Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area. <\/p>\n
The California governor, who has tried to strike a balance between safety concerns and supporting innovation, has rejected online safety bills in the past that he thought were too restrictive or premature. <\/p>\n
The batch of new legislation includes Senate Bill 1119<\/a>, which would require companion chatbot operators to assess risks, notify parents in certain cases if their child threatened to harm themselves, and take other safety steps. <\/p>\n Lawmakers named the bill Adam\u2019s Law, after Adam Raine<\/a>, a California teen who died by suicide in 2025 after conversing with OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT. The teen\u2019s parents sued OpenAI, alleging in the lawsuit that ChatGPT provided information about suicide methods that the teen used. OpenAI and Pinterest publicly expressed support for the bill on Thursday.<\/p>\n Adam Raine\u2019s mom, Maria, said in the news conference that the new law will help save lives and hopes that other states will enact similar legislation.<\/p>\n \u201cPowerful AI companionship chatbots were unleashed on our kids with vastly inadequate protections. Adam was an early adopter of AI, and so many of us parents did not understand the dangers back then,\u201d said Maria Raine, who came to the event with a photo of her son. <\/p>\n Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources<\/p>\n If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional or call 988. The nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Or text \u201cHOME\u201d to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.<\/p>\n At the event, Democratic and Republican politicians shared their experiences as parents who have seen firsthand how technology affects children.<\/p>\n Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) said parents are seeing anxiety and depression among children who grew up in front of screens.<\/p>\n \u201cThat anxiety is because the pace of technology is moving faster than government can put guardrails in, and that\u2019s left families across the state struggling to figure out how to keep their kids safe,\u201d Lowenthal said. <\/p>\n Lowenthal introduced Assembly Bill 1709<\/a>, which Newsom also signed. It would bar certain online platforms from providing an \u201caddictive feature\u201d such as autoplay and feeds that display recommended content to users under 16 years old. <\/p>\n Tech industry groups opposed the bill, raising concerns that it could cut off access to social media\u2019s benefits, such as people\u2019s ability to connect with family and friends. Tech industry groups such as TechNet say that lawmakers should enforce current laws to strengthen parental controls rather than pass new ones. <\/p>\n The new safety restrictions come as tech companies, including Meta, Google and others, face more scrutiny over how they design products. The companies have suffered several legal blows in courtrooms in California this year.<\/p>\n Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed in August to pay up to $17 billion and make child-safety changes to resolve a multistate lawsuit. The lawsuit accused the tech company of designing and deploying harmful features while misleading the public about them. <\/p>\n