{"id":307914,"date":"2026-07-28T19:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/307914\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T19:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:41:09","slug":"ny-social-media-users-face-new-age-authentication-requirement-starting-in-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/307914\/","title":{"rendered":"NY social media users face new age authentication requirement starting in January"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Yorkers will need to prove they\u2019re an adult before continuing to scroll through their social media feeds starting this January.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced detailed regulations of how the state plans to implement a law enacted in 2024 to protect children from social media addiction.<\/p>\n

Apps can\u2019t send notifications to minors between midnight and 6 a.m. Children will also be restricted from viewing feeds that are based on a user\u2019s previous likes or engagements \u2014 which the Democratic governor said are addictive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s just about one simple premise: reclaiming childhood for our kids and let them have that carefree experience that most of us grew up with,\u201d Hochul said.<\/p>\n

Hochul initially signed the measure, called the SAFE Act, in June 2024.<\/a> The new law tasked James\u2019 office with developing regulations for age verification systems to enforce its provisions.<\/p>\n

The regulations released Tuesday require large social media platforms to use third-party systems to document age. Government identification documents can be used, but aren\u2019t required, according to the regulations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still relatively easy to determine whether an Internet user is over 18, said Andy Lulham, chief operating officer of Verifymy, which offers age-verification services. His company does so by scanning someone\u2019s face or simply taking in their email address.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s got nothing to do with the email account or your emails,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut it can analyze where that email address was previously used. \u2026 So it could be compared on a database where there are mortgage providers or credit card companies or utility providers, and it can build an age profile or a minimum estimated age of the user.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trade groups representing social media companies lobbied against the measure. Representatives for Tech:NYC, whose members include Facebook-parent Meta, didn\u2019t immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The national group NetChoice \u2014 which has filed lawsuits against other state laws that restrict social media \u2014 also didn\u2019t immediately return a message seeking comment. Lawyers at that group previously questioned whether the New York law\u2019s restrictions on curation amount to unconstitutional regulation of speech.<\/p>\n

Several teenagers spoke in the governor\u2019s office about navigating adolescence in the age of social media. They said they supported the restrictions in the new law, which could be overridden with the explicit consent of parents.<\/p>\n

James Steyer, president of the advocacy group Common Sense Media, praised the release of the new rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York is setting a national standard for protecting kids online by focusing on curbing addictive social media feeds and limiting late-night notifications that disrupt children\u2019s sleep and well-being,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is more work to do to protect kids from the risks of AI and social media, but this law and its final rules are groundbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Yorkers will need to prove they\u2019re an adult before continuing to scroll through their social media feeds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-307914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}