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  • February 18, 2025
California is considering requiring mental health warnings on social media sites

California is considering requiring mental health warnings on social media sites

By TRÂN NGUYỄN

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California, home to some of the world’s largest tech companies, would be the first U.S. state to impose requirements mental health warning labels on social media sites as lawmakers pass a bill introduced Monday.

The legislation sponsored by Attorney General Rob Bonta is necessary to increase children’s safety online, supporters say, but industry officials vow to fight the measure and others like it under the First Amendment. Social media warning labels quickly received bipartisan support from dozens of attorneys general, including Bonta, after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to determine the requirements earlier this year he said social media is a contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people.

“These companies know the harmful impact their products can have on our children, and they refuse to take meaningful steps to make them safer,” Bonta said at a news conference Monday. “Time is up. It is time we step in and demand change.”

State officials did not provide details about the bill, but Bonta said the warning labels could appear once a week.

To 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 say they use a social media platform, and more than a third say they use social media “almost constantly,” according to 2022 data from the Pew Research Center. Parents’ concerns prompted Australia pass the world’s first law ban on social media for children under 16 in November.

“The promise of social media, while real, has turned into a situation where it turns our children’s attention into a commodity,” Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a California lawmaker and author of the bill, said Monday. “The attention economy is using our children and their well-being to make money for these California corporations.”

Lawmakers should instead focus on online safety education and mental health resources, and not warn about bills that are “constitutionally unsound,” said Todd O’Boyle, vice president of the technology policy group industry Chamber of Progress.

“We strongly suspect that the courts will set them aside as compulsory judgments,” O’Boyle told The Associated Press.

Victoria Hinks’ 16-year-old daughter Alexandra died by suicide four months ago after being “led down dark rabbit holes” on social media that glorified eating disorders and self-harm. Hinks said the labels would help protect children from companies that turn a blind eye to the damage caused to children’s mental health when they become addicted to social media platforms.

“There is not a bone in my body that doubts that social media played a role in leading her to that final, irreversible decision,” Hinks said. “This could be your story.”