New Yorkers opening social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Facebook may soon see a new kind of post: a warning label from the state government.
The legislative session concluded this week with state lawmakers sending a bill to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk to require social media platforms that offer addictive feeds, infinite scrolls or push notifications to display advisories similar to those found on alcohol and cigarettes.
“This is about enabling New Yorkers to reclaim control of their own lives from big corporations,” state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a cosponsor of the bill who represents Brooklyn, said in a statement. “This is about ensuring the internet is a tool that serves us, not the other way around.”
The measure passed the state Senate on June 12 and the Assembly on Tuesday. The move comes amid renewed conversation about the effect of social media platforms on mental health.
Jonathan Haidt’s influential 2024 book “The Anxious Generation” argued that smartphones and social media are among the chief drivers of “an epidemic of mental illness.” Last year, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for Congress to approve warning labels on platforms. Attorneys general from 42 states backed his request. And earlier this month, the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill that requires social media companies to display a mental health warning to all users in the state by July 2026.
New York may soon follow suit. Hochul is currently reviewing the legislation, according to her spokesperson.
Hochul championed last year’s SAFE Act, which bars social media platforms from providing algorithm-based addictive feeds to minors without parental consent. On the same day, Hochul also signed a bill that prohibits digital series of all kinds from collecting the data of users they know are under 18. Both were sponsored by Gounardes and Queens Assemblywoman Nily Rozic.
The governor also successfully pushed for a cellphone ban in schools that will take effect this fall.
If Hochul signs it, the bill requiring warning labels would first require the state attorney general’s office to craft rules and regulations. The labels would appear six months after that process is completed.
The content of the warnings have not yet been determined. The law would require they be written, designed and monitored by the state’s Commissioner of Mental Health.
Where exactly they’d appear is also unclear. The bill states that social media platforms may not bury the labels in the lengthy terms-of-service agreements that users tend to quickly skip past.
Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, declined to comment on the bill. But a spokesperson pointed to the September rollout of accounts specifically designed for teens. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
Several studies have found a correlation between prolonged use of social media and heightened risk of anxiety and depression.
“When Big Tobacco was killing thousands of Americans, we stepped in with smart, thoughtful regulations to save lives. It’s time to do the same with Big Tech,” Gounardes wrote.
But not everyone is on board.
Melissa Dupont-Reyes, a public health scholar at Columbia University, questioned the value of the labels. She is conducting a study that considers both the positive and negative effects social media can have on teens.
“There’s still mixed evidence of social media helping and being supportive and harming the mental health of teens, and the evidence is poor quality,” she told Gothamist. “The causal inference isn't there to make this big leap now into this mass intervention.”
