(The Center Square) – California Attorney General Rob is pushing for a law that would require social media platforms to have a warning label similar to those found on cigarette packets.
Bonta spoke about the urgency of protecting children and teenagers from the negative effects of social media. He also stated his support for AB 56, proposed by Assemblyperson Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, that would require all social media companies to put warning labels about the dangerous mental health impacts of social media on children and teenagers. The “black box” would appear at the first use of the platform and then once a week afterwards.
This comes after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an op-ed in the New York Times earlier this year, issuing a warning against minors’ use of social media.
“Legislation from Congress should shield young people from online harassment, abuse and exploitation and from exposure to extreme violence and sexual content that too often appears in algorithm-driven feeds,” reads the article, noting the correlation between the rising of suicide rates among minors and the increased use of social media.
According to Murphy, adolescents who spend over three hours a day on social media face a double risk of anxiety and depression. The average amount of time spent on social media among adolescents is 4.8 hours.
A report from the Social Media Victims Law Center shows that suicide is the second leading cause of death among individuals age 10-24.
“Over the past decade, the rate of teen suicide has risen dramatically,” reads the report. “At the same time, social media use has also risen among teens. Researchers have linked several aspects of social media use to depression and higher suicide risk. And according to the CDC, the suicide rate for male teens increased 31 percent between 2007 and 2015 and female teen suicides hit a 40-year high in 2015.”
Bonta called this issue a “public health crisis,” to which Murphy agrees.
“Faced with high levels of car-accident-related deaths in the mid- to late 20th century, lawmakers successfully demanded seatbelts, airbags, crash testing and a host of other measures that ultimately made cars safer,” reads the op-ed. “This January the F.A.A. grounded about 170 planes when a door plug came off one Boeing 737 Max 9 while the plane was in the air. And the following month, a massive recall of dairy products was conducted because of a listeria contamination that claimed two lives. Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food?”
Victoria Hinks spoke Monday morning about her daughter Alexandra who died from suicide just a few months ago at the age of 16.
“She was served content on self harm, eating disorders, suicidal ideation and glamorization of suicide,” Hinks said. “She’d hide in her room for hours scrolling. We took the hinges off her door, we tried taking the phone away, but it was like taking drugs away from an addict.”
Hinks said that Alexandra was in regular therapy and that she had implemented parental guardrails on Alexandra’s phone that were supposed to censor content and limit the time spent on certain apps, but Alexandra was easily able to bypass these.
“She was obsessed with comparing herself to the other girls and women online including the girls who horribly bullied her at her school,” Hinks said. “There is not a bone in my body that doubts that social media played a part in that final decision.”
However, the Chamber of Progress released a statement, saying that legislators lack adequate evidence to pursue this kind of legislation and will face First Amendment backlash.
“Slapping a warning label on social media is like a broken fire alarm going off with no evidence of smoke,” said Todd O’Boyle, vice president of Technology Policy at Chamber of Progress. “It ignores the reality that most teens view social media as an important outlet for social connection. Forcing this kind of label despite a lack of scientific proof will run into the same First Amendment buzzsaw that has doomed previous California kids’ bills.”
Bonta said that there is no First Amendment right “to harm our children,” and that they will pursue this legislation despite any litigation.
“We don’t wait for other states or the federal government,” Bonta said. “This needs to happen and it needs to happen now, so we’re moving.”
This comes after Bonta and 14 other attorneys general filed a lawsuit against TikTok and Meta for violating state consumer protection laws by knowingly endangering children by cultivating social media addiction to boost profits.
