California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Congresswoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan are proposing a new bill, AB 56, that would require social media companies to post warning labels on their platforms disclosing mental health risks. did.
Attorney General Bonta said social media platforms “exploit addictive features and harmful content for profit,” and consumers should seek information about platforms that can affect their mental health. said that they should be able to access it. The current bill lacks details on how much information these warning labels should include or how they should appear, but one possible precedent for such a requirement is cyberbullying. It refers to the Protection Act and the Online Violence Prevention Act. These bills would require social media platforms to disclose cyberbullying reporting capabilities in their terms of service and clarify whether there is a way for users and non-users on their platforms to report violent posts. required to be specified.
Bonta and Bauer-Kahan’s new bill follows an open letter signed by 42 attorneys general (including Bonta) asking Congress to require attorney general warnings on social media. Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, proposed the idea himself in an essay he wrote for the New York Times Opinion column in June. Murthy said the Surgeon General’s warning labels would require action from Congress to be implemented in practice, but they could prove to be just as effective at changing behavior as tobacco products.
Much of the recent uproar surrounding children and social media can be traced back to the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 Recommendations on Social Media and Adolescent Mental Health. The advisory argued that social media “presents a significant risk of psychological harm.” “Children and Adolescent Health and Well-Being” and “Children and adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media are at double the risk of mental health problems.” Warning labels are unlikely to completely solve the problem, and social media is not the sole cause of all children’s problems, but labels are another level that can be pulled to change the situation.
A far-reaching Texas bill that would require social media companies to block teens from viewing “harmful content” was passed months ago in 2024, but it has a particularly strong legal history in California. All things considered, mandating warning labels on social media seems much more achievable. However, mental health effects are just one of the risks children face online. The Federal Trade Commission says they still have to deal with mass surveillance.
