Washington, DC - Sent to Governor's Desk for signature yesterday, the Young People's Alliance celebrates the passage of A4015/S3413, or the New Jersey Kids Code Act. This legislation is a major step in the right direction by legislators to prioritize safety by design features that do not aim to hinder young people's access to social media or online spaces, but rather make them less addictive, manipulative, and time consuming for our generation.
New Kids Code Act balances kids' online safety while preserving youth autonomy digitally through the following design-based regulations:
• Gives under-18 users the ability to control their feeds and turn off algorithmic recommendations
• Setting minors' default privacy settings to the highest strength, including not allowing location sharing, messaging, or showing photos and videos to adult users whom have not been given direct consent
• Creating a strong duty of care that holds platforms accountable for not ensuring their products are non-addictive to young people
• Including a strong private right of action, allowing New Jersey families to hold Big Tec accountable for damages in court
"It is incredibly promising to see legislators like those in New Jersey fight back against Big Tech's manipulation of young people's well-being. Even better, these legislators took a design-based regulation approach to social media harms, limiting addictive feeds, which gives young people more control over their lives. Too often, young people are simply told we should not be on these platforms that have become so normalized and integrated into our daily lives. When our legislators are able to balance giving young people digital access to their friends, family and new information while limiting these technologies harms, we are able to make real progress for our generation" - Mick Tobin, Advocacy Director, Young People's Alliance
YPA has been a proud supporter of this bill, signing onto public letters to key leadership and through student testimony. We are encouraged by this bill's passage and will continue fighting for future age appropriate design legislation that gives young people more agency over their lives in states across the country.
###
About Young People's Alliance: Young People's Alliance is a bipartisan, Gen Z-led nonprofit with 4,000+ members across 90+ campuses in 16 states. The organization is focused on creating a new American Dream through advocacy on creating opportunity, affordability, and community for young people.
Contact: press@youngpeoplesalliance.org