Gov. Kathy Hochul calls for additional social media, artificial intelligence safeguards for children

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul called Monday for increasing social media and artificial intelligence protections for children and investing in peer-to-peer mental health training for teens.

The proposed legislation would require social media platforms to automatically default to the highest privacy settings for anyone under the age of 18, turning off open chat functions to prevent strangers from messaging minors and disabling location sharing, Hochul said. It also would limit youth interactions with artificial intelligence companions, known as companion bots, that simulate a human relationship with a user.

"I will not rest until I know our students are safe, healthy and happy, because we still have lurking in the shadows of the internet, these predators, these criminals," Hochul said, announcing her proposals at her alma mater, Hamburg High School in western New York.

Hochul called for expanding a pilot program that provides mental health training for sophomores in high school, allowing them to help their friends, identify signs of distress and encourage them to reach out to adults.

"Today we are continuing to break new ground to give our kids the tools and safeguards they need to contend with the unprecedented mental health challenges and real world dangers that can sometimes be a byproduct of navigating today’s digital world," she said in a statement.

The proposals are part of the Democrat’s legislative agenda for 2026 and come as she and the 213 members of the State Legislature are up for election in November.

Hochul is slated to give her full agenda on Jan. 13 in her State of the State address, with details on how she plans to pay for it released a week later in her budget proposal.

Hochul and lawmakers last year passed several laws restricting social media platforms and artificial intelligence and increasing safeguards for youth users. They include banning social media platforms from offering addictive, algorithm-based social media feeds to promote content to those under the age of 18 without parental consent; restricting sites from collecting, using and sharing minors’ personal data; and requiring social media platforms to display labels warning of the potential for negative mental health impacts for youth users.

The latest proposals would require age verifications, including for online games, and allow parents to set limits on children’s financial transactions.

The legislation would require platforms to have the highest privacy settings as a default for children, so strangers can't view their profiles, tag or message. Children under 13 would need parental approval for new connections.

The proposal also would require certain artificial intelligence chatbot features to be disabled for kids on social media platforms.

"These common-sense proposals by Gov. Hochul will better safeguard New York's youth from the harms of addictive and manipulative tech, and help put an end to the ongoing national emergency in child and adolescent mental health," Julie Scelfo, executive director of Mothers Against Media Addiction, said in a released statement.