The Verge: Sen. Gounardes is "a Driving Force Behind Kids Online Safety Laws"
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The Verge
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New York State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D) is a driving force behind kids online safety laws. He sponsored the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and the New York Child Data Protection Act, both signed by Governor Kathy Hochul earlier this year. But when parents talked to him about the rules, he says, they kept asking a question he hadn’t considered: “Does it cover Roblox?”
Like the vast majority of online regulation, New York’s rules were aimed at traditional social media companies like Meta, Snap, and TikTok. But there’s been increasing scrutiny of the massively popular and overwhelmingly child-focused social gaming platform, and Gounardes is introducing a new bill to target it.
The New York Children’s Online Safety Act (NYCOSA) regulates how minors can communicate on social networks, aiming to prevent strangers from contacting them. While the bill could apply to a vast range of online services with users under the age of 18, Gounardes told The Verge in an exclusive interview that the “seed” of the idea came from those Roblox questions. It’s a new moment of reckoning for a platform that’s flown under the radar until recently — possibly because many legislators barely realize it exists.
NYCOSA includes provisions that overlap and build on a number of other state- and federal-level online regulation bills, including Gounardes’ earlier legislation. It would require any public or “semi-public” platform used by minors aimed at letting users create profiles, post content, and interact with others to make the profiles of minors private by default, preventing them from having their profiles viewed by strangers. It would also prohibit minors from being tagged in posts and sent messages or digital currency by users they’re not connected with.
The bill would also give parents more control over their children’s social media accounts. For kids under 13, sites would be required to let parents see and change privacy settings, approve all friend requests, and view connections. (Roblox is one of the few major platforms that allows children this young; Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and most other networks set the minimum age at 13.) For minors under 18, they’d have the right to approve financial transactions.
