California Becomes Newest State to Use Anti-Tobacco Tool as Digital Safety Device: Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a law for social media requiring health warning labels, pulling from a playbook created to get people to quit tobacco.
The national effort to limit the potential dangers that social media can have on health is the impetus behind the new law, which has grown in urgency since former President Joe Biden’s surgeon general first called for the labels. The tech has been found in recent studies to contribute to children’s rising anxiety levels, body dysmorphia, and sleep disruption, among other effects.
Along with a host of other online safety policies — including digital age-checks and other moves addressing artificial intelligence chatbots — Newsom said “some truly horrific and tragic examples of young people harmed by unregulated tech” factored into his decision to approve warning labels.
Technology can inspire, educate, and connect — but without real guardrails, emerging technology like chatbots and social media can also exploit, mislead, and endanger our kids,” said the Democratic governor in a statement.
Those words could soon embroil California in another high-stakes courtroom battle between the state and the titans of technology, if Newsom follows through on his proposal. Trade groups representing the likes of Google, Meta, and Amazon say warning labels limit access to online speech for minors and force social media platforms to make dubious claims about the technology’s potential harm to health.
AB 56, a law from Democratic state Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, will compel platforms including Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok to display warning labels for users under 18. Those labels need to state that social media “may present a significant risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents,” an example quoted from a 2021 report by former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
We refuse to wait for companies to voluntarily choose to put kids above their profits.
When a child first logs on each day, platforms will be required to show a ten-second skippable warning, and then, if a child uses the site for more than three hours, a further unskippable, 30-second warning. With each additional hour spent on social media, the 30-second warning must recur.
In a statement, California first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said, “Our kids deserve a world that prioritizes them over the technology that surrounds them.
Murthy brought warning labels to the forefront of public discussion in an op-ed in 2024, where he likened the addictive design of social media to that of tobacco. He was calling for black-box health warning labels on social media platforms, much like those in place for cigarettes.
At least 42 state attorneys general have since backed the idea, including Bonta. Minnesota became the first state to pass a warning labels law in July.
