by: Ivan Habib

Website Manager

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently passed a sweeping package of bills aimed at implementing safeguards for chatbots and social media usage for minors. The measures mandate features on platforms such as age inference, protocols for suicidal sentiment detection, and warnings on social media and Large Language Models.

One of the main bills of this push is Senate Bill (SB) 243. The bill—encompassing the establishment of many safeguards for AI chatbots—mandates that operators of companion chatbots implement protocols to help identify users who show signs of self-harm or express intentions of suicide. This bill specifically targets the growing concern over parasocial relationships that can form between users, particularly minors, and AI companions. Lawmakers are aiming to prevent the potential for emotional dependency and ensure that vulnerable users are directed toward human support in times of crisis.

Under this bill, AI companies must clearly disclose on their platforms that users are interacting with an Artificial Intelligence rather than a human. For minors, this mandate also extends to giving periodic reminders every three hours to take breaks, as well as preventing explicit content from being generated. Furthermore, owners of these platforms will be required to disclose their protocol for handling self-harm and statistics to the Department of Public Health. Additionally, SB 243 allows users of these chatbots to sue the parent company responsible for them.

In addition to these measures, Assembly Bill 56, also known as the Social Media Warning Law, will require certain social media platforms to display a “black box” warning to users under the age of seventeen. The bills define the affected social media platforms as those with intentionally addictive feeds, thus excluding services like Gmail, WhatsApp, Slack, and other tools used primarily for internal communication rather than for external interaction and mass consumption of content. The warning will be a “black box” with the Surgeon General’s message that social media has been associated with significant mental health harms for young users.

First Partner Jennifer Sibel Newsom has been a strong advocate for these reforms, stating, “Everything we do begins with our children — their safety, their health, and their well-being. California has always led in innovation, but true leadership also means setting limits when it matters most, because our kids deserve a world that values them more than the technology around them.” Many members of the legislature have expressed hope that the bills will signal a new era of accountability for tech companies, setting a precedent for other states and nations around the world to follow suit.

(Sources: CNN, ABC10, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Office)