New York Finalizes Rules Forcing Age Checks for Algorithmic Social Media Feeds

New York has spelled out exactly how it plans to make social media platforms check users' ages before letting them see algorithm-driven feeds or get pinged by notifications in the middle of the night.

Attorney General Letitia James released final rules this week implementing the SAFE for Kids Act, the law Governor Kathy Hochul signed in June 2024. The rules fill in the practical details of a law that, until now, existed mostly as a broad mandate. They spell out how platforms should verify a user's age, how kids can get parental permission to unlock restricted features, and what happens if companies don't comply. The law takes effect January 25, 2027, and violations could cost platforms up to $5,000 each.

What's actually being restricted

The law doesn't ban algorithmic feeds or nighttime notifications outright. Instead, it treats them as features that require proof of adulthood, or parental sign-off for minors, to access. That covers social media platforms with user-generated content where people spend at least 20 percent of their time scrolling algorithm-curated feeds, whether that's Instagram's Explore page or TikTok's For You feed. To let adult users keep that experience, or to send them notifications between midnight and 6 a.m., platforms will need a way to confirm those users are actually adults.

The state isn't dictating a single method for doing that. Instead, the rules set performance standards: age-checking systems need low false-positive rates and must be able to catch people trying to fake their age at least 98 percent of the time, according to the rules. A government-issued ID is one acceptable route, but platforms have to offer at least one alternative beyond that. Whatever information a platform collects to verify age has to be deleted or de-identified immediately after it's used, a provision clearly aimed at limiting how much sensitive ID data companies can hang onto.

How parental consent works

For minors who want access to the restricted features, the rules lay out a consent process. A kid under 18 can ask a parent for permission, but doing so requires the child to agree that the parent will be notified about the request. Once granted, either the parent or the child can revoke that consent later.

Importantly, the law draws a line around what platforms can and can't do while waiting for that consent. They're not allowed to lock kids out of ordinary, non-age-gated parts of the app, or stop them from searching for specific content, simply because a parent hasn't signed off on the algorithmic-feed features. And platforms aren't required to hand parents any window into what their kids have been searching for or browsing as part of the consent process, a detail that appears designed to prevent the consent mechanism itself from becoming a surveillance tool.

A largely unchanged proposal, now facing a legal test

The rules James released this week track closely with the draft her office proposed back in September. What's changed is that they're now final, which means the clock starts on potential legal challenges. Critics of age verification laws have long argued that these systems threaten user privacy and free-speech rights, particularly when they require handing over government identification just to browse the internet normally. That argument has had real success in court: judges have repeatedly blocked similar state-level age verification laws when tech industry groups have sued.

But the legal terrain has shifted somewhat. The Supreme Court's decision upholding a Texas law that requires age verification to access adult websites gave states more room to argue that age-gating measures can survive judicial scrutiny. Whether that precedent extends to a law targeting algorithmic social media feeds, rather than explicit adult content, is untested.

What happens between now and January 2027 will likely determine whether New York's approach becomes a template other states follow, or another cautionary tale about the courts' skepticism toward mandatory age verification online.