Tobacco-style labels for social media now California law after Newsom signature

[Thiệu Ngô]

It’s the latest state to mandate such warnings, advocated by the former U.S. surgeon general.

By Tyler Katzenberger

SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a law mandating health warning labels for social media, making California the latest U.S. state to wield a rule originally designed to curb tobacco addiction as a digital safety feature.

The new law is part of a national push to combat social media’s potential health risks that has grown since former President Joe Biden’s surgeon general first advocated the labels. Recent research has linked the technology to increased anxiety, body dysmorphia and sleep interruption in children, among other impacts.

Newsom said “some truly horrific and tragic examples of young people harmed by unregulated tech” factored into his decision to approve warning labels, alongside other online safety policies, including digital age-checks and artificial intelligence chatbot controls.

“Emerging technology like chatbots and social media can inspire, educate and connect — but without real guardrails, technology can also exploit, mislead, and endanger our kids,” the Democratic governor said in a statement.

Newsom’s decision could quickly drag California into another court fight with tech giants. Industry trade groups, representing giants like Google, Meta and Amazon, claim warning labels restrict kids’ access to online speech and illegally compel social media platforms to make controversial claims about the technology’s health impacts.

The law, AB 56, from Democratic state Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, requires platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok to show users under 18 warning labels. Such labels must declare that social media “can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents,” using language pulled from a 2023 report by former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

Platforms will need to display a skippable warning for 10 seconds when a child first logs on each day, plus an unskippable, 30-second warning if a child spends more than three hours on the site. The 30-second warning must repeat after each additional hour of social media use.

“Our kids deserve a world that values them more than the technology around them,” California first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said in a statement.

Murthy popularized warning labels in a 2024 op-ed in which he equated social media’s potentially addictive design to tobacco. He argued black-box health warning labels, similar to those posted on cigarette packs, were needed for social media platforms.

At least 42 state attorneys general have since backed the idea, including California’s Rob Bonta. Minnesota became the first state to pass a warning labels law in July.