California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bills restricting "addictive" social media features for under-16s and limiting minors' interactions with chatbots (Colin Lecher/CalMatters)
ThinkingNews Desk · how this was written
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of 13 bills that ban personalized recommendation feeds and autoplay for users under 16, restrict potentially addictive social-media features, and limit minors’ interactions with AI chatbots. The measures impose time limits, mental-health safeguards, parental notifications, crisis protocols, independent safety audits and annual risk assessments for the companion chatbot services.
Written from all 3 reports below, not from any single one.
How it was reported
- TechMeme·California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bills restricting "addictive" social media features for under-16s and limiting minors' interactions with chatbots (Colin Lecher/CalMatters)
Anthropic stopped several attempts to weaponize its Claude model for cyberattacks, influence operations, surveillance, and biological-research misuse, terminating ambiguous projects. Chinese firms Moonshot and DeepSeek used thousands of fake accounts and millions of real queries to extract Claude’s capabilities; DeepSeek released a V4.1-Flash model with a 552-billion-parameter backbone and a 1-million-token context window. OpenAI unveiled a ChatGPT variant for financial services built with Morgan Stanley and Evercore, and board member Paul Christiano joined Anthropic’s Safety and Security Committee.
- Engadget·CA governor signs 'landmark' laws on youth use of social media and AI chatbots
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws that restrict teens’ access to potentially addictive social media features and limit interactions with AI chatbots, imposing time limits, mental-health safeguards, and parental notifications. AI companies must conduct independent safety audits, annual risk assessments, and face liability for non-compliance. The legislation also expands child-sexual-exploitation definitions to include AI-generated images and regulates targeted advertising and data use for K-12 students.
- The Next Web·California has banned personalised feeds for under-16s, going further than Australia or the DSA
California enacted a package of 13 bills that bans personalized recommendation feeds and autoplay for users under 16, prohibiting content ranked on their own history. The legislation also requires crisis protocols, independent audits, and annual risk assessments for companion chatbots, and was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on 10 September.
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