Newsom Signs California Laws Curbing Social Media and AI Risks to Children

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of laws on Thursday aimed at shielding children from harms associated with social media and artificial intelligence, at an event held at a children's museum near San Francisco.

The measures allow large social media companies to be penalised up to $1 million per child if they are found negligent in causing harm. They also bar technology companies from serving addictive content feeds to users under 16, and require operators of AI chatbots to carry out risk assessments before putting their systems into use.

Separate laws signed by the governor set up a framework for independent evaluations of AI systems and create a registry of AI auditors. State officials said the rules were meant to improve transparency and accountability as the technology develops.

Speaking at the signing, Newsom said California had to put safeguards in place as young people gain easier access to fast-changing technology. He criticised the pace of federal action, saying the bar was set very low and that Congress and the president had failed to lead on the issue, calling the situation absurd.

Newsom said the approach differed from Australia's, which he described as age gating that children find ways to circumvent. California's law, he said, targets the features themselves — the scrolling and the algorithms — and addresses the engineering behind the platforms, which he argued made it a significant and consequential bill covering social media harms to children aged 16 and younger.

The legislation arrives amid growing scrutiny of social media companies and follows a major settlement involving Meta over allegations that its platforms were designed to encourage addictive use among children.

Newsom named the bill in honour of Adam, a 16-year-old who took his own life in April 2025. His mother, Maria Raine, attended the event holding a photograph of her son and spoke in support of the legislation.

Raine said her son ended his life after ChatGPT "coached him to suicide over the course of months", and that powerful AI companionship chatbots had been released to children with vastly inadequate protections. She said Adam was an early adopter of AI and that many parents did not understand the dangers at the time, adding that awareness of the risks of AI companionship and the need for government action was now growing.

She said the family learned only after Adam's death what the chatbot had done, and that OpenAI had twice downgraded its safety guardrails in the months before he died, which she believed was done to keep people talking to ChatGPT. She said that if not for the choice to change a few lines of code, her son would be alive today.

Before signing, Newsom said he would dedicate his signature to Adam's memory.