New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday signed a bill that would allow parents to block their children from getting social media posts suggested by a platform’s algorithm, a move to limit feeds critics argue are addictive.
Under the legislation, feeds on apps like TikTok and Instagram would be limited for people under age 18 to posts from accounts they follow, rather than content suggested by an automated algorithm. It would also block platforms from sending minors notifications on suggested posts between midnight and 6 a.m.
Both provisions could be turned off if a minor gets what the bill defines as “verifiable parental consent.”
The law does not take effect immediately. State Attorney General Letitia James is now tasked with crafting rules to determine mechanisms for verifying a user’s age and parental consent. After the rules are finalized, social media companies will have 180 days to implement the regulations.
“We can protect our kids. We can tell the companies that you are not allowed to do this, you don’t have a right to do this, that parents should have say over their children’s lives and their health, not you,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at a bill signing ceremony in Manhattan.
The signing is the first step in what is expected to be a drawn out process of rule making, and a probable lawsuit from social media companies to block the law.
NetChoice, a tech industry trade group that includes X and Meta, has criticized the legislation as unconstitutional.
“This is an assault on free speech and the open Internet by the State of New York,” Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of NetChoice, said in a statement. “New York has created a way for the government to track what sites people visit and their online activity by forcing websites to censor all content unless visitors provide an ID to verify their age.”
Most of the biggest social media platforms send users a steady stream of suggested videos, photographs and other content, using a computer to try and predict what will keep users entertained and engaged for as long as possible. The algorithms use a variety of factors to curate that content, including what a user has clicked on before and interests of other people with similar preferences.
The bill marks the latest attempt by a state to regulate social media as part of concerns over how children interact with the platforms.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week announced plans to work with the Legislature on a bill to restrict smartphone usage for students during the school day, though he didn’t provide exact details on what the proposal would include. Newsom in 2019 signed a bill allowing school districts to limit or ban smartphones while at school.
There hasn’t been broad legislation on the subject at the federal level but it is a common point of discussion in Washington. This week the US surgeon general called on Congress to put warning labels on social media platforms similar to those on cigarettes, citing mental health dangers for children using the sites.
Some tech companies, with pressure mounting, have decided to set up parental controls on their platforms. Last year, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, created tools that allowed parents to set time limits on the apps for children.
The New York legislation, debuted last October, had faced major pushback in the Legislature from the tech industry.
“Social media platforms manipulate what our children see online to keep them on the platforms as long as possible,” said James, a Democrat who pushed for the bill. “The more time young people spend on social media, the more they are at risk of developing serious mental health concerns.”
New York moves to limit ‘addictive’ social media feeds for kids
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New York moves to limit ‘addictive’ social media feeds for kids
- The bill marks the latest attempt by a state to regulate social media as part of concerns over how children interact with the platforms
UK PM pushing ahead with Middle East peace plan
- Keir Starmer basing project on his work in Northern Ireland peace process
- Govt this week met figures from network of over 160 peacebuilding organizations
LONDON: The UK prime minister is moving forward with a Middle East peace plan based on his work in the Northern Ireland peace process, The Independent reported on Saturday.
Keir Starmer pledged in December that the UK would lead efforts to bring long-term peace to the region.
This week, following the establishment of a ceasefire in Gaza, the British government and Foreign Office held meetings with figures from the Alliance for Middle East Peace, a network of more than 160 organizations engaged in civil society peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians.
Starmer’s plan will see Foreign Secretary David Lammy host a conference later this year to raise funds for the project.
John Lyndon, ALLMEP’s executive director, told The Independent: “It’s encouraging to see the government begin to think through how the prime minister’s endorsement of an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace — and the pledge that the foreign secretary would hold an inaugural meeting in London — can relate to the rapidly changing environment.
“With a fragile ceasefire and hostage deal in place, we need to see initiatives like this predicated on conflict resolution, nonviolence and diplomacy gather momentum.”
Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, served as adviser on human rights to the Northern Ireland Policing Board from 2003 to 2007.
The board supervises the Police Service of Northern Ireland, with Starmer having worked to ensure the service was compliant with the 1998 Human Rights Act.
The International Fund for Ireland, which was launched in the late 1980s and serves as a model for Starmer’s Middle East peace project, was described as the “great unsung hero of the Good Friday Agreement” by Jonathan Powell, the government’s former chief negotiator.
The fund slowly pooled resources and brought figures from both sides of the conflict together, culminating in the 1999 Good Friday Agreement.
Dozens of migrants leave Albania after Italian court ruling
SHENGJIN: Dozens of migrants left Albania in Italian custody on Saturday after a ruling by judges in Rome struck a fresh blow to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s embattled third-country migration centers.
According to an AFP reporter, an Italian boat carrying 43 migrants departed from the Albanian port of Shengjin just after midday on Saturday.
The migrants arrived in Albania on Tuesday, following an earlier months-long pause in the scheme. Several were sent back the same day, while dozens remained.
On Friday, Rome’s Court of Appeals referred the case to the European Court of Justice, or ECJ, meaning the 43 migrants in Albania had to be transferred to Italy, said a government source.
Meloni’s plan to outsource migrant processing to a non-EU country and speed up repatriations of failed asylum seekers is being followed closely by other European nations.
The plan, heavily criticized by rights groups and opposition parties in Italy, has run into repeated blocks, and the ECJ is examining legal questions raised by several Italian courts.
The migrants sent to Albania were among a group intercepted by Italian authorities as they tried to cross the Mediterranean.
Most hailed from Bangladesh, while there were also six Egyptians, one man from Ivory Coast and one from Gambia, said rights associations.
Meloni signed a deal with Albanian counterpart Edi Rama in November 2023 to open two Italian-run centers in Albania.
The centers became operational in October, but after judges ruled against the detentions of the first two groups of men transferred there, they were instead sent to Italy.
Like many other countries, Italy has a list of so-called safe countries from which asylum seekers can have their applications fast-tracked.
The judges who blocked the first transfer of migrants cited an ECJ ruling stipulating that EU states can only designate entire countries as safe, not parts of countries.
Italy’s list included some countries with unsafe areas.
In response, Meloni’s government passed a law cutting its safe list to 19 countries from 22 — and insisting all parts of those nations were safe.
But judges ruled against a second transfer of migrants — seven men from Egypt and Bangladesh — saying they wanted clarification from the ECJ.
According to Italian media, an ECJ hearing has been provisionally set for February.
Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel closes as Taliban take over operations
- Serena Kabul Hotel was an exclusive property hosting mostly foreigners, diplomats
- It was the site of several Taliban attacks when US-led troops were in Afghanistan
KABUL: Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, Serena Hotel in Kabul, closed down operations on Saturday as its management was taken over by a corporation run by the Taliban.
Set in landscaped gardens, overlooking the city’s Zarnegar Park in the Afghan capital’s downtown, it opened in 1945 as the Kabul Hotel.
Heavily damaged during decades of war, the five-star property was rebuilt by the Aga Khan Development Network in 2005, according to a design by Canadian architect Ramesh Khosla, who adhered to the classical Islamic architectural style.
Renamed Serena Kabul Hotel, it was inaugurated by former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, during whose term it endured two major attacks by the Taliban in 2008 and 2014.
The last attack took place under the rule of former president Ashraf Ghani in 2021, the year when Afghanistan’s Western-backed administration collapsed, US-led foreign troops withdrew after 20 years of war and occupation, and the Taliban took over the country.
“After nearly two decades of dedicated services to Afghanistan and its citizens ... Kabul Serena Hotel shall be closing its operations effective Feb. 1, 2025,” the hotel said in a notification on Friday.
“The operations of the hotel will, as from now on, be taken over by Hotel State Owned Corporation.”
The Taliban government-run corporation confirmed the takeover to Arab News, saying that the Serena Hotels group’s contract was terminated five years before it was due.
An official at the HSOC said it was fit to operate the hotel as it was “running several other hotels across the country.”
It was not clear whether the corporation would be able to uphold the five-star level of service as the hotel was the only luxury property in the country — an exclusive venue with expensive restaurants hosting mostly foreigners.
“Most Afghans couldn’t afford to spend the night or have a meal there, so they didn’t really have any attachment to it … there’s really only a select group of highly privileged people who have these fond memories of hours spent at the Serena. The average Afghan simply has no experience of it,” Ali Latifi, an Afghan American journalist based in Kabul, told Arab News.
It was also the subject of a famous blunder by an Indian news anchor, who in 2021 claimed that Pakistan’s intelligence agency had an office on the hotel’s fourth floor, despite the fact that the Serena Kabul has only two floors.
While the hotel was both famous and infamous, it had never been a symbol of Kabul and its society, Latifi said.
“It took a real level of privilege to even walk through the door there ... it was an elite place for privileged people.”
Mirwais Agha, a taxi driver who remembers construction works when the hotel was being rebuilt, had no idea how the property looked inside.
“I only saw the cement walls and big cars getting in through the doors every time I passed by the place,” he said.
“It was not for common people like us. It was for foreigners and some rich people. You had to pay dollars to get a meal in the hotel. It doesn’t really mean anything for us if it’s closing or its management is being charged. It never belonged to us.”
Pakistan separatist militants kill 18 paramilitaries in ambush
- The attack was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army
- The official said 17 troops were killed, along with another who came to their aid in the overnight attack on Friday near Mangochar
QUETTA, Pakistan: Pakistani separatist militants claimed on Saturday an attack on a highway in a volatile southwestern province that killed 18 paramilitaries and seriously wounded three others.
The attack was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army, a group behind rising violence in Balochistan province that borders Afghanistan and Iran.
A vehicle carrying unarmed border troops “came under gunfire from 70 to 80 armed assailants who had blocked the road,” a police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said 17 troops were killed, along with another who came to their aid in the overnight attack on Friday near Mangochar, a city close to the Afghan border.
The military said 18 paramilitaries were killed as they responded to militants who “attempted to establish roadblocks,” while 12 attackers were killed.
The BLA said in a statement it had killed 17 troops and had carried out multiple “operations.”
Attacks have increased in Balochistan province in recent months, often against security forces.
The BLA frequently claims deadly attacks against security forces or Pakistanis from other provinces, notably Punjabis in Balochistan.
The group has also targeted energy projects with foreign financing — most notably from China — accusing outsiders of exploiting the resource-rich region while excluding residents in the poorest part of Pakistan.
In November, the BLA claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta’s main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.
The group also said it was behind coordinated attacks by dozens of assailants in August that killed at least 39 people, one of the highest tolls in the region.
Violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
Pakistan has accused the Taliban government of failing to rout out militants who launch attacks from Afghan soil, a charge it denies.
More than 1,600 people were killed in attacks in 2024 — the deadliest year in almost a decade — including 685 civil and military security forces, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group.
Indian troops kill eight Maoist rebels
- The gunfight broke out early on Saturday in the forested areas of Bijapur in Chhattisgarh state, considered the heartland of the insurgency
- More than 10,000 people have been killed in the insurgency waged by the rebels, who say they are fighting for rights of marginalized people
RAIPUR: Indian commandos shot dead at least eight Maoist rebels in the dense jungles of central India on Saturday, as security forces ramp up efforts to crush the long-running conflict.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in the decades-long insurgency waged by the rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people.
The gunfight broke out early on Saturday in the forested areas of Bijapur district in the state of Chhattisgarh, considered the heartland of the insurgency.
“After a fierce gunbattle, bodies of eight Maoists were recovered today from the jungles of Bijapur district,” top police officer Sundarraj P. told AFP.
Weapons recovered from the rebels included a grenade launcher and rifles, he said, adding that a search was still underway.
A crackdown by security forces has killed some 287 rebels in the past year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
Amit Shah, India’s home minister, said last year the government expected to crush the rebellion by 2026.
The Maoists demand land, jobs and a share of the region’s immense natural resources for local residents.
They made inroads in a number of remote communities across India’s east and south, and the movement gained in strength and numbers until the early 2000s.
New Delhi then deployed tens of thousands of troops in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.”
The conflict has also seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces. A roadside bomb killed at least nine Indian troops last month.
