{"slug": "gov-newsom-signs-sweeping-new-rules-for-online-child-safety", "title": "Gov. Newsom Signs Sweeping New Rules for Online Child Safety", "summary": "California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of online child safety bills on Thursday, including Senate Bill 1119, which requires operators of AI companion chatbots to assess risks to children, document findings and submit them to an independent auditor, and Assembly Bill 1709, which bars social media platforms from serving addictive engagement features to users under 16. The package also includes Assembly Bill 2, raising damages large social media companies can face when their conduct harms a child, and follows Newsom's signing a day earlier of Assembly Bill 1405, creating a state registry of independent AI auditors, and Senate Bill 813, establishing a framework for independent verification organizations. Common Sense Media founder Jim Steyer, whose group backed all three bills, called the package \"the first step in the United States towards comprehensive regulation and common-sense guardrails around these platforms.", "body_md": "# Gov. Newsom Signs Sweeping New Rules for Online Child Safety\n\nGov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of [online child safety bills](/news/tag/children) Thursday, enacting some of the strongest protections for young users in the country.\n\n[Senate Bill 1119](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb1119), co-authored by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, and Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, requires operators of AI companion chatbots to assess the risks their products pose to children, document what they find and hand the results to an independent auditor. The bill also requires parental controls and in-app crisis support.\n\n[Assembly Bill 2](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab2), from Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, raises the damages a large social media company can face when its conduct harms a child. Lowenthal [pursued](https://lowenthal.asmdc.org/press-releases/20250512-california-assembly-passes-groundbreaking-legislation-hold-social-media) the measure across three legislative sessions.\n\n[Assembly Bill 1709](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1709) bars social media platforms from serving addictive engagement features to users under 16. It passed the Legislature without a no vote.\n\n“We’re establishing a framework,” Newsom said in a [press conference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WIlU6xZ2JY) Thursday announcing the package, “so that we can really enact a more aggressive posture as it relates to enforcement.” \n\nFirst partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom also spoke at the event, reflecting her behind-the-scenes engagement with the policy debate over how best to protect children online. “Today has been a long time in coming,” she said. “And this one is truly for the kids. The kids who are with us, and the kids, like Adam and Owl, who are not.”\n\nStanding behind the documentary filmmaker were two mothers of children who died by suicide: [Maria Raine](/news/12080610/california-mom-who-lost-her-son-to-an-ai-chatbot-is-now-fighting-to-regulate-them) and [Victoria Hinks](/news/12096121/she-died-by-design-meta-on-trial-over-child-safety).\n\n“This is an incredible moment,” said Jim Steyer, whose group, Common Sense Media, backed all three bills.\n\nSpeaking at the same press conference, Steyer called the legislative package “the first step in the United States towards comprehensive regulation and common-sense guardrails around these platforms.”\n\nA day earlier, Newsom [signed](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/09/09/governor-newsom-signs-first-in-the-nation-ai-safeguards-to-protect-californians-calls-on-the-federal-government-to-do-its-part/) two bills that set up some of the enforcement infrastructure that would strengthen the hand of state regulators, especially when it comes to AI developers.\n\n[Assembly Bill 1405](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1405), from Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, creates a state registry of independent AI auditors and sets standards for their independence, transparency and integrity. \n\n[Senate Bill 813](https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb813), from Sen. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, establishes a framework for independent verification organizations, expert panels that can set the standards those auditors would uphold.\n\n“When you have a financial institution, they have to be audited by a third-party independent source,” Bauer-Kahan told KQED.\n\nJust as some government procurement contracts already hold AI developers accountable to federal law, Bauer-Kahan said the bills just signed into law would establish an auditing scheme in California.\n\nThe registry will begin to take shape in January, and Bauer-Kahan noted, expand a new category of job with a short history, that of the AI auditor.\n\n“It is so great to see SB 1119 signed into law,” Chris Lehane, vice president of global affairs at OpenAI, wrote in a statement. “It both meets the moment for parents and sets teens up for educational success. … Amongst several key elements, the bill treats teens as teens when it comes to making sure AI is both safe and a tool to help contribute to their ability to learn.”\n\nAnthropic endorsed SB 813 and AB 1405 in August. In a statement, spokesperson Danielle Cohen praised how these bills distinguish between an AI audit, which assesses the controls necessary to comply with the law, and an evaluation, which assesses the risks posed by an AI system.\n\n“While more work is needed to ensure AI developers are required to have safeguards evaluated by independent third-party experts, we commend Senator McNerney and Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan for their leadership on these important issues,” Cohen wrote.\n\nThe signings come on the heels of  [social media posts](https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843?s=20) from a former Anthropic researcher, announcing his resignation.\n\nJacob Coxon warned that both Anthropic and its competitor OpenAI are “racing straight to self-improving super-intelligence and gambling with our lives.”\n\nBauer-Kahan was more interested in the public reaction than the warning itself, which she said covered familiar ground. Bigger statements from larger groups of researchers, she noted, have come and gone without breaking through — a shift she also sees in the fights over [data centers](/news/12098559/newsoms-final-months-a-failed-deal-and-regulating-ai).\n\nWhat worries her most isn’t the doomsday scenario.\n\n“I think that the catastrophic risks are sometimes what we talk about, but the everyday impact of these systems are what I really worry about the most,” the assemblymember told KQED. “How do we make sure [Californians] continue to thrive and have meaningful work in their lives,and that these systems aren’t being used to deny them work and healthcare? That it isn’t taking our kids and isolating them and creating a mental health crisis?”", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gov-newsom-signs-sweeping-new-rules-for-online-child-safety", "canonical_source": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2026/09/10/gov-newsom-signs-sweeping-new-rules-for-online-child-safety/", "published_at": "2026-09-10 22:37:08+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-10 22:47:11.461894+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-safety", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Gavin Newsom", "Senate Bill 1119", "Assembly Bill 2", "Assembly Bill 1709", "Assembly Bill 1405", "Senate Bill 813", "Common Sense Media", "OpenAI"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gov-newsom-signs-sweeping-new-rules-for-online-child-safety", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gov-newsom-signs-sweeping-new-rules-for-online-child-safety.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gov-newsom-signs-sweeping-new-rules-for-online-child-safety.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/gov-newsom-signs-sweeping-new-rules-for-online-child-safety.jsonld"}}