New York State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D) is a driving force behind kids online safety laws. He sponsored the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and the New York Child Data Protection Act, both signed by Governor Kathy Hochul earlier this year. But when parents talked to him about the rules, he says, they kept asking a question he hadn’t considered: “Does it cover Roblox?”
Like the vast majority of online regulation, New York’s rules were aimed at traditional social media companies like Meta, Snap, and TikTok. But there’s been increasing scrutiny of the massively popular and overwhelmingly child-focused social gaming platform, and Gounardes is introducing a new bill to target it.
The New York Children’s Online Safety…