NYC NOW - June 5, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Governor Kathy Hochul is set to delay the June 30 launch of the MTA’s congestion pricing program, which aims to toll drivers south of 60th Street in Manhattan. She reportedly plans to replace that revenue with additional taxes on New York City businesses. In other news, Rep. Dan Goldman is urging the city’s Department of Education to inform parents about safe gun storage. Gov. Hochul is also considering a ban on smartphones in schools, though WNYC’s Jessica Gould reports enforcement may be challenging. Additionally, Hochul is pushing for two online child safety bills: one to restrict social media companies from using addictive algorithms on kids, and another to prevent selling their personal information. WNYC’s Janae Pierre discusses these efforts with Albany reporter Jon Campbell.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, June 5th. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. At this hour in a pre-taped address, Governor Kathy Hokel says she's pumping the brakes on the MTA's congestion pricing program that aims to toll drivers south of 60th Street in Manhattan. She says she wants to delay its launch, which was. slated for June 30th. The MTA needs $1 billion a year from the tolls to pay for transit upgrades. Hockel reportedly would replace that revenue with additional taxes on New York City businesses.

Mayor Adams says he supports the delay. We have to make sure that it's not a dual burden on everyday New Yorkers. We have to make sure that it's not going to impact our recovery. The move comes as state lawmakers are set to wrap up. The legislative session in Albany this week. We'll have more on this developing story. story this afternoon. U.S. Representative Dan Goldman is asking the city's education department to provide parents and families more information about safe gun storage. The Democrat who represents

Lower Manhattan and much of western Brooklyn wrote a letter to schools chancellor David Banks asking the school system to make safe storage conversations a priority, especially as summer begins. He says it's just one strategy in the larger fight to combat gun violence. One way to do that is to just provide information to parents about how to keep guns safely stored, where you can get help to do that. The DOE has not yet commented on Goldman's letter. It is 75 and mostly cloudy right now. We should see more sun than clowns this afternoon at around 78. Shows after midnight tonight and all day tomorrow, along with the chance of thunderstorms, you'll definitely need that umbrella tomorrow. Humid highs of 82 tomorrow. This is WNYC.

Stay close. There's more after the break. For WNYC, I'm Michael Hill. New York Governor Kathy Hokel is exploring a ban on smartphones in schools. But WNYC's Jessica Gould reports students say it could be tricky to enforce. In New York City, schools set their own rules about when students can use phones. Some make kids store them in secure pouches for the day. Others try to collect them before classes start, or only allow them in hallways and during lunch. Hokel says she's weighing a new policy that would ban smartphones in schools altogether.

To think that you need to have access to TikTok and scroll all day long, when you're supposed to be learning geometry and chemistry, those are hard enough subjects anyhow. But students wonder how it would work. Some say they need smartphones for assignments or emergencies. So-L Hales is a senior at Medgar-Evers College Preparatory School in Brooklyn. She says even when schools

require students to hand in their phones, they often find a workaround. We used to use decoy phones to give in our phone, but not like our actual phone. Clementine McCoy, a junior at Grace Church School in Manhattan, says that's the thing about teenagers. There's always going to be, you know, people hiding out in the stalls on their phone, people using their phones, like, hidden in their backpack. They will always find a way to overrule the rules that you give them. But she says she would support making schools smartphone free. almost like a retreat away from your phone. Educators say restricting smartphones would help kids focus

and prevent online fights from boiling over in school. Governor Hokel says she plans to introduce a bill banning smartphones in schools later this year. Jessica Gould, WNYC News. For WNYC, I'm Junae Pierre. Governor Kathy Hokel wants to save kids from the epidemic of social media despair. Those were her words in a New York Post op-oped last week.

As time winds down on the legislative session, Hogle is pushing state lawmakers to pass a pair of online child safety bills. One would prohibit social media companies from subjecting kids to addictive algorithms. The other would prevent companies from selling those same users' personal information. WNYC's Albany reporter, John Campbell, has been digging through the legislation. He joins me now. Hey, John. Hi, Jeney.

So time is winding down in this legislative session, and I'm sure hundreds of bills are up for a vote. But why is the governor so focused on these two social media bills? Why are they so important? Yeah, Jeney, I mean, focused is almost underselling it. And really, the governor is pressing for just these two bills. And that's part because she's trying to make mental health a major tenant of her time in office. She's latched onto social media and it's potentially harmful effect on teens in particular.

and she's not the only one. Mayor Adams has spoken out on that. The Surgeon General has flagged it as an issue, and that brings us to these two bills that the governor says are her priority for the rest of the legislative session. She thinks they'll have a positive impact on kids by changing the way they interact with social media

and apps like TikTok and YouTube and Instagram, and hopefully, from her perspective, making them a little less addictive. The goal of the Safe for Kids Act is to, give users under 18 a feed of content from accounts that they actually follow instead of algorithmic feeds that show content from users they don't even know. I know you're not a tech expert, but how does implementation of a law like this actually work? Well, I mean, the basic idea is that these social media platforms would have to display the content chronologically. People under the age of 18

would see just the content from the accounts they follow in the order it was posted. But you said, implementation. That's the key word here. One of the really big questions is, how do you actually verify a user's age? And is there really a way to do that without requiring somebody to hand over a government ID, which was a major concern for organizations that advocate for immigrants, for example? And the bill doesn't really answer that question. It kind of kicks it to Attorney General Letitia James. She's a big supporter of this bill, by the way. And she's going to have to figure that in the rulemaking process, the regulation process, which that's going to play out over the coming months. Yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit more. If passed, what kind of resources would the state

have to put in place in order to enforce the law? Well, for one, the AG's office is going to have to craft those rules to implement the law, and that's assuming that it's passed and actually does become law. And that is a month's long process, and it'll require a public comment period and from there then there's the enforcement resources it'll be up to the AG's office to kind of monitor these social media companies and bring lawsuits if they violate the requirements of this law but that's if it even gets to that point honestly i mean it's going to take months to craft the regulations then the law doesn't take effect for another six months and then james can't sue for another six months so that's a lot of time for tech companies to bring a lawsuit if

they want to try to challenge this, which they almost certainly will. What would happen to social media companies who fail to comply with the law? And you know, you talked about the AG has to put in these regulations, but I'm wondering, like, what would these consequences look like? Well, that was kind of a big talking point during these negotiations. The bill gives the Attorney General the power to enforce the law by taking these companies to the courts that they run afoul of the rules. And it gives her a lot of leeway to try to seek financial penalties, damages, or recouping a portion of the company's profits.

But it does not allow individual parents or guardians to sue as the original version of this bill did. And that was one of the things that was negotiated over the course of the last six months or so. It was one of the kind of sticking points here. But they landed on giving the Attorney General's office the ability to enforce this. You talked about the likelihood of lawsuits, and I want to talk about, you know, big tech companies like META have invested about a million dollars in a lobbying effort to kill this legislation. Is it normal for so much money to be spent on lobbying efforts? Well, lobbying is certainly big business in Albany, and this is no different. I mean, it certainly shows that the trade groups that are representing these tech companies had an interest in swaying.

this bill in their favor. And it is a lot of money, but it's not really out of line with similar efforts we've seen over the years. I mean, we've seen labor unions, hospitals, all sorts of different advocacy organizations, pool resources and try to lobby to, in favor of a bill or to try to kill or alter a bill. And that's what we saw play out this time as well. Now, John, we know, like, time is winding down with this session. As of now, where do things stand? with these two bills? Have there been any developments? Well, it appears that they're on track to get a vote later this week. The legislature's annual session is scheduled to run through Thursday,

but it's already looking likely that it's going to bleed into Friday or even, God forbid, Saturday. And as things stand right now, it's looking like the Senate and the Assembly will both pass the measure, and Governor Hockel is expected to sign them into law, but it's not a done deal until it's a done deal. Right, right. and if passed, this law would be the first of its kind here in the U.S. Are we seeing similar legislation anywhere else in the country?

We are. There have been various efforts to crack down on social media in states all across the country, though none of them focused on algorithms quite like New York does. California is pursuing something similar right now, and at least 30 states across the country have some sort of pending legislation regarding social media and kids, but it's a really wide variety. everything from out and out bans to bills that would create task forces to study the issue.

And that's all according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks legislation like this. That's WMYC's Albany reporter, John Campbell. Thanks, John. Thanks, Jane. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcast. See you this evening.