Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights Efforts to Strengthen Online Youth Safety At Common Sense Media Summit

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul delivered remarks at the Common Sense Media Summit to highlight her efforts to strengthen AI safety and protect kids online.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

To all my friends, it is great to see you. And Jim, you just bring such energy and passion to the cause that others will follow. And you had me at hello, I just want to say that, when we first met years ago, and I thought, "This person cares so deeply about just our children and what we can do to protect them from a world that is so vastly different from the one that many of us grew up in, most of us grew up in."

And it's happening so quickly, it's almost impossible for parents to know what's going on, for elected officials to stay ahead of it, and we certainly have learned the lesson that we can't count on the companies to put out products that are responsible and that put children first. So we've had to do a lot together, but I so appreciate you and also my friends in the Legislature, especially Senator Kristen Gonzales. And so let's give her a round of applause, and Assemblymember Alex Bores. True champions.

So we started out the day hearing from young New Yorkers. You've heard them at this conference. They're full of ideas about the future, and it's our responsibility to make sure that as technology transforms their world, that they have every opportunity to grow and to thrive.

Maybe it comes from being New York's first mom Governor, I'm always thinking about the kids. Always thinking about the kids. But they have to be able to realize their full potential in a safe environment.

So I want to thank everyone here. We've been working together for such a long time, and none of us are afraid to take on the biggest and most powerful technology companies. Especially here in New York, we're pretty fearless. But we usually win. It's - we're swagger - we have a little bit of swagger here. We like to win.

But we also want to make sure that it's not just a point of pride for us to be the national leader in protecting children online and hoping that other states will follow. But also, it's just because we care so deeply about people and families. We want them to be safe and protected. So this is, yes we're proud, but we're also just common sense, like all of you, common sense in our approach to doing this. And you have led the step every way.

This is, as I said, it's deeply personal. I'm hardwired as a mom. I'm actually a grandma, too. Any grandparents? Oh, you all look too young. Grandkids are really good, too. Just wanted to make a plug for those. But we're - hope my kids aren't listening again, they get so annoyed when I do that - but, I started hearing something as I was going around the state as a new Governor. I'd go and do gatherings with young people in school libraries and in conference rooms and in diners. I just thought, "Something's happening. Something deeply troubling is happening to our children."

Most of it was the aftermath of the pandemic. This took our kids to such a dark place, and even a couple years ago, it seemed very clear that the adults had gotten over this, right? Okay, that was very bad, but we're going to be okay. We move on. When you think about the kids in their early development years, they don't know that this is going to be their life forever or that it creates this sense of vulnerability: "This could happen to me again next year." So we have not appreciated what that did to their psyche.

And also, simultaneous with that was the rise of cell phones in schools, so the kids are addicted to them. And when they're home during this isolation period - many schools did not allow children in for six months, a year - they turn to social media as the crutch, as the replacement, to human interaction, and it's been so hard to pull them back away from that.

And that's what I'm seeing everywhere. As I sit in these places and gather with them, I talk to them, "What, what has happened?" And some kids would say the pandemic when they were supposed to be able to have their 8th grade graduation or a senior prom, and all the milestones that they were denied. But they're suffering from anxiety and depression at levels we've never seen before, ever before.

So I started listening to them, and I went out there and what I heard from them was just breaking my heart. And I remember one girl saying - I said, "Why don't you just put down this cell phone?" Because she's saying, "I'm under so much pressure. I have to be listening. I have to watch this to make sure that they're not mocking me about my clothes, they're always teasing about my clothes, or they're all gathering in the girls' restroom right now to talk about what they're doing on the weekend, and I wasn't invited, and they're making plans." There's - her stress level was off the charts as she's sitting in a library talking to the Governor. She couldn't even focus on me. It's like, it reminded me of when my kids were teenagers, so it wasn't a shock to me.

But it was just so sad for me to see someone who is so trapped and so addicted. And she said to me, I said, "Why don't you just put the phone down, sweetheart? Why don't you just, can you do this?" She says, "No, but you have to save us from ourselves." Okay. You're a mom, kid asks you to save them, you're going to step up. You're going to do it. And if we don't listen to our children's cries for help and stand up for protection, then we have failed in one of our most basic, fundamental responsibilities, and failure is not an option.

So we took action. We passed legislation protecting children's personal information from being collected and monetized. You're not going to monetize our children's mental health, not here in New York State. Became the first large state in America to literally say - and I was told, "Don't do this, Governor. They're going to all hate you" - we literally took cell phones out of schools and said, "No more."

Seriously, like everybody from the Education Department to school boards, to principals, to administrators, to parents, to the kids themselves, they said, "Everybody's going to hate you. Don't do this." I said, "Like I said, done the teenager thing, okay? They usually get over it." But it was a tough thing to do, but I just could see the right answer: Take it away from them and don't say, "You can, we'll make an exception. You can have it during lunch and study hall." No. Bell to bell, no.

And we did that a year ago. A year ago, we announced that, and we had to have all sorts of education. And the parents were very nervous about this, especially with the advent of school shootings, right? They're just like, "I have to be able to connect with my child. I gotta know what's going on in case there's that final message. I need to be able to talk to my baby. I have to." And when I was able to say, "Law enforcement says, if there is a shooter on the school grounds and around the campus, the last thing you want is for your child's cell phone to start ringing, or they start texting, or they send pictures, or they give a wrong information out to the public or send it to mom, send it to the police. It's the wrong place. So your child is safer when they follow the highly trained individual in the front of the room known as their teacher."

So once I got that message out, they started saying, "Aha, maybe it's not safe that my kid's hiding in a closet and their cell phone starts ringing," right?

So this is what I had to deal with, but it was so worth it, because despite couple of days, maybe a couple weeks of rockiness, I did a survey from September until May, just this past May, surveying every single school that had done this. Every one was required. Everybody did it.

What has been the outcome? Teachers were thrilled. They report back that the kids are no longer watching TikTok dance videos all day. They're listening to the math teacher - radical change there - And they're actually talking to each other like human beings. They're bringing board games to lunch. They're playing chess, bingo and cards at lunchtime, and I was so happy. And it said it's really strange for the administration because they walk through the hallways saying, "We hear something we never heard before, children's voices and laughter and shouting." It was like going into a cemetery. It was dead there. It was so quiet.

So that's one change that one governor can do to help protect millions of children. But I want every state to do this. Every state has to do this. No state should have a situation where our children are battling and having to fight these forces from social media companies that are trying to pull them into a dark space so they can sell them products and to do all kinds of things and get them addicted for a lifetime.

It's why people try to promote cigarettes to young teenagers, so they develop those habits, and creating a customer for their entire lives. We also passed a groundbreaking "SAFE Act for Kids", and sent a message loud and clear to technology companies about what you're able to do with our children's information or not. You cannot touch our children's information. That is protected under the laws of the State of New York.

And also, we restricted the addictive algorithms from roping our kids in and holding them captive. We know what it's like. I'm seeing all kinds of algorithms. I actually like the Buffalo Bills, so I don't say that much outside of Buffalo, but it's true. Jets and Giants are lovely teams, too. But I get all kinds of feeds showing Josh Allen's latest play because they know I like Josh Allen, right? So I know what they're doing even to me, and I know they're doing that to our kids. So the kids are being hooked on this.

So what we did - and also, these kids are walking around like zombies. They're not getting enough sleep at night, right? They are not - they're sleep-deprived because they're on their phones all night long. So what we did in New York is we said we're blocking notifications all night long, midnight until 6:00 a.m., to minors without parental consent. And I don't know a single parent who thinks it's good, so they're all going to say no.

That is now the law of New York. And we set a national standard for age verification. And thanks to advances like this, thank you, we are leading the nation. And that's why I was so proud to be named this year as the number one state in America for protecting, keeping kids safe online. I was very proud to receive that designation.

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And last year we were the first state to take on AI chatbots, and we had a bill signed that said there'd be safeguards that direct users to mental health support systems if they engage in conversations about self-harm - that was a step, it was the first time there had been regulations. And remind users that they're talking to a machine, not a human being. And this is, believe it or not, kids are starting to not know the difference, and they're starting to have better relationships with the machines because they're not critical. They try to say the nice things and bring them closer to them. It's really quite horrific what is going on.

But we have to go further. That was last year. And I want to, again, thank my partners in the Legislature and Common Sense Media for bringing yet another way to enhance the laws we have but make them even better and stronger because we're always playing catch-up, my friends. We're playing catch-up because I don't know when the day is coming when the creators of these products, the AI companies, are going to be responsible in the first place. When they're going to on their own say, "Hey, this could be harmful to kids. Maybe we put safeguards in on the front end. Maybe we have notifications stop during the night."

I don't know that I could ever count on that level of social responsibility, but perhaps it comes someday. Perhaps it comes after enough states have legislated. Perhaps it comes if enough lawsuits are filed. But it'd be nice to have that day. But in the meantime, we are going to have to keep leading here legislatively.

So this morning, you heard from Jim. Just this morning, right before I came here, had my nice Governor's pens and signed two bills: a law that'll safeguard kids from being literally coached by AI chatbots on how to harm themselves. And that is not a hypothetical. That is absolutely what is happening in situations where we have the stories of the moms who came and lobbied us - horrible, horrible stories.

And also, these machines are creating some sort of illusion and care about them when actually the opposite is occurring. So under our new law, I'm just going to read this to you, no longer will minors have access to chatbots that pretend to be their friends or their boyfriends or girlfriends. They won't [be] able to keep sensitive information about a child's emotional well-being. They'll discourage - no longer can the chatbot discourage people from seeking professional help, and they have done that. They will no longer be able to do that. No longer will they have access to chatbots that can, in any way, encourage thoughts of suicide.

It's crazy that you have to legislate this. Think about this. It is crazy that we had to sign a bill to stop this. But that shows you how far they've gone, but we've done that. And I want to recognize parents who joined us here today who've had to suffer the unthinkable, and I want them to know that their children's death, as painful as they are, are not in vain. Because of their advocacy, we're going to be able to help stop other families from going through the same trauma and grief that they're experiencing.

And I want to say this: We're not done, and we did something else this morning too. And I have two little grandkids. When a parent looks at the baby monitor and thinks that this is something keeping their child safe, that they'll know exactly if anything goes wrong, that they don't have to be right in that room, but it turns out that baby monitor - if it's internet-enabled - can literally be spying on their baby or watching a mother nursing her child in that bedroom. That is not hypothetical. That is going on. So once again, we're protecting not just our children, but the youngest, most vulnerable of all.

So you're a new parent. You're hardwired - every waking moment is to protect that child. So you buy this baby monitor, and it allows you to have freedom a little bit. You can walk in the next hall, you can go to the restroom, throw a load of laundry in. I was the mom who had a baby monitor, not internet-enabled. Didn't have - and I'm not sure the internet was invented back then. We had - I won't talk about that. But, it's just shocking. It's just shocking how bad people are sometimes. To think that there are hackers who are watching you and your baby or watching your child alone.

One mother said she heard voices in the room, and she walked in, "Where are the voices?" Someone was talking to her baby through the baby monitor. And these despicable criminals are violating this sacred bond between a mother and child when they're together. People have no idea. It's chilling. It's chilling. I want to say this: We've banned that in New York State. In New York State, we've stopped companies from sending products to the State of New York that allow this to happen. That there had to be security features. That there had to be notifications. That parents would know that there's a risk involved if you hook up to an internet-enabled baby monitor.

So I just want to be clear, I've said a lot today. You have a lot of conference participants to speak and you've had some incredible panels today - I saw all that. We're not against technological change or innovation here in New York. In fact, we have surpassed Silicon Valley and San Francisco for the most number of tech jobs, and I say that with great pride because I'm very competitive. We were number three behind Boston. Then we passed Boston, and now we passed Silicon Valley.

So I'm just - I'm sorry if you're from California. So people are coming here, the innovators, the young creative talent. We're the number one destination in the country for recent college graduates. So this is the place to innovate. And I don't want any perception that we don't embrace innovation. All we're saying is, when you create a product that can harm people in this state or harm our children, you have to get through me first. So don't go there. Don't go there.

So we're going to continue working on these issues. Again, I have amazing partners in the Legislature. I want to call them up right now. Assemblymember Alex Bores and Senator Kristen Gonzalez, who have been at my side. I want to thank them for their support. I want to thank all of you for caring enough for our children. That brings you here today, and we're not done yet. So thank you very much, everyone.