Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed three bills aimed at making the internet safer for kids on Aug. 11.
At an event at the Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County Tuesday morning, Sherrill said crafting online safety legislation has been a priority of her administration.
"With these bills, New Jersey is putting real protections in place for our kids online and giving parents real backup so they're not fighting this battle alone," the governor said. "Accountability starts now."
Sherrill was joined by state Sen. Raj Mukherji, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Assemblymember Andrea Katz as well as Saahir Vazirani, an 18-year-old advocate and co-chair of Design It For Us, a youth coalition focused on limiting the negative impact of big tech on the next generation.
Mukherji noted that while "technology may have changed, the responsibility to protect our kids has not."
"If a product is designed for children, if they know children are using the product, then safety and privacy should not be optional features," he said. "They should be the default setting."
The Kids Code Act requires big tech to design platforms with kids best interest in mind focusing on "safety over screentime and privacy over profit," she said.
It limits the data companies can collect and increases default privacy settings and shields kid accounts from adult users.
"These rules have teeth. If big tech breaks them, both the state and families will have the power to take them to court," Sherrill said.
Sherrill established the Office of Youth Online Mental Health Safety and Awareness as one of her first actions in office.
In addition to the bill holding tech companies accountable, Sherrill signed legislation Tuesday to create a Social Media Research Center and implement parameters on what the center will do.
That institution will focus on the impact and addictive nature of social media platforms. She said she expects it to be up and running this fall.
This isn't the first time Sherrill has focused on this topic. Since her time in the House of Representatives, she's focused on the mental health crisis facing kids and teens and the ways it is being compounded by social media.
The governor, who has four children of her own, has often compared the tech industry to Big Tobacco of generations past, including during her budget address earlier this year.
"My four kids are between the ages of 14 and 20. And I can tell you with certainty: Our country is failing our children when it comes to protecting them online," she said in the speech. "It's personal – to me, and to millions of parents on whom Big Tech has dumped an impossible responsibility."
During her reelection campaign in 2024, she noted that she was concerned about TikTok and the way the algorithms of social media showed extremist content to kids.
"That's incredibly worrying to me, and I think we've seen some antisemitism, some Islamophobia," she said. "I'd like to work hard to address that and then more broadly how we better protect our kids online."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Gov. Sherrill signs 3 bills aimed to protect NJ children online