Assembly Privacy And Consumer Protection Committee

to make any comments? Well, thank you, Chair Barcaian. And I just want to reflect right back at you. And I want to thank you and your committee staff as well for working with me, our committee staff, our caucus staff, as well as the LGTQ caucus members. I'm also proud to be a member of the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee And of course I want in advance to thank all of our panelists and participants here today We very interested in having this hearing because we know that it reflects something we are increasingly seeing as we are dealing with the nuances of the policymaking that we working on that social media is neither wholly good nor wholly harmful, but it's both and sometimes often at the same time. And we know that that tension can be particularly exacerbated for LGBTQ youth. For many young people, particularly on the rural areas or some of the other unsupportive environments in our state, online spaces can be a lifeline. And at the same time, they offer connection, visibility, and understanding of one's identity, a sense of belonging that may not really exist offline in their immediate surroundings. And as you mentioned, we can't ignore some of the growing body of evidence showing a real and serious harm. And this isn't listed, this is specific to just LGBTQ youth, right? We see this with all youth as well. When we think about, as you mentioned, cyberbullying, harassment, hate speech, and exploitation. But we know that some of the platform designs can drive compulsive use and negatively impact the mental health of our children. And as we have heard in prior legislative discussions, LGBTQ youth themselves report both sides of this experience, and they recognize the benefits of social media while also potentially experiencing its harms. And that dual reality is what really makes this issue so complex and nuanced. It's why a one-size-fits-all approach to a lot of this policymaking is likely to not be sufficient. And the question before us isn't whether social media should exist in young people's lives. It already does and practically it will. The question is, how do we ensure that these spaces are safer, that they're healthier and they're more supportive? And so I want to thank you for the panelists that are going to be here today to be able to talk about the lived experiences of LGBTQ youth, to talk about the role of LGBTQ-specific platforms and resources, and also the broader research and policy landscape that's happening both here in California, but as we're also going to hear in our last panel globally. So I think as we move forward, our goal should be really clear, that we intend to be able to reduce harm while preserving access to critical resources, community, and support that LGBTQs rely on. And that requires a very thoughtful and balanced policymaking, which is grounded in evidence, responsive to lived experience, and flexible enough to be able to evolve alongside technology as it evolves. And so I want to thank you again for everyone's participation. I want to thank Chair Bauer-Keyan and committee staff as well for providing this platform to be able to elevate the issues that are so important to the LGBTQ community. As you had noted, this isn't something that we all of a sudden are starting to see in this year's cohort of bills. This is an issue that's kind of come up for several years now, and so I appreciate the special attention to our LGBTQ youth. Very much looking forward to today's discussion, and I guess I'll turn it to you to kick it off.

Awesome Hello I am kicking us off today As introduced my name is Madi My pronouns are they them and I the Marketing Manager with Alliance for Trans Youth Rights and I here to share about my lived experiences as a trans person who used social media to come into my identity as a youth I still remember the first time that I heard the word transgender. It was on a TV show where a trans person was introduced in a particularly unflattering light. Every character who interacted with them belittled them, used anti-translers to refer to them, or treated their identity as a joke. It was the first time that my own experience was being described to me, and it was through the lens of vitriol and hate. Even with that as the basis for my understanding, the label resonated enough with me that I hopped online the second the episode ended so I could learn more. I was 12 years old then, and that was the start of a journey that spanned almost two decades since. My only exposure to trans people beyond the internet existed in the same vein as that initial introduction. I grew up in a small conservative town in California and went to a high school where I could count the number of out LGBTQ kids on one hand. Before I even fully understood the concept, my parents would point out gender non-conforming people on the street by laughing and saying that they were so glad that I wasn't that. Media at the time primarily painted trans people as villains, punchlines, and comedic relief. I had nowhere to turn to for genuine representation or validation, and I didn't know that exploring my identity was an option until I found the LGBTQ community online. When I first started to explore my identity, being trans wasn't talked about as widely as it is today. It was a concept that only existed in one-off forums and message boards alongside resources that were sorely lacking and glossaries that barely touched on the T in LGBT. But this was around the same time that social media was becoming a major part of so many of our daily lives, and that's what allowed me to find myself in ways I never would have been able to otherwise. At the start of my journey, social media was the safest place for me to explore what it meant to be trans. I knew I wouldn't have familial support, and I was afraid of how my peers would respond to any version of me that didn't fit their expectations. But online, I didn't have those same fears. I didn't need to worry that I was asking for too much when I told someone my chosen name. I didn't need to censor my words for fear that I was going to accidentally out myself like I did every time I sat at the dinner table. And I didn't need to feel so uncomfortable all the time. I could just be a kid who belonged. That belonging allowed me to expand my understanding of myself in so many different ways. Tumblr, for instance, is the first platform where I started to experiment with my pronouns. Tumblr is largely considered to be an anonymous and text-based social media platform. For me, that meant I was able to present myself the way I wanted to be known. The name, pronouns, and identity labels that I used were never once questioned. This was distinctly different from meeting and interacting with people in real life who often decided that my name and pronouns were optional or that they didn't suit me so they wouldn't be used. Physical spaces always made me feel like I was asking for too much to be seen as I am. Online spaces, on the other hand, allowed me to express myself without the fear of being corrected or judged. More than offering me the room to explore my identity, I also found out about trans-specific safety tips and life-saving resources by entering online spaces where trans people came together to share their experiences. I learned on social media that the safest way to wear chest binders is to take breaks every six to eight hours and to never wear them during strenuous activities or sleep. Up to that point, I was wearing my binder 24-7, including doubling up and wearing two binders to PE class. While chest binding is safe when done properly, the risk of injury increases when it's not. And I never would have known because it simply wasn't discussed anywhere else. That's not the only life-changing resource I came across on social media either. When I eventually came out to my parents, they had an explosive reaction that sent me into active crisis. I had no one to turn to for support when it came to process such a devastating rejection or even getting through the night. It was only because of a resource post I saw on social media that I knew the Trevor Project existed. And I was able to call their suicide prevention hotline. and because of that, I wasn't alone during the scariest and most vulnerable moment of my journey up to that point I can confidently say that the Trevor Project saved my life that night and I am beyond grateful I came across the post that introduced it to me when I needed it most After I connected with the Trevor Project I was directed to Trevor Space a social networking site for LGBTQ youth that became the first time I was in a dedicated space for people like me. This is where I came across other queer and trans people sharing their stories and began to understand the nuance of my own. Trevor Space is where I first saw the word non-binary, which I had never seen anywhere else, and I realized that it was the term I'd been searching for. I got to see a wide array of experiences beyond the ones that I held to. It opened my eyes in ways I couldn't have imagined based on the very limited content featuring trans people that existed anywhere else. Even as trans people began to be featured more in the media, stories about the trans experience generally only presented one version of it, the version that was most palatable. But on social media and in community spaces, palatability and appealing to the mainstream culture isn't the aim. Instead, for many of us, it's about living and sharing our truths. I remember bawling my eyes out when I first came across the Instagram account of someone who had been on hormones for over 10 years. The thought that a trans person could achieve that and that I too could not only survive but thrive 10 years into the future was just so unbelievable to me. What I saw made me realize that the future I wanted was possible, and not from second or third hand sources or fictional portrayals or the empty promise that things would get better someday, but from the actual people who are living the future that I could finally see myself living too. I began to document my story online to foster that same sense of hope in others. Through my later teens and adulthood, I built a platform that was focused on LGBTQ education through the lens of my lived experiences. I shared everything from queer history to how-to guides to calls to action and advocacy, as well as my own missteps, learning moments, and coming out process. And through it, I interacted with so many people who told me that they only came into their identity because I helped them access it. None of this is to say that social media is utopia. As someone who's been online for most of my life and who currently runs the social media for a nonprofit that serves trans youth, I'm very aware of how harmful online spaces can be, especially for youth who are already disproportionately targeted by hate. Often this hate is more pervasive than online spaces because people feel that they can get away with more when they're hidden behind the mask of anonymity. In speaking to my own experiences, I first want to say that addressing the hate I received online was far more manageable compared to addressing the hate I faced in real life. As the only out trans person at my high school, I didn't have many friends, but for me that meant more than just sitting alone during lunch every day. It meant that I was constantly being bullied and harassed by my classmates, from people following me into the bathroom to asking what was in my pants and others trying to physically find out themselves. I was 13, 14, 15 years old then, a scared kid who didn't know what to do to combat hate that had such immediate and dire consequences. The hate I experienced online was different, if not in content, than in the way I was able to regulate it. Standing up to hate is a skill that I actively built online, and I shouldn't have had to, nor do I think it's the job of vulnerable youth to learn life lessons through their trauma, to be clear. But I adapted to the situation the same way that I learned which parts of my school campus to avoid. I was able to step away from the computer and regulate myself without fear of direct physical harm. and even though my hands would shake when I eventually returned to it, I found that I could challenge the haters or educate them or simply block them if it wasn't worth the anxiety or stress. I was able to empower myself with tools that have become the reason that I can walk into the Capitol today when anti-trans protesters are yelling slurs and hate speech because a bill advocating for trans rights is being heard. Now I know how to deal with hate when the people behind the screen are unmasked. I also want to emphasize that the community I built online was full of people who were with me through the high moments and the low. Whenever I received a hate comment on a post, I also experienced an outpouring of love and support that drowned it out. People across the country, people I had never once had a direct face-to-face interaction with were there to rally behind me even when my own parents and classmates refused to do the same. They offered words of support and encouragement, debunked the hate alongside me, and poked fun at whoever was on the other end of it. Far more often I felt supported during moments of hate online than I felt knocked down. It all but became a reprieve from the harassment and discrimination I usually was on the receiving end of. I began to truly understand what the heart of community is. I know that the instances of cyberbullying that I faced are tame in comparison to what so many other LGBTQ youth experience, and I know that my takeaways are not universal. That's what makes the approach to safety and protection in online spaces far more nuanced than a one-size-fits-all. There's no doubt in my mind that my story would be far more bleak if I didn't have access to social media. I would have been lonely, starved for the community and connection that I didn't find in physical, real-world spaces until I was 20 years old. I would have been exposed only to the worst parts of the trans experience—lack of familial and community support, extreme isolation, resource scarcity, and hate that made me feel like that's all my life was ever going to be. I wouldn't have known that there was a future worth holding on for, or that there was anyone in the world who would ever see me as me. But because I was able to explore and express my identity in online spaces, I have flourished into someone that I'm genuinely proud to be. I found the name and pronouns that bring me euphoria every time I hear them. I got involved in the advocacy work that has become my career. I built a community of support that stretches beyond the screen. And I did it because I believed in fighting for the future that I saw possible then and wanted to make sure I could see for myself. And now here I am, a 29-year-old trans person who has survived and, yes, thrived for 17 whole years after I first learned the word trans. The voice that I began trusting and growing into at 12 years old is the same voice that I'm using to share my story here today. It is incredibly important that we take stories like mine into account when approaching issues that affect youth experiences in online spaces. These decisions have a direct, tangible impact on the lives of LGBTQ youth in California and across the country. And with stakes this high, our youth deserve the consideration. Thank you for your time.

I'll do my best. Good afternoon. My name is Shea Gardner. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the Director of Policy and Research for LGBT Tech. Thank you to the Assembly members and to the LGBTQ caucus for the invitation to speak today about social media, LGBTQ plus youth, and the considerations that lawmakers should be keeping in mind with both. LGBT Tech is a national nonprofit working at the intersection of technology, digital equity, privacy, and civil rights. Our policy work focuses on ensuring that LGBTQ plus people can safely and equitably access digital tools and spaces. Alongside this, our programs have supported 172 LGBTQ plus community centers across the United States with grant and device distribution, including 21 centers in California. Between 2023 and 2025, our programmatic outreach reached nearly 14,000 LGBTQ plus Californians. Through our program and our policy efforts, we see every day that technology makes the difference in how members of our community find opportunity and find each other, including the young members of our community who grew up with and on social media. To be clear, platforms, online platforms, can and do expose young people to serious harms. LGBTQ plus youth experience harassment, misinformation, doxing, predatory behavior, and content moderation failures at significant and disproportionate rates. Transgender youth, LGBTQ plus youth of color, and those in non-affirming homes often carry the highest burden of those harms Any serious conversation about youth online safety must first acknowledge that And acknowledging that is not the same thing as accepting exclusion as the solution The choice between lawmakers is not between accepting today platform environment and cutting young people off from social media entirely. We believe there is a broad middle ground of serious and access-preserving opportunities. Young people are full of questions. Questions about the world, questions about themselves. And for so many LGBTQ plus youth, the first answer to those questions does not come from an offline source. It comes from seeing someone or something online. That moment of feeling reflected in someone else is certainly not unique to LGBTQ plus people. We acknowledge the extraordinary impact of representation for young people all the time from astronauts to K-pop demon hunters. Similarly, for many LGBTQ plus individuals, social media is the first place we hear the word non-binary, transgender, bisexual, queer in a way that is not mocking or hostile to us. It's the first place young people find other young people that feel the same way they do or they see adults like them living a full life. That's identity formation. LGBT tech has forthcoming national polling that reflects this reality. Among LGBTQ plus adults who came of age with social media available, nearly nine in 10 first joined them as minors. And when asked what they were looking for when joining, significant majorities pointed to LGBTQ plus specific needs from expressing themselves more openly than they could online to exploring and learning about identities and experiences within the community. Early platform access is often where this community begins. At the same time, our polling tells a more complicated and a more honest story, one where respondents are reporting very high and very similar levels of anti-LGBTQ plus harassment in both online and offline spaces. This makes sense because digital platforms and the ways they are utilized is not a silo. It does not exist in a silo. It's the same anti-LGBTQ plus misinformation and discrimination of our real world being replicated online and in the worst cases being amplified online. That said, high rates of harm do not make these spaces feel disposable for those on them. After we polled about harm, we asked about safety. Among our transgender respondents, only 44% said they feel safe in physical offline locations, while 67% said the same about the Internet. It is true that online spaces are not safe enough. It is equally true that for many, online spaces can still be more navigable and more protective than the offline spaces available to them. So I know that is the balance everyone here is being asked to strike, reducing real harms while preserving the access that allows LGBTQ plus youth to find possibility and support. It is in no way a simple balance. And in recognizing that, I also want to acknowledge the reality of the policy environment in this building. California lawmakers have been working on youth online safety for years, and we understand that many field platforms have not always been good partners in that process. LGBT tech is not asking this committee to trust platforms more. We are asking California to regulate the harms more precisely. California already has an emerging youth online safety infrastructure, with notably age bracket signals set to become the ground floor within this social media legislative landscape here. That means California is not starting from zero. The question now for us is what this infrastructure will be used for. Used to provide safer defaults and stronger privacy settings, age awareness can be part of a very protective framework. But used to deny account access, it becomes something very different. Now without getting too in the weeds I want to take a moment to discuss why for LGBTQ plus youth account access and personalization specifically matter A read Internet is not necessarily community An account is how a young person finds builds and maintains an experience that changes with them and their growing needs. An account is part of our infrastructure of digital belonging. So when a policy says a young person may view some public information but may not create or maintain an account, that distinction may make sense on paper but does not reflect how LGBTQ plus youth actually use these spaces. It also does not avoid our privacy problem. California's age signal law is not the same thing as requiring every user to upload a government ID or submit biometric data. That distinction matters, and I want to be very fair about it. But once age classification becomes the basis for account eligibility, we're watching a barrier of entry be erected in front of every user. To identify who is under 16, systems must also identify who is 16 or 17 and who is 18 plus. That makes a minimum age account restriction not only an access control policy for youth, but one we fear risks denial of access for everyone who wants to participate in covered spaces. Adults who rely on pseudonymity for safety, housing insecure or homeless youth, youth using shared devices, these are several of the many groups that can be affected. Meaningful enforcement is unlikely to remain neatly contained to just under 16 users. In our polling, 77% of LGBTQ plus adults said they were concerned about having to disclose personal or sensitive data to platforms to prove their identity or age. That number rises to 86% among transgender respondents. Three-fourths of LGBTQ plus adults are concerned about policies that make it harder for LGBTQ plus youth to access those spaces. Among transgender respondents, that rose to a whopping 94%. I also want to encourage caution around defining personalized feeds in a way that presumes harmful, addictive, or engagement-maximizing features, and therefore applies to any system where user-generated content is recommended or prioritized based on the user's behavior or interests. A young person may not know the right term or the name of an organization or what kind of support does exist for them. Discovery matters because young people often begin with a feeling before they have the vocabulary for it. So if the harm is manipulative design, regulate manipulative design. If the harm is harassment, require better harassment tools and enforcement. If the harm is data exploitation, restrict data collection and use. But if the remedy is to deny account-based access, the policy has moved beyond safety standards into exclusion. That exclusion also creates its own risks. Not only are platforms losing incentive to design with youth safety in mind, but a young person who is barred from a mainstream platform is unlikely to simply stop seeking connection. They may move to a less visible and less moderated space. They may be less likely to report harassment or predatory content if they do not leave the original space, because reporting would reveal they were not supposed to be there in the first place. And ultimately, they are likely to lose some level of access to what safety tools or crisis pathways do exist on better resource platforms, and to nonprofit spaces. So finally, I want to end with two points. One, digital policy cannot be divorced from the broader political environment we are living in. Across the country, LGBTQ plus books, school supports, identity documents, health resources, and transgender individuals themselves are being targeted. Even in California, a state with deep LGBTQ plus history and some of our strongest civil rights commitments, not every home or school or space is affirming. When offline environments broadly become less safe, as they absolutely are right now, digital access becomes more important certainly not less And two California choices matter beyond California Your technology policy rarely stays here where California leads other states watch If California creates a model of youth safety built around age-gated access and account exclusion, that model can and will be copied by states that do not share California's commitments to LGBTQ plus young people. In states where our expression is actively being framed as harmful to youth, a well-intended architecture from here can be misapplied to exempt or even restrict LGBTQ plus resources and community. California should not become the state that recognized LGBTQ plus youth were facing rising hostility everywhere and responded by narrowing one of the few pathways that they still have to support online. California can demand better from platforms without trying to make vulnerable young people disappear from them. The evidence supports serious action. It does not require exclusion. Thank you so much. And I look forward to your questions.

Good afternoon. My name is Casey Pick. My pronouns are she and her, and I serve as the Senior Director of Law and Policy for the Trevor Project, the nation's leading provider of suicide prevention and crisis intervention services for LGBTQ plus youth. I'm glad for the opportunity to speak with you today on this topic. The simple fact that this hearing is happening shows that people care about this community's mental health and well-being, and I'm here to say that that matters. LGBTQ plus youth are more than three times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. To address this tragic reality, every day the Trevor Project works to save young lives by connecting highly trained counselors with young people whenever they need support, 24-7, via telephone, chat, or text. Our counselors have heard from youth who have been subjected to the worst the Internet has to offer. And from youth whose safety plan for the next time the world starts spinning out of control includes watching videos that make them laugh, relax, or feel less alone. What sets Trevor apart in this conversation and the reason why I'm here today is our mission and our direct, everyday, practical experience with young people and the ways they look for support, community, and connection on and offline. Much of my testimony will be drawn from years of national surveys we've conducted on LGBTQ plus youth mental health and well-being, each of which represents tens of thousands of young people between the ages of 13 and 24. It likely won't surprise you at this point that the evidence consistently points to this issue being nuanced and complicated. An overwhelming majority of LGBTQ plus youth tell us that social media has both positive and negative impacts on their mental health and well-being. 96% positive, 88% negative. For many of these young people, the Internet is both a risk and a lifeline. It can expose them to harassment, bullying, misinformation, and harmful content specifically targeting their sexual orientation and gender identity. The FBI has issued warnings about online sexual exploitation specifically targeting LGBTQ youth and young people with mental health struggles. And as an advocate in this space, I cannot turn away from the parents who crowded into a congressional hearing interrogating social media CEOs. many of these parents who carried photographs of their children who died by suicide. These are serious concerns and they merit a serious response. At the same time, as has been said, social media is often the first place LGBTQ plus youth discover language about who they are, see people like themselves reflected positively, or find peers who accept and affirm them. As a participant in our recent Sharing Spaces Roundtable conversation put it, quote, online community is where I first found my community. That was where I could text my online friends and say, you guys, this is what just happened. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. and they were the ones who definitely in the long run not only saved my life, but made it better. That young person is not alone. One of the most powerful and consistent findings we have in our research into protective factors is that spaces in communities where LGBTQ plus young people feel welcome and accepted can significantly lower their odds of considering and attempting suicide. Notably for today's conversation, LGBTQ plus youth found supportive spaces online at a much higher rate, 77% of them, than all other spaces in their lives, including at school, 57%, or at home at just 52%. This dynamic is even stronger for transgender youth. LGBTQ plus young people who felt safe and understood in at least one online space reported 20% lower odds of attempting suicide in the past year and 15% lower odds of recent anxiety, particularly for LGBTQ plus youth of color. So ensuring access to supportive online spaces is therefore particularly important right now, as safe and affirming real-life spaces, from schools to LGBTQ community events to even the books and media that tell their stories, are often being systematically targeted and taken away. For many LGBTQ plus youth today, the only place they can find acceptance is online. And that's why, for more than a decade, our suicide prevention work has included fostering peer support through Trevor Space, a moderated social networking platform that provides a welcoming environment for young people to learn more about their identities, find peer support, and make friends, similar to a virtual community center for LGBTQ plus youth. From a mental health perspective, Trevor Space provides critical peer-to-peer connection and helps combat feelings of loneliness and isolation. The virtual nature of this platform is important, as it helps overcome barriers to in-person support, such as a lack of transportation, experiences with discrimination, or physical threats. and offers a space where many feel safer and more comfortable expressing themselves compared to an in-person environment, as we heard earlier. One user described this impact by saying, quote, I'm really grateful for Trevor Space. I live in a small conservative town and don't have many like-minded people I can talk to. There are some LGBT events in the closest city, but they're all 30 to 45 minutes away, and I don't have my license. Having something like Trevor Space that is accessible is very helpful because having a sense of community and people who I can talk to is very important to me. To understand how best to foster this kind of positive youth development, we've conducted extensive research with over 600 Trevor Space users, multiple LGBTQ youth advisory groups, all approved by an institutional review board for ethical practices. which has proven that regular use of Trevor space leads to positive mental health outcomes With access to Trevor Space young people report having higher levels of developmental relationships a sense of empowerment, support, community, positive values, social competencies, and social responsibility. To another young Trevor Space user, this means being able to say, quote, I've found some great friends. I've figured out my identity, and I've had an awesome time with the community. I also do my best to help people by responding to their posts about mental health or events or asks for advice. And in turn, I've gotten some really helpful advice and support. What this tells us is that properly designed and moderated, online platforms have the ability to bring youth together, connect them to the support that they need, positively impact their mental health and well-being, and encourage them to actively want to help and support others. As proud as I am of Trevor for building this kind of community, we aren't, certainly shouldn't be, unique in safely providing young people important access to connection, information, and vital resources. The benefits of online platforms designed to promote healthy development for marginalized communities, particularly LGBTQ plus young people, have been endorsed and promoted by the nation's top experts in mental welfare and development, in child welfare and development. This includes former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who made a point of highlighting these benefits in his 2023 advisory on social media and youth mental health. Protecting youth mental health online is a complex and evolving topic, and there are no simple solutions to addressing the very real harms associated with social media, but that does not mean there are no solutions. Trevor is eager to work with all of you to share what we've learned from young people directly and help maximize social media's benefits while minimizing the very real harms. Ultimately, social media is a tool in a form of communication, and at Trevor, we use it both to speak to the youth who need us and to hear what they have to say. No other mechanism is more effective at meeting young people where they are today. Our presence on all of the major platforms is a constant dialogue and a key part of how we are able to serve LGBTQ plus youth. Sometimes a single social media post from our feed or from public figures that we partner with can make a bad day better for a young person who desperately needs a reminder that they are seen and valued exactly as they are. Our national surveys, which as you've heard today, provide unique insights into an understudied population, would not be possible without online recruitment. And when crisis strikes, social media is often the first place that young people go seeking help, including connecting with Trevor's 24-7 crisis counselors when our contact information crosses their feed. Especially now when the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's LGBTQ Specialized Services, 988-plus-3, have been taken offline, we should think very carefully to avoid shutting the door on one of the only remaining ways vulnerable LGBTQ plus youth can find support when they need it. There's so much more I could say, and I truly hope that this is only the beginning of the conversation. Thank you and I look forward to your questions Thank you and I can promise this is only the beginning of the conversation We only have so much time today but this is important

Remember Warren? Yeah, sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to our panelists for really providing, I think, a range here of the lived experiences, from one's own personal self to community to really appreciate the tech equity and tech perspective as well that you're thinking about. I want to start with Mari. So, you know, I'm sitting here reflecting as well, kind of like the ages that we've been through as a community and sort of how we find ourselves, find information. And somebody who came of age in the 80s and 90s, there were bookstores and there were alternative weekly papers, right? And maybe those had resources in there. And I was lucky to be in urban environments, of course, that had resources to those. And that was a way that, you know, I could, uh, I mean, I remember going to my first, uh, uh, uh, uh, Lambda, uh, bookstore, um, that had resources and very much felt like a safe space, um, where I could start to breathe and, you know, be able to see, uh, things in a very, very controlled and positive environment, um, that I was looking for, for exploration and for, for just kind of like, you know, self-awareness. Um, and the same thing, I think for a lot of the, opportunities that we're seeing if you were fortunate, even that era, even still today, a lot of our college campuses don't have adequate resources for community. But I did. And that was nice because I saw peers like me. And, you know, it came of age in, you know, the 2000s or the, maybe in the early 2010s, you know, you would think about just the basic internet, which is still around today. And, you know, that, you know, expanded drastically, you know, the ability to find resources and to search and to be able to find things like you. But again, you know, we're sort of lacking that algorithmic thing that I think is starting to kind of creep into our lives and sort of distort experiences online and or AL chat rooms, right, that were very intentional and not to say that there was a number of troll on there, right, that like we get in there and, you know, be harassed and be difficult. But by and large, generally, you're finding people like you. To your point, if you realized it was like, you know, what it is you were looking for. And I guess I raise this because it is kind of an open question. If we didn't have access to social media, and particularly those with algorithmic-based platforms that are creating this duopoly of benefits and harms, put that aside. How might you have found community, found identity, found love and compassion and a vision for yourself?

experience was. And what was the one-to-one interaction sort of, what was the nature of that like online platform? Is it, you know, something along the lines of, you know, something very broad and algorithmic, like an Instagram or an X or a Twitter account or something more

like were. Fantastic. And I'm wondering for, you know, from the tech perspective, I jot it down and I really appreciate I think what your direction is very succinctly that we are also debating too that what we need to do is be able to figure out how to regulate harms more precisely and I guess from the tech expert

what do you mean by that? What are some ideas you have broadly about how we could be thinking more precisely about regulation and legislation?

No, and we should. What, though, might be your opinion of the focus that we're debating pointedly this year around algorithmic-based platforms as opposed to other even social media platforms, online platforms that don't have that component?

Yeah, and that's, you know, when we heard our colleagues, Bill, earlier in a committee hearing, you know, that's one thing that wasn't lost on me is, you're right, all engagement is bad engagement, but do we recognize that, yeah, things are harmful and we should mitigate for that, but they are harmful. And so we're willing to accept that because there's also a net positive benefit. And I know we'll come back to that maybe a little bit more in the second panel. And, Mark, you had mentioned, too, that you had some of those negative experiences, but you knew to step back and you knew to get off. That's great. And probably a lot of individuals are able to do that. a lot also find themselves sucked in for lack of a more or eloquent term. How did you sort of recognize the warning signs and that that should be your response? Yeah. And actually, that was

you're here as well as one of our eminent organizations nationally to be able to highlight the good work that you do to engage with LGBTQ youth and kind of help them and be a resource, a critical life-saving resource. We probably couldn't predict how many lives have been saved because you exist and you do the work that you do. And you mentioned as well your own platform, Trevor Space, which I wouldn't think would be sort of subject to what we're thinking of and sort of any potential limitations on algorithmic-based kind of use. But maybe I wanted to see if you knew from your kind of inputs, and feel free to get back to committee, how many individuals may have found Trevor Project in the first place because they linked through from an algorithmic-based resource center, right? Like, you know, if you're on Instagram and all of a sudden things start to kind of realize that maybe you want to know about Trevor Project. How have you been able to track, like, you know, where you're able to find audiences and make them aware and therefore, you know, make your resources useful because of these? Now, I don't have the specific hard numbers on that.

Thank you. And I just thought by last note, you had mentioned as well, like, you know, the era that we're living in with this, just cutting off of 988 and the press resources. And, you know, I'd be remiss to not acknowledge our colleague, Senator Gonzalez, who's leading on that effort to be able to not just through policy, be able to restore that here, but also a priority for our caucus to have the budget support here. So at least within California, if we navigate our budget conversations well, that's something that can still be a resource. So thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, that is very much the factor here is at what point does a tool go wrong? Things like the autoplay on videos, that's what caused the situation with the constant playing of the Minneapolis shooting. An endless scroll, that is something that we have significant research that suggests that an interruption is beneficial for letting folks get out of that zone. So there are definitely ways to encourage better design on that front. I think where there are real concerns and sometimes in the conversation more broadly is the discussion that a personalized feed is per se addictive. And that's what we're really trying to surface here.

It's what is that feed designed to do and how is it designed to operate? Yeah. Yeah, it's, I think, part of what we mean when we say being more precise in the legislating is figuring out what the features are and what the specific experiences are that are being had within those feeds that are negative and harmful to the individuals on them, right, versus the overarching assumption that personalized is bad generally. and I completely lost my train of thought for the end of the sentence but yes you're okay you're in thank you

laser focused on? Yeah. So firstly, I want to say in a, I know a lot of this conversation has, has drifted towards the idea of age eligibility around social media. I know that is a huge part of the conversation right now. Part of the, of the reason we are so fearful of that is, you know, we feel like that takes the accountability that should be on the platforms and asks our community to pay the tab instead. And we are very concerned about that changing the rules of access for everybody relying on these platforms, but in particular, our youth. So I wanted to make sure I said that at the beginning of your remarks. You also mentioned,

prescriptions about how to handle this issue there is a ground floor level here that I really enjoy talking about which is that need for protections for everybody I know California has done incredible work in the space of data privacy for Californians We are crossing our fingers every six months when it comes to the federal level on that. But also kind of recognizing what are the parts of this experience that we are focusing in on young users, on minors and needing to improve that, that actually do need to be improved for everybody. When we are talking about, for example, the data collection and use in ways that's very targeted, right? The commercial use of that data to target individuals is something that should be for every adult. So I won't go deeper into that, right? But that's just kind of the, I think that is the first level here is saying, what is every user on these social media platforms missing in a safe experience? Building on top of that then is looking at the infrastructure that California has and is building, I think, especially with these age signals, right? That is infrastructure that can be used to do kind of specific improvements at that point without the need for an age eligibility, an age ban, an age block. That is very much a place we are concerned about. One of the conversations we have is around, when it comes to young users, is around the reduction of contact with adult users on a platform. That is something that can happen once you have age signaling. That is a specific harm that can be addressed. So, again, for fear of continuing to talk far too much. I think that is one great example, is the reduction of contact there. Default by safety, excuse me, safety by default for users who, you know, where the age signal is identifying them, you know, of a certain age, as well as requirements for platform tools to be provided to them as they are aging into 16, 17, and especially 18 when the wild, wild west is now all there in front of them. And I'll say that Roblox, which now does age verification differently, one of the questions I asked was, we asked them was, are you now saying that like eight year olds can't play with adults? And the answer was no. So to your point, it is something that once they're doing it, they can absolutely say, okay, this Roblox game is for under 13. We're not going to let them play with adults, but it's a choice that without some policy isn't happening.

Sorry, you were going to say. Certainly.

you know, meta within the past year, like greatly reduced their protections against hate speech and their community guidelines. And it was so bad that, you know, I know so many, so many, you know, queer and trans people who actually got off of Instagram and Facebook because they were like, I don't want to be on a platform, you know, that doesn't protect, you know, my community. And I think what's really interesting is that it wasn't the algorithm that drove them away. It wasn't the community itself. It was the platform doing, you know, making these rules, making these changes. And, you know, for all intents and purposes, you know, explicitly saying like, yeah, we don't really care enough about this community to be putting in the work.

You know, that really is like where I think that the problem we need to like, I think that that's the problem we need to be addressing, like first and foremost. And you're right, like encouragement, you know, isn't enough. And it does just feel like at this point, we're shifting to being like, okay, well, like we're seeing that the platform isn't doing this thing. So now we're going to lean on, you know, the people who are already vulnerable, you know, who can't do anything about, you know, all of these like changes that are being made. Um, and so, uh, when I, when I think about things like, uh, you know, uh, the fact that age verification could very well include like, you know, government IDs and, and, you know, facial data, I'm like, I don't want meta to have that. Like, you know, as somebody who doesn't even trust meta, when, you know, I get hate comments on my posts, like, I don't, I don't, like, I'm not compelled to be like, you know, here as somebody who is an adult and, and should have access to, you know, the spaces that I want to have access to like that. And so, yeah, I think it really is just like all part of like such a broad like conversation. And then I do think is why like being so precise about the way that like we're approaching it matters. Thank you. And just one more quick question. So on the Trevor Project, I know you offer a lot of different services, resources. Are you finding, and I don't know if you know this off the top of your head, but are there certain services that folks in the LGBTQ community are gravitating towards more than others? I mean, I'm hearing just kind of like anecdotally, because we've been working on some tech mental health stuff in the budget subcommittee, and was talking with schools in my district, and people were talking about how kids are wanting to go more to on-person and face-to-face experiences rather than online spaces And so I don know if you seeing kind of like the in crisis support be more used than other kind of online options or how that working

I mean, the hate and jumping in on Drag Queen Story Hour, right, is well organized by extremist forces.

I mean, that's part of where you run into these challenges. You will have some accounts with millions of followers that are driving anti-LGBTQ misinformation. And that is something that, you know, when that drives engagement, when that gets amplified, that's a problem I would love to see solved. Thank you. Thank you so much.

little bit about sort of how you, your space is designed? Certainly. So Trevor Space is, we are a nonprofit organization. This is one program that we operate and it is a fairly simple platform. Young people between the ages of 13 and 24 are able to make an account where they can then participate in forums, just ongoing conversations. And those forums are publicly visible. They range a wide range of topics, everything from the new Taylor Swift album to a forum to talk about pronouns and names that you might be thinking about. So folks are able to have those kinds of communication. There are also clubs where you just have groups of young folks who have similar interests who are able to talk to each other, share stories. What you don't see on Trevor Space is an endless scroll. You do not see autoplay of videos. You do see the ability to engage in reactions and respond to user content, a preset reaction that probably speaks to just the mental health focus of Traverse Space is an ouch button, something that indicates of, oh, that sounds like that hurts and I feel for you. So you do get that kind of engagement and interaction. Young people are able to have direct messages to continue that conversation. All of this is in an environment that has significant moderation. So we have moderators who are very much involved. And part of what we was talking about the positive youth development research where engagement with Trevor Space actually has positive outcomes, including things like social skills, which honestly, for a lot of our young folks today is something that post-pandemic is a struggle. Our terms of service, our guidelines, the social norms that are built on Trevor Space are geared towards emotional regulation and conflict resolution and communicating clearly. This is the sort of thing, it's not something that's necessarily even imposed top down from Trevor. This is something that is built up from the users themselves, from our youth advisory communities. But it's something that I think even in my storytelling of we learn how to take care of each other. And that's a value that is permeated through a space like Trevor space, where priority one for us is safety. not just physical, but emotional and mental.

Great. Thank you so much first to the committee for the opportunity to testify today, and also thank you to the panelists from that first panel for providing their lived experiences and the context. I think that's so important. It helps to really highlight the importance of the conversation we're having today. So that was great. My name is Dr. Supreet Maughan. I am, I use she, her pronouns, and I'm director of research at Common Sense Media. We're a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping families navigate media and technology, and we've been researching young people's digital lives and their experiences with technology for over two decades. For LGBTQ plus young people, social media has the potential to both help and hurt. It is truly a double-edged sword, one that can be a source of community and affirmation while also being a space of disproportionate harm. That duality is really central to what I want to share today. Before diving into the possible harms and benefits of social media on LGBTQ plus youth, I want us to better understand who they are when they arrive at these platforms. In a 2024 Common Sense Media survey conducted alongside our partners at Hope Lab, we surveyed over 1,200 young people ages 14 to 22 with oversamples of LGBTQ plus youth to learn more about their experiences in online spaces. Nearly half of the LGBTQ plus young people in our survey reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms compared to a quarter of the non-LGBTQ plus peers. So roughly twice the rate of depressive symptoms for the LGBTQ plus youth. This same study found that youth with depressive symptoms were more vulnerable overall to social media harms. So they're more likely to report feelings of social comparison in these online spaces, more likely to be exposed to harmful content, and also more likely to engage and compulsive usage patterns. 64% of youth with these depressions symptoms say they feel other people's lives are better than their own when they're in using social media and in these online spaces compared to 38 percent of those with no depressive symptoms. This background of higher depressive symptomatology and the potential limitation for in-person community suggests that LGBTQ plus youth may be impacted by social media in a really unique way. And indeed, our research findings largely support the same. To sort of set the stage for social media usage broadly, a 2021 research report that was conducted by us at Common Sense Media found that teens spend more than eight and a half hours a day using screen media for non-school purposes, and tweens, so ages 8 to 12, spend more than five and a half hours a day using media for non-school purposes. When it comes to online video sites like YouTube and TikTok and more traditional social media sites like Instagram and Snapchat, both teens and tweens are spending a lot of time on these online platforms. Well over half of the teens and tweens in that survey were watching online videos on sites like YouTube and TikTok every single day. And more than six in 10 teens were using traditional social media platforms regularly. And traditional social media use like Snapchat, Instagram is also growing amongst 8 to 12-year-olds as well, with almost 40% of tweens in our survey reporting having ever used those sites. So what do we know? We know that kids across the board are using social media a whole lot. And we know that for LGBTQ plus youth, they are coming to these platforms with potentially higher depressive symptomatology. So when we take all of those things together and we look at the potential for benefits and harms from these social media sites, there are clear positives and potential negatives that really do emerge. On the positive side, about three quarters of LGBTQ plus social media users say that these platforms are important in helping them feel less alone. And 89% of LGBTQ plus youth encounter comments that celebrate their queer identities with very similar percentages encountering content that affirms intersectional identities and body positive content. So these communities may offer really unique connection and affirmation. But as I stated in the beginning, this is truly a double-edged sword. Three-quarters of LGBTQ plus youth also encounter homophobic comments, at least with some regularity, and similar percentages report encountering transphobic comments. And many queer youth, 72% in our study, also feel that public posting would expose them to harassment, suggesting that these spaces may not be promoting expression for those vulnerable young people who may instead be choosing self-censorship as a way to protect themselves. And platforms are often just not doing enough to protect our vulnerable youth. A recent research report released by GLAAD, a nonprofit that's focused on LGBTQ advocacy, found that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and disinformation can translate to offline harms, and that platforms are largely failing to mitigate this harmful content that violates their own policies. So while, and not only are these platforms failing to moderate harmful anti-LGBTQ material that violates their policies, they're also frequently suppressing or blocking legitimate LGBTQ expression. So this includes wrongful takedown of LGBTQ accounts and creators, mislabeling LGBTQ content as adult or explicit and other kinds of suppression of LGBTQ voices Not only do these spaces present harm potentially to LGBTQ plus young people but the potential benefits that they could be reaping in these spaces may not be amplified in the ways that they should because of the design of these platforms and the limitations that are placed on LGBTQ plus expression. Across our research, the most consistent binding is that young people who stand to gain the most from social media may be disproportionately at risk due to the harmful elements of media design. And when that harm includes hateful and possibly life-threatening content, this is an urgent tension that really needs to be considered. Let me close with what I think is the most important thing that this committee should take from our research and from my testimony. LGBTQ plus youth arrive at social media with unique vulnerabilities that really need to be considered. They may be carrying a greater depressive burden than their peers and a lack of in-person community support. But when they arrive in these online spaces, they encounter homophobic and transphobic content at high rates, and many of them cannot openly express themselves without perceived risk. Platforms that are supposed to have built-in protections are often not moderating harmful content and instead allowing hate speech to flourish while suppressing LGBTQ plus expression. Certainly some LGBTQ plus youth find community and affirmation online, and that absolutely matters, but our data shows that the benefits that they find may be hard to access, more precarious, and less protected than they should be. This same space may pose serious risks to LGBTQ plus youth due to the nature of the design. The young people who have the most to gain from social media are also far too often the ones who are most exposed to its harms. Thank you.

Dr. Young, are you there? Yes, I am here.

Can you hear me?

Is that going?

All right, well, good afternoon, chair, members of the committee and caucus. Yes, thank you for the opportunity.

For some young people, social media is not only entertainment, it's one of the few places where they can ask questions or find people who understand their experiences. At the same time, online spaces can clearly become risk environments. In an early study of about 120 social media registered men who have sex with men, most of whom were Latino or Black African American, we found that meeting partners through online social media sites was associated with several sexual risk behaviors, including exchanging sex for food, drugs, or a place to stay, and having more new sexual partners. Now, I would not interpret that as proof that social media causes risk itself, but it does show that digital environments can shape behavior, especially for vulnerable populations. Work on cyberbullying points to a similar conclusion. In our view of social media and cyberbullying, we describe cyberbullying as a public health concern associated with mental and behavioral health issues and increased suicide risk. We also noted that social media can provide a platform for using private information against others. That's especially important for LGBTQ youth. Privacy, identity, and safety are deeply connected. A harmful interaction online may not only be embarrassing or upsetting. It may expose identity, increase stigma, or make a young person less willing to seek help. We also learned in a social media monitoring study among college students that online distress can be visible, but difficult to act on responsibly. Our team unexpectedly identified a student expressing suicidal thoughts on X. We tried to connect the student to psychological services at the university, but encountered barriers, including fake online activity and uncertainty about how institutions should respond to risk detected through social media. The lesson is that seeing risk is not enough. Platforms, schools, researchers, and health systems need clear protocols, trained support, privacy safeguards, and referral pathways. Now, the other side of my research is that online communities can be intentionally structured to improve health behavior. In a mixed method study using social media groups for HIV education and prevention among, again, primarily black and Latino men who have sex with men, participants voluntarily engaged in about 500 conversations over 12 weeks on the online community we created for them. They discussed HIV prevention and testing, knowledge, stigma, advocacy, MSN culture, And participants who posted about HIV and STI prevention and testing had substantially higher odds of requesting a home-based HIV self-testing kit and adjusted odds of 11. In a more recent California randomized control trial we enrolled 900 Los Angeles Black and Latino men who have sex with men in a 12 peer online community intervention Compared to the control condition participants who belong to a social media community without peers the intervention participants were more likely to report recent HIV self-testing and reduce substance use. Retention staying in the study was greater than 93%, which is pretty high, and we attribute that to the involvement of peers in social media. In another study, we found that peer-led online communities can increase community cohesion and that these network changes, becoming friends with another, appeared associated with positive health behaviors like increased HIV prevention and testing. In a mental health trial, the same peer-led online community type intervention increased requests for anxiety resources and self-coping. I want to be careful about generalizing for these studies. They were conducted not among minors and most were not specifically studies of LGBTQ youth, but they show an important behavioral principle and that's online peer environments can be designed to improve health and well-being. They can be structured around trust, support, stigma reduction, health information and help seeking, or they can be left to systems optimized mainly for attention and engagement. Now, so what does this mean for California policy? As California has already moved beyond simple screen type messaging by focusing on design features, including personalized feeds, notifications, like counts, age. And I think that's an important direction. And my recommendations are related to what comes next. So first, I think we need to measure whether youth become safer, not only whether access declines. If a policy reduces account access, but youth move to private accounts, anonymous spaces, gaming communities, VPNs, shared devices, or newer platforms with less moderation, less visibility, then the policy may displace harm rather than reduce it. This is particularly important for LGBTQ plus youth who may lose access to affirming communities while still being exposed to risk elsewhere. Related to that, one practical recommendation is data transparency. Platforms should not necessarily be treated as responsible for every harm that occurs online, but they should be responsible for measuring and reporting safety relevant data. Right now, much of what we need to know, things like exposure to harassment, reporting rates, response times, recommendation pathways, use of safety tools, movement to less moderated spaces, things that we've just been discussing, much of that information is held privately by platforms. Without privacy protective, independently auditable data, California cannot know whether youth safety policies are reducing harm or simply moving it somewhere else. Second, let's distinguish passive access to information from interactive access to community. A young person may still be able to view a coming out video or read information without an account, but viewing content is not the same as asking questions, joining a moderated group, receiving peer support, or building an affirming community. For many LGBTQ youth, the interactive component may be what matters most. Finally, let's distinguish engagement maximizing systems from intentionally moderated peer support environments. A personalized feed optimized to keep a teenager scrolling is different from a moderated community designed to provide feedback. support, reduce stigma, connect youth to resources and respond to risk. And policy should recognize that difference. So in closing, my overall recommendation would be a harm reduction approach. For LGBTQ youth, social media can be a source of harm, but it can also be a source of support. The most effective policies will not treat social media as a single exposure. they'll ask whether the online environments youth use are safe, supportive, accountable, and designed to reduce harm. The goal should not be simply to make youth less visible online. The goal should be to make youth safer. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your

Hope Lab. Thank you, Dr. Young. Perfect. Thank you all for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Amy Green. I'm a clinical psychologist focused on teens and young adults. I began my career at UC San Diego, and I now live in Los Angeles. I serve as the head of research at Hope Lab, which is a Bay Area based nonprofit that works to improve young people's mental health by supporting research and investing directly in young people and the ideas and tools that help them thrive. A lot of our work is really centered on creating and learning from young people. And so really having them in the room and in this space to drive the work that we do. When we talk about social media and LGBT youth mental health, as I think we've heard many times today, we have to hold two realities at once. The platforms can expose young people to real harm, and they also provide meaningful, sometimes life-saving support. The reality is clear in our research. You heard from Supreet a little bit about some of the research that Hope Lab and Common Sense Media did together in 2024, where three-quarters of LGBTQ plus young people said they see homophobic and transphobic comments on social media. We also followed up with a 2025 national survey that focused just on LGBTQ plus young people, around 1,400 of them with the Born This Way Foundation, and more than one in three LGBTQ plus young people experienced bullying or teasing online in the past year due to their identity. Yet in those same exact studies, 74% said social media is important for helping them feel less alone, and online spaces were rated as significantly kinder, safer, and more supportive for LGBTQ young people than their in-person spaces. As one example here, 9%, only 9%, less than 1 in 10, LGBTQ young people said they felt very safe being LGBTQ plus in in-person spaces. Again, this is data from 2025 that was published, conducted with data from 2024 425. So only like less than one in 10 feels very safe being LGBTQ plus in person spaces. Nearly half say online. So while it's not a safe place, I think we have to remember that the in person spaces also are not safe spaces. As one young person said, being online gives me at least physical protection to be who I am. People can be brutal online, but those are just words on a screen. a screen can't beat me up. And that tension captures the reality for many LGBTQ plus young people. The same spaces that expose them to the harm are the ones where they find connection and support their missing offline And against this backdrop and consistent with decades of research that predates social media LGBTQ plus young people are struggling with their mental health They consistently report higher levels of loneliness depressive symptoms and barriers to accessing mental health resources compared to their peers. In our most recent national poll, about six in 10 LGBTQ plus young people rated their mental health as fair or poor. So that's most. And when asked what was negatively affecting their mental health, more than half identified issues like family challenges, loneliness, school issues, and dealing with homophobia and transphobia as major sources of strain. For these young people, social media actually fell lower on the list, with about one in three saying that it negatively affected their mental health. And in that context, online spaces, especially those designed with safety in mind, such as Trevor Space, become a critical source of support, connection, and access to mental health resources that they can't easily find online. Dr. Green, I don't know if it's

I appreciate that. So many LGBTQ plus young people, particularly those in unsupportive homes or communities, are not using social media passively. They're turning to it deliberately to find deferringing communities to access support they can't find offline. In our study with Born This Way Foundation, online friends were rated as twice as likely to provide high levels of social support as their family. 63% who had online friends that they felt would support them versus 33% who had family who would support them. Many emphasized that the friendships had kept them alive and given them a place to be their true selves. One of the teens in our study said, throughout my entire life, I've been bullied relentlessly. However, when I'm online, I find that it's easier to make friends. It's the friends I've made online that have kept me on live all these years. So taken together, the research tells us three key things. LGBTQ plus young people continue to experience high rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. For many of them, social media and online friends are our core source of support, safety, and hope for them. And yet the same platforms that help them cope also expose them to harassment and hateful content. And the dual reality experience has a lot of important implications for how we think about their well-being and policies that will affect their access to online spaces. First, as I think we've heard from others today, broad, one-size-fits-all solutions carry a real risk of unintended consequences. Limiting access to online spaces may reduce exposure to harmful content, but it can also reduce access to affirming communities and mental health resources. And for LGBTQ plus young people who lack in-person support, they can deepen isolation and remove one of the only places where they feel safe. Second, focusing only on how much time young people spend online isn't enough. Our research shows that young people aren't passive consumers. They're actively shaping their online environments by curating their feeds, seeking out supportive spaces and avoiding harmful content when they can. but they're doing it within systems that are not designed with their well-being in mind. And in that context, it's reasonable to hold tech companies accountable for how their platforms affect users' safety and mental health, particularly when risks are tied so closely to design decisions like recommendation systems that favor emotionally charged content and features that encourage continuous scrolling. Third, young people are not a monolith, and LGBTQ plus young people in particular have distinct needs and vulnerabilities. So policies need to account for differences in home environments, identity development, and access to offline support, rather than assuming a single approach will work for all young people And finally I want to emphasize the importance of including LGBTQ plus young people in the development of solutions They have direct insight into how these platforms function in their lives, including both the risks and the benefits. As I mentioned, one of the core features of our work at Hope Lab is co-creating with young people, including in our research. It's something I hadn't been able to do as much throughout my academic career, and it's especially important for topics like social media. I think I'm probably dating myself that I'm likely to be around the age of many of you here and our realities of growing up and what technology was like is so different. And I cannot, when I do this work, rely on my own knowledge or lived experience as an LGBTQ plus young person. Things are so different now. There've been many times where my prior assumptions that I've gotten with were way off and it has been incredibly humbling to spend so much time over the past few years in spaces talking to LGBTQ plus young people about their experiences and about the world that they're experiencing today. So if there's one takeaway I'd offer, it's for LGBTQ plus young people. The question is not whether it's good or bad, it's how we can thoughtfully reduce the risks while preserving the connections and the resources that many young people rely on and that in many ways, as you've heard from places like Trevor Space, help them survive. And that requires a grounding in evidence and careful attention to unintended consequences. But it's both possible and necessary. And so I thank you all and look forward to questions.

Nikki?

Yep.

Yep, my camera's on.

Fantastic. I'm a bit far away. So thank you so much for welcoming me to the California State Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee regarding the impact of social media on LGBTQ plus young people. So yes, I'm Nikki Bath. I'm the CEO of LGBTQ plus health Australia. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm joining you from the unceded lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and pay respects to Elders past and present. So LGBTIQ plus Health Australia, or LHA as we're fondly known, is the national peak body for LGBTIQ plus health and wellbeing and we were founded in 2010. We represent our members, organisations and individuals delivering health programmes, services and research for LGBTIQ plus people across Australia. Our members bring expertise and lived experience and together we act as a trusted voice to government. Our work is guided by four core pillars being policy, health and wellbeing sector capacity. We also deliver QLAP, Australia's national LGBTQ plus teleweb peer support and referral service. I don't know if I've disappeared

Apologies.

So I think I got as far as We Deliver Q Life, which is Australia's national anonymous and free LGBTQ plus telewad peer and support and referral service, which is similar in content and approach to the Trevor Project. As a government-funded Health Peak organisation, our role is to ensure the voices and experiences of our members and LGBTQ plus people inform health and wellbeing policy decisions and we're a trusted conduit between governments and communities. So there's absolute agreement that we must protect young people online. The key question is whether restricting access to social media, as is the case here in Australia, reduces harm or if unintentionally increases risk for those who rely on online spaces for safety, connection and support. LHA fully supports taking action to increase the safety of children and young people as long as the action taken reduces harm. So Australia strengthened its online safety framework through the Online Safety Act 2021 and amendments in 2024. Now the amendments in 2024 require age-restricted platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 from creating or maintaining accounts with implementation commencing on the 10th of December 2025 and significant penalties for non-compliance. I will note that having this policy go live so close to Christmas placed great strain on organisations and communities. Preparation for these changes relied heavily on relationships between government, regulators and community organisations. LGBTIQ plus community-controlled organisations play a unique role in building trust and connecting marginalised young people to support and as a peak body, LHA acted as a conduit between e-safety and the Australian government and our members. In 2024, we joined with other leading mental health organisations in expressing concern that a blanket social media ban could cut young people off from vital support and expose them to new risks. In 2025, we formally responded to the amendment highlighting that LGBTIQ plus young people often rely on social media for connection to affirming communities that may not exist offline. We participated in a roundtable hosted by the eSafety Commissioner, Minister for Communications and the Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention and this is when we were heading towards the implementation of the restrictions to explore what could be enacted to reduce impact. We participate in post-implementation, monitoring, working and working group led by the Minister for Health's Office and these mechanisms have worked as we have good partnerships with government and government agencies. We also worked with eSafety advising on resources that they developed specifically for LGBTQ plus young people in regards to the social media restrictions. In our engagements we noted that broad restrictions are a blunt instrument, that harm is better addressed through targeted regulation, education and digital resilience and that young people are highly likely to find workarounds. We also advised that services and and health campaigns will struggle to reach their audiences, and we recommended, as I've said, a more balanced approach. At the same time, the community-controlled LGBTIQ plus sector worked to mitigate impacts by developing alternative resources and guidance, including community education on for online spaces and the limitations and risks to the use of AI as a support tool. I'd be very happy to make our written submissions available to you. Since implementation, millions of under 16-year-old accounts have been removed from platforms and it's important to note that this does not necessarily mean reduced access to social media accounts by people under 16. Multiple accounts are common and many young people have prepared workarounds prior to the restrictions. The emerging picture is mixed and still evolving. We are only five months into the implementation. There has not been a noticeable increase in help seeking behaviour through major national services, which is what we expected, beyond an initial spike in contacts about the ban as we got closer to the day of implementation. We are instead seeing what we think is behavioural displacement rather than risk reduction. Anecdotally, we know that young people are using alternative platforms, circumventing age verification, and moving into less visible and less regulated spaces. We're also hearing about an emerging reliance on AI tools for information and support, and while these tools can be useful, they cannot replace human connection and have their own risks. The feedback from our member organisations confirm these trends. Young people are indeed finding practical ways around the restrictions, including using someone else's account, misrepresenting their age and using VPNs. At the same time, services are working to find ways of reaching young people in new ways, and this is placing pressure on organisations with already limited resources. A key concern is that while policies may be applied equally, their impacts are not equal. LGBTI young people, particularly those without family support, supportive schools, are more likely to rely on online spaces for safety and connection and losing access can increase isolation, vulnerability and suicidal ideation and attempts. And it was very interesting for me to hear government and regulators continually speak about the role of parents and teachers in supporting young people regarding the social media restrictions, where for many young LGBTIQ plus people, seeking support about who they are at home and in school is not safe or available. Anonymity is particularly important in LGBTI communities and as it provides that additional layer of safety and control of the sharing of personal information. In public health there is a well-known analogy about a broken bridge where people continue to fall into the river below, some of them struggling or even drowning and the response is to focus on pulling people out downstream rather than fixing the bridge itself. The lesson is that effective policy must address the source of harm and not just its consequences. In that context, a social media ban does not repair a broken digital environment. It simply restricts access and this risk diverting young people into these less visible and less regulated spaces while leaving them unprepared while they inevitably engage online. The more effective approach is to strengthen platform accountability invest in skills for young people to navigate these environments safely. E-safety has commenced a comprehensive evaluation to understand how the new obligation is working in practice and what impact it has on children and families. And this major study will assess how the age restrictions are being implemented. And of course, that will contribute to valuable knowledge to the global conversation about children, social media and well-being. Across the sector there is a strong sense that we really do not yet fully understand the impacts and of course it early days The outcomes from this approach will likely not be seen for some years and will require young people to not be socialised on social media at all until they 16 determining whether the policy has achieved its intended outcomes. Digital platforms, particularly social media, are often the first entry point for mental health support, peer connection and crisis services and are critical tools for reaching vulnerable young people. Young people in rural and regional areas particularly find these platforms to be essential in their connection. It is still LHA's position that restrictive policies risk unintentionally cutting off those protective networks and increasing harm. This highlights the need for balanced evidence-based approaches that align with established processes and are co-designed with young people and communities and focus on harm reduction. Strengthening inclusive data collection is also critical to understanding real world impacts. In a lot of studies that are undertaken, variables so that we can identify LGBTQ plus people are not included. So if restrictions are effective and workarounds are minimised, there must be a strong focus in ensuring that young people are equipped with the knowledge and skills and safety to navigate social media. In closing, the goal of protecting young people online is shared. The challenge is ensuring that the measures we implement achieve the goal without creating new risks or leaving some people more isolated than before. We encourage a careful evidence-based approach that recognises the critical role digital spaces play in the lives of vulnerable young people and works with rather than against how they connect, seek support and stay safe. Thank you for listening and I look forward to questions.

Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm just trying to breathe because I think this is a fantastic panel that was willing to give her time today to come talk with us that I think is underscoring significant pros and significant cons. You know, I wanted to maybe just kind of going in order, you know, Dr. Mann, you know, it's you reminded me of something that we thought about when we were discussing a relevant bill a couple of weeks ago that the harms that we're seeing as well. You know, they're not LGBTQs are not immune to those either. Um, and that was not lost on me because it's very well, um, I'm, I'm, I'm very well mindful of the acute, um, challenges that LGBTQ specifically have when it comes to mental health. We know the numbers. We know that there is significant disparity on issues of depression, as you had mentioned, anxiety, I would further, and that platforms that leave themselves susceptible to compulsive behaviors, et cetera, other challenges, right? one would think would be disproportionately harmful to those who come into that kind of activity already predisposed to vulnerabilities, right, that is going to exacerbate conditions that they may already have. That was not lost on me. So that's a challenge where we're thinking, well, there could be disproportionate benefits, but also disproportionate harms. So maybe all the more reason why reading this issue together and how we addressing social media regulation and the experiences and the needs of the LGBTQ community is very ripe for discussion At the same time we heard from

Yeah, absolutely. And I thank you for the question and just the nuance thinking about this. I mean, I think more research is needed. So monitoring, not just whether accounts are decreasing if there's a policy change, but not just whether access declines, but what is happening? Would youth then be moving to private accounts, anonymous spaces, VPN, shared devices? if they are losing communities in one place, are they being exposed to risk elsewhere? And so I think having research and supporting research and funding research to help track that. So tracking cyberbullying, exposure, harassment reports, unwanted sexual contact, sleep disruption, problematic use, mental health, help seeking, use of secondary accounts, migration to anonymous or private spaces would be helpful to be able to track this type of information. And then with platforms, platforms should be accountable for collecting and reporting safety relevant data And so much of the data that we need to be able to keep track of these outcomes that I just mentioned the industry the social media companies have them and policies and independent researchers need privacy protective access to the aggregated and auditable data so we can evaluate these policies. So those, I think, you know, I'm not here to have a stand on whether, you know, removing access or not, but I think providing research on data is really important so we can see what is happening and what will be happening.

the things that we're talking about how do we educate young people in regards to how they're interfacing with social media but also how can we better regulate the social media providers so that they can create safer spaces and some of those things have been talked about with regards to algorithms and the like um it's a it's a very i wish i could come and say yes we've got the answer we we just don't have and i don't sitting here have an answer for you I just know that it's multifaceted and it requires quite sophisticated thinking and a blanket age restriction isn't doing that. Yeah, thank you. And I appreciate your observations early as much as

so from our perspective um so as a pit body we're not a service provider uh our member organizations provide services if we look at q life which is like the travel project we have four partner organizations that are community controlled lgbtq plus health and well-being organizations providing those services we do have um so we're looking at service level data of a hack from QLife but we're also looking at more broadly the organisations particularly that are working with under 16s what the changes are and how that's measuring out in service utilisation so we're also looking at and trying to measure the impact from a mental health and well-being perspective. I think it's important to also acknowledge from a measurement perspective We do have a study here in Australia. It's called Writing Themselves In. It's run by La Trobe University through the Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health and Society. But we have just finished the next round of surveys for that study. And so it'll be interesting to see where we get that, where we can start to look at and see what, since the last one was several years ago. so we'll be able to start to map to see what some of those implications are through social media but as I alluded to I think one of the things that we have to be careful about here in Australia and for considerations not that I understand the situation there in California but what we find is a lot of the research more broadly into young people doesn't ask questions around the variables in for sex, gender, variations of innate variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientation. And so we're unable to pull out the data specifically for LGBTQ plus young people and adults. This happens across all surveys. So I would say in regards to the research, it's really critical that those questions get asked so that we can be pulled out of mainstream studies. So, again, I, you know, there are multiple things that we're looking at, but also we're restricted because in the way that the broader young cohorts can be measured, we can't pull ourselves out of that data. So it's very gray.

well in the context of the services that they provide so many of those services one one service for example 2010 that's based in sydney um they do heaps of work in regards to social connection um in-person social connection as well as well as online connection they use a platform padlet to do that um and broadly you know we're looking at you know how through sport and as you say in other ways we can still support face-to-face connection. One of the challenges that we face here is, of course, which is an international phenomena, and certainly we're seeing this in, of course, from your country, is the challenge and the backlash we have to trans and gender diverse people accessing sport. And this also can be playing out in community sports. And also the way in which we're having backlash towards specific activities for young LGBTIQ plus people within environments like schools and young people's social settings. So we are facing these health and well-being challenges and they're faced as they are for you within political context. context, these connections are more challenging. And also, for some people, it's risky to even start to engage in some of those because of the potential community backlash. So we're operating in unsafe times and in uncharted waters. And it's very sad for me as an old person to be seeing that what I'd hoped, you know, I often talk about the fact that it's too late for me, I'm old. And And what I've always strived to do in the work that I do every day is to make the trajectory for young people different. Because we don't want to see adult data with high mental health issues, high suicidal ideation, people being disconnected from families. We don't want to be seeing that. That's something that happened in my generation. and what we want to make sure is that what we're doing for our young people is making it so that they have a good life course, that they have good mental health, that they can participate in school and education, that they can find employment and all of the things that we're talking about today have impact on that and of course that impacts on the economy. I couldn't agree more. Well thank you

sort of national infrastructure. We have four sites across the country. Got it. So do you know,

No, we've not necessarily seen a drop, but we didn't see the increase that we thought that we would see. So we saw an increase in the figures of people contacting QLife in the run up to the restriction. And we did expect that to continue, as did other teleweb service providers that aren't specifically for LGBTQ plus young people. And we haven't seen that. And we're kind of wading through the weeds to really sort of understand why is that the case? Is that because of the people, young people getting around the age restriction and then still being able to access the points of support that they want to? Or is it that they're going elsewhere? And so we're still working through the weeds in that.

So they have a resource hub on their website. And as we were working towards the implementation of the age restriction, they did specific resources for LGBTIQ plus young people that we assisted in the development of. so we um i think it's important to say in the australian context our community controlled organizations the health and well-being organizations that are across the country um they're very very poorly resourced and so um it's really important that we start to look at how how are we what supplementary funding are we putting through those organizations to be able to enable them to create more face-to-face engagements, noting that the reality is the same, you know, in the States. But Australia is massive. And, you know, some people can be living in very small towns, miles and kilometres away from anywhere else. And the reliance on digital connection is massive. And we rely on it. We rely on it as service providers as a way of reaching out to people. Do you have, and I'll ask you this first because you're on the screen, but I want to ask this question of all of our panelists, although Dr. Young already answered it. Do you have sort

absolutely i think what we would prefer to see is um the actual provider how they are providing um these platforms and really good education processes for young people to be able to navigate and be equipped to be able to have signaling around those harms so that they can manage them I think you know for the most marginalised people in our communities the increased opportunity for online grooming and all of those other implications are really significant And we need to be able to have honest conversations around that. And in regard to that, also, we need to be able to have honest conversations about that in ways that doesn't then create media and political debate that then continues to demonize LGBTQ plus people, particularly young trans and gender diverse people.

The biggest thing that we've talked about here is how to reduce harm, right? Recognizing that this is a space of duality, of harm and benefit. And, you know, we want to be able to provide access to communities when it makes sense. I think the biggest and perhaps the thing that's kind of resonated here throughout the conversations is this reduction of these really algorithmically driven feeds that are pushing content that is maybe potentially beneficial, but also has the potential to be deeply, deeply harmful and homophobic and transphobic and really promoting the worst of the worst in so many ways, that this kind of return to sort of a personalized feed may be the kind of, I don't want to say simple, because it's not simple, but sort of like most simple or direct solution to, I think, the direct harm that we're talking about. So that's sort of what I would highlight, but I'm looking at it from others.

I also want to acknowledge that you all have been working on a really hard problem for, it sounds like, a really long time. And it will probably give you solutions that you're like, yes, we've tried that. But I also want to just, for the work that you've done with it and acknowledge maybe it's a clinical psychologist to me, how frustrating it must be to work on this and to care so much and to have every turn have the power of the tech companies and the courts. And so I'll start there. And with that, say that, you know, I take a lot of my guidance from what we hear from young people. And a lot of what they want are the ability to have more control and to have more agency. And I don't mean more control like unlimited social media. I mean, they also are really frustrated when the algorithm pushes them content that they don't want. They're really frustrated when they know that it's been designed to keep them scrolling. And so having those features, those design features that are designed for profit, that are designed to keep people there, that are designed to have people being emotionally charged, to find ways to eradicate that from these systems so that young people can engage in them. I think alongside what other sort of things like digital literacy training, empowering young people to to make choices. But like these systems were not built for them. They're going to find ways onto them. I think it's not enough to say, like, don't use it and and not let the tech companies know that, like, they've got to be accountable. I don't know. I don't know the solution to get through. I don't know how to get through the course. I think we all, it feels like everyone in this room is incredibly aligned on what the ideal situation would be, or at least close to aligned, as you can get a group of people from different to be and the question is how how do you get the the design features that we believe to be harmful to create a better experience that allows all the good parts and gets rid of all of the harmful garbage I don't know I don't know I don't know the core systems one of I don't know how to help you all I know that was really like foolproof where it's like they can't do this one it sounds you're just going to keep having like loopholes that you have to like gas fill back and forth to

So with that, any closing words, Chair Ward? Yeah, so we will go to public comment if anyone is here and has some. Oh, Mr. Young is raising his hand. Mr. Young, you wanted to add something and then we'll go to public comment. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you. Senator Skinner, who did one of the landmark bills in California, has a definition of addictive feeds, and it tries to get at that question of optimizing for engagement, and the courts have upheld that definition. So there we go. We have some wins in the courts on our side. And then I did want to highlight also Assemblymember Berman, who has led the way on media literacy. Sadly, in the state of California, it takes years to get anything actually done in our classrooms. But it is underway, and I have actually seen the draft. So I know it is coming, but yeah. Oh, another hand. See, they think we can see when their hand is raised. They don't know that we can't see it. Okay. Oh, Ms. Nikki, you apparently your hand is up.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Now returning to public comment. Thank you for your patience.

Cruz on behalf of the California Behavioral Health Association. Likewise, wanted to echo the gratitude for holding this important hearing today. CBHA supports the efforts to make online spaces safer for young people, and we support stronger safeguards against cyberbullying, harassment, exploitation, privacy violations, and platform design features that drive compulsive views. But at the same time, CBHA is concerned about the policies that would cut LGBTQ plus youth off from affirming resources, crisis support, peer connections, and safe online communities. For some youth, especially those in unsupportive homes or communities, with fewer affirming resources, online spaces are a connection point to safety and support. So we asked the legislature to search for solutions that reduce harm without increasing isolation. And we also urged the legislature to include community-based behavioral health providers to this work as they see the downstream impact when youth experience online harm, isolation, rejection, and crisis. Thank you so much.