Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Protecting Our Kids: Governor Hochul Announces Nation-Leading Proposals to Protect Kids Online, Restrict AI Chatbots and Combat the Youth Mental Health Crisis

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul unveiled her first State of the State proposals, which will continue to build on her progress to keep New York’s kids safe online and combat the youth mental health crisis statewide. The new legislation will help protect children from online predators, scammers and harmful AI chatbots integrated on online platforms. Additionally, the Governor is proposing a first-of-its-kind, statewide expansion of Teen Mental Health First Aid training, designed to give young people the tools to identify, understand, and effectively respond to signs of mental health and substance abuse challenges among their friends and peers. These proposals build on Governor Hochul’s nation-leading work to ban smartphones in schools, enact social media warning labels, restrict addictive feeds, and create safeguards against harmful AI companions. Governor Hochul’s focus on youth mental health also led to the creation of more school-based mental health clinics, community-based treatment options, and peer-based supports for youth and adults.

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

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

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

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

 Thank you. This is more of an emotional homecoming than I thought it would be. It was 50 years ago that I walked across the stage and graduated from Hamburg High School. I have been a lifelong bulldog ever since then, and so often the memories of what I learned here and the people who touched my life and the values that I learned as a student here, have really helped me get through some of the challenges I've seen as I've moved from public life — from a Town Board Member just down the road to the County Clerk, Member of Congress, Lieutenant Governor, and now the Governor.

But I've never lost sight of where I come from and the people who had such an influence on my life. I remember growing up here in the shadow of a brother a year older than me. He was a superstar in every sport, and I was known as Dennis's little sister. I never thought I'd be able to escape that, but he was a quarterback of a football team — that was the first eight and zero season in decades — basketball, co-captain and baseball and all this. And so what I did was I worked making pizza at a place in Patchen, which is a suburb of Boston, which is outside of Hamburg. I try to describe to people where it is. Does anybody know Patchen? Okay. It's one intersection, right? And there's a little shack of a pizzeria and a little restaurant, and it's the only job I could find because it was hard. I wanted to, all the high school kids wanted to find jobs that all we had was, Red Barn hamburgers and the Dairy Queen, and you like had to have family connections to get those cool jobs. And I clearly had none.

So, I had about a 20-minute ride out every day after school to make pizzas and chicken wings and put together dinner and take outs and clean tables. I'd waitress and work almost every day from four o'clock to 11 o'clock at night. So, I was not the one who could go out for any sports — not that I was terribly athletic or that I could do much more than that on evenings and weekends, but I needed to bring some money home to my family. But I would get up every day and my sister remembered the light being on. We shared an attic together over on Long Avenue and she remembers that when I got home at 11 o'clock and I'd start my homework because the days had to be long for me.

So, I somehow got out of school. I passed, I did pretty well and set my sights on going off to Syracuse University. But it had such an effect on me, and I think about people I got to know. And there's one woman who's in the audience here today, and you knew her — I knew her as Ms. Grobe, Ms. Hannley, please stand up. Virginia, please stand up. She taught English. She taught me different courses. And there's one even on death and dying, which was a harsh topic at the time, but she continues to find ways to help teenagers deal with the stresses of life. Little did I know back then that I'd be coming here today to talk about how we're preventing so many of these stresses and forces from society — from affecting the mental health of our children. So, I want to thank her and every teacher who touched my life and I've often spoken about a teacher I had in middle school — It's called Junior High back then — called Mr. Peter James. And he taught me social studies as an eighth grader. And I learned about the power of government to do good for other people. And that is a story I carried with me for my entire career as I tried to set forth a path that lifted up my teachings as a Western Yorker and my teachings at St. Peter and Paul Church and my values from my parents. But that teacher showed me the path to a career to affect the lives of others. So, I go past these buildings, the junior high, the middle school, the high school, and I just thank God I had the benefit of an outstanding Hamburg School district education. I want to thank everyone involved in this system and all the students and the parents and the teachers, school board members, the elected officials, and your principal, Johnny Crangle — I've known since he was a very young man. His father, his parents and I know why he is the way he is. He had a good upbringing as well. We don't take that for granted. We had strong parental influences on us that helped us lead here. And I watched him when he first became a teacher here and how proud he was to be a teacher here and probably never sought his sights on this role. But I've been watching you closely. So, can I get an applause for our incredible principal?

And I'm just going to give a message to the students: “It's okay if you don't know what's going to happen next, because I had never thought I'd be Governor. Just be open to any of the possibilities and just dream as big as you can because it can actually happen and I'm living proof of that.” My career goal was to, when I talked to Mr. James about what I wanted to do, I wanted to be a staffer to a Senator someday — never dreamed that because women were not running for a local office. This is not something you did. Very few role models. And so to be a staffer, and I ended up doing that in my late twenties for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Capitol Hill in Washington — I had to achieve my career goals in my twenties. So, I was done, this is pretty good. But I was holding myself back and I don't want any of our students to ever hold yourselves back because that's the only thing that can stand in your way. You have to believe in yourself if you want other people to believe in you. And I learned that along the way.

And I want to thank all the elected leaders who are here today. We have our County Executive and our Majority Leader from the Assembly, and my partners in state government, the Assembly and the Senate, and I'm so grateful for those individuals who are recognized, for them stepping up and being willing to put your name on the ballot. It is a tough, tough time. I thank every one of you.

And my Commissioners — Mark Schroeder, a big job running the DMV statewide, something I used to do locally. And if it comes time for your driver's license or if you lose it — give them your cell phone, Mark — doing a great job from South Buffalo. Commissioner Tim Hogues, our Commissioner of Civil Service, so you want that job in state government — give them your cell phone as well because he's in charge of all the jobs we have as well. And our OMH, Deputy Commissioner Robert Moon. So, I'm surrounded by talented people. That's my job. I find the best and the brightest, and they make me look good everyday.

But let's talk about why we're here today. 2025 was a big year for New York's students and children. What we wanted to do is make sure that New York was always nation-leading. That's one thing I know about New York: We are an exceptional State and we can never give up on our belief in exceptionalism. It defines us, who we are. We've always overcome the most extraordinary challenges — back to the Great Depression, and now we had to get through some recessions, and COVID, and inflation, and, I'll just say, Washington. We've had to overcome a lot, but I also knew that I wanted to do whatever I can to put our young people on the best path forward and have nothing that holds them back.

And I started realizing that after going around the state and convening parents, and school board members, principals, and students, and talking to everybody about what was happening was that everybody's lives were being consumed with the cell phone. Right? That's all you knew. And so, what I learned was that young people were not making friends in person. They were not talking to each other during lunch or recess in the hallways. The hallways and cafeterias were silent. That is so unnatural. And there's a lot of dark places on the internet and social media algorithms that were bombarding our students all day long and distracting them, and sometimes taking them.

Someone has mental health challenges and looks for help on how to prevent their suicidal thoughts, and it takes them to a site that tells them how to commit suicide. So bad things were happening, bullying, young people being lured to meet predators. And I said, “The kids are supposed to be in school to learn, right? And make friends. Develop social skills and create connections with their teachers and other students.”

And it was all shut down because their world was consumed by a cell phone. So it was a tough decision to have us be one of the first in the nation to say, “No longer are we going to allow that distraction to occur in our classrooms. From kindergarten through 12th grade, the entire day would be distraction-free,” and we got it done. And I think we are benefiting from this.

Never could I have imagined in such a short time after a lot of people telling me, “No, don't go there. You don't want to take on the fights with all those important actors.” I didn't care because I knew what was most important were the students and their mental health and their wellbeing. And so we took on the fight, we got it done, launched it this (past) September, and literally, within weeks, principals, parents, teachers reported something quite extraordinary.

Our kids are talking to each other. They're listening to the teachers. They're more engaged. Instead of cell phones, they're bringing board games to lunch and recess, learning how to play bingo — I just heard yesterday — and Jenga. They're bringing Jenga to just — kids are just having a good time again, and I don't mean to be disparaging, everybody's a kid. My 30-year-old kids are still my kids. Okay? So I don't mean to put you down if I'm calling you kids, can't help it.

New York's first Mom Governor, it’s what I do. Deal with it. But let me tell you some statistics on this as to why I knew I was on the right path. But this has been more extraordinary than we could imagine. We had over 300 educators surveyed. 92 percent reported a smooth transition despite what they expected, right? They expected there to be everybody trying to break the rules, and protests and all these other things that could have happened, but it happened smoothly. 83 percent of better classroom atmospheres and student engagement. 83 percent report that in just a few months. And 75 percent of teachers said their ability to teach our students has improved dramatically.

And so, instead of scrolling through TikTok dance videos — which I know are fun — students are listening to their math teachers, and their English teachers and their social studies teachers. So I'm telling you right now, after this, we continue to purge the students from the influence they had and they could just start learning fresh. The students in the State of New York are going to outperform students everywhere else where they still continue to allow the students to have these distractions in classrooms. And I believe that's going to happen, and I'm already seeing those results. So I'm proud of that.

But that also took us to a place where I realized there's a lot more going on. A lot more is happening. And so even taking on the cell phone ban, we had to take on big tech because they're looking at this as, “We're not getting as many customers, and consumers and information that we can extract from these students and to sell to other companies,” which is what they're doing. They're monetizing your mental health by the way. They were making money, profits off of information that you think is private between you and your friends, and it was not. So we limited kids' exposure and it's working and our kids are coming back to life.

As I mentioned, the surveys. But here's what I want to talk about. The parents who are saying their kids are no longer feeling so depressed and stressed out, and the students themselves. Students are saying, one told me, “I have my first friend in person.” This is a middle school student. “I never had a friend in person.” And how amazing that felt. Someone to talk to during lunch and make plans after school and to hang out with maybe out on the school yard. I know all the places you hang out. I was there.

So, the students are feeling less stress and we've also focused a lot on mental health because the pandemic took a lot. And I want to say, any adult who feels like that's in the rear view mirror, it's not for our students. The students who were in first grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, when they had their lives turned upside down and no one could tell them that the next day was ever going to feel normal again, and they spiraled, we didn't have the mechanism in place to help those students at the time, and they still are feeling the effects of it. Young adults are feeling the effects of it. We have to understand that something has to be done to get back to something that is pre-pandemic normal — whatever that looks like anymore.

So, we've invested over $2 billion in State money focused on mental health. Nobody else ever put that level of commitment. That all goes toward our behavioral health system, expanding youth mental health services, investing in suicide prevention, school-based mental health clinics are so important to me because how many parents have time to go make an appointment with somebody and then pull the student out of school. And then, there's a cancellation and if your student's counting on that, there's a spiraling until you can get back on the schedule again. And it's too much for parents who are trying to do what they can to help their students, their children. And we had also had peer-to-peer counseling because I know this, who are young people going to listen to more than anybody. Each other — they trust each other.

That's why I'm going to get a proposal, which is going to be really important as well. So we did something I mentioned earlier. We stood up to the social media giants and we banned toxic social media algorithms from being able to bombard our kids, they can't do it anymore. They're not allowed to send notifications from midnight until six in the morning. Because guess what? They need their sleep and make it clear they can never sell our children's personal information for profit. So we did all that in the last year. We also mandated a surgeon general type warnings on social media platforms. So, parents and young people understand the real risk. It's like on a cigarette package, those scary looking warnings. It says this is detrimental to your health. And so I want people to be paying attention and I know that these wins are making a difference, but I also know that technology and a lot of bad actors are going to try to keep finding other ways to get around what we're doing.

That's exactly what's happened. That's why we're taking more steps here today. One of the very first announcements that I'm going to be packaging together in my State of the State for 2026, which we're announcing next week, but I wanted to come to my hometown, to my school and talk about students here first, so I will not rest until I know our students are safe, healthy, and happy, because we still have lurking in the shadows. The shadows of the internet, these predators, these scammers, these criminals, and they're now using chat features on our kids' favorite games. Okay? Kids don't have to go very far. They're finding you on the games that you go to. They're luring them into dangerous situations where they can be radicalized or groomed or even assaulted. And they're not safe. They're not the fun place that they're advertised to be in. Parents don't know this intuitively, it sounds like a kids' game. Why wouldn't you trust that? I'm just telling you, you can't. You just can't.

In California, we had a 10-year-old girl who was groomed and sexually assaulted after chatting with a predator on multiple online gaming platforms. Doesn't that sound safe? Gaming? It's a game, but they know where the kids are going and they're following them there. Other students have been relentlessly bullied and battled into games that simulate sex or reenact school shootings. Horrible things. And even in certain games, there's features that entice kids to gamble their parents' money. And I don't even know if parents know this is going on. They know your credit card number, it's being used. How is that possible? So they're being coerced into gambling their parents' money on virtual junk. And the perils of these platforms cannot be overstated. They prey at our kids' vulnerabilities. They pull them into dangerous situations and ultimately can lift money out of the parents' pockets.

So, to keep our kids safe, mentally, physically, we have to act and we have to demand better safeguards. That's why in partnership with the Assembly and the Senate, Senator Gounardes and Assemblymember Nily Rozic and State Attorney General Tish James, I'm zeroing in on protecting our students in new ways online and giving them the mental health support they need. So, right now, if parents want to be responsible and the ones in the audience are like, “Holy, — I didn't know this was going on. I'm going to go home and check this out.” You literally have to go into your child's phone and tablets and devices and know how to go to maybe one of 10 or 15 gaming platforms and messaging platforms, find the right privacy features, and you have to dismantle them and hope that your child doesn't turn them back on. That's all you have right now, parents. That's it. That's the only way you have available to protect your kids.

Under our proposals, we're removing that burden from parents and placing the responsibility where it belongs on the shoulders of the app companies and the platforms themselves. We'll have first-in-the-nation age assurance standards under our Safer Kids Act, and we're going to require social media companies and messaging and gaming companies to automatically default to those privacy settings at the highest levels for anyone under the age of 18. Think about that. Parents, you won't have to worry about it. Your kids will not be exposed to this anymore. And that means blocking, would be predators, from being able to find and message your kids because that's going on. And parents will have approval with anyone who can connect with young people under the age of 13 and disable location sharing. They also know where your kids are, so virtual threats cannot turn into real life harm.

And second, we're going to disable certain AI companion features. You've heard about these, right? Something that sounds so innocent has now turned so sinister in many cases. So we're disabling those AI companion features for young people under the age of 18 across social media platforms. That's one less thing you have to worry about. Because these “friends” are designed to keep your kids glued to the screens at all costs. And some target children in the most vulnerable moments, even encouraging self harm. That's sick. That's just, that's beyond the pale.

So we're doing those areas where we're disabling this and helping parents, but also we're building on our historic investments in mental health by expanding our Teen Mental Health First Aid training, and we're having that available for high school — senior high school — sophomores across the state because again, teenagers confide in each other, but they don't always know how to help their friend. What do you say? You're not trained, you're just going by your gut instinct. Wouldn't you feel better if you had a friend that was reaching out for help and you actually had some skills, you had some training, you understood what to do. You could be that person that saves them from committing self harm, hurting themselves, or just dropping out of society and just becoming a recluse like many students do. We can't have that happen. A friend can help another friend in a powerful, profound way.

So we're going to be training to equip students with the skills to support each other and identify the signs of distress — what the indicators are and encourage them to seek help from adults. And that also means we have to have training for school staff to ensure that they have the skills to do this training of the students. And so that's exactly what we're doing. We've already certified 5,000 teens and 3,000 adults in this program already, but now I want to expand it. That was our pilot. I want this to go big. I want it to go everywhere. And I want this to be a full commitment from every school, and I'm proud that Hamburg High School has already been an independent leader in this space, implementing their own training program for students and teachers alike. So thank you Hamburg, for stepping up.

There's no greater cause than fighting for the safety and wellbeing of our students, and we're changing the fact that our young people have been left vulnerable in unwarded for so many days and nights of loneliness and just reaching out to this device, and it's taken them to a very bad place. And we're changing that today with every safeguard we're putting in place. Every program we expand, every dollar we spend in these programs are going to help our students become more self-assured, more confident.

Graduating from high schools like Hamburg, the way that we are able to, 50 years ago and even less when we didn't have these forces. Sure there's bullies walking around the hall sometimes and life isn't always that easy but let's get back to the old school adapting to life without these very adult forces infiltrating your life at a young age, that's what I want to stop. I want young people to be kids again. Life is hard enough later on down the road. Let's let you embrace the freedom, the joy of, and the wonder of learning and understanding relationships and the power of the teacher to have an effect on you. Open your hearts and minds to that — not to these dark forces, which have been way too available and are seeking out our children and parents don't even know.

So I'm proud that New York State is leading the way to protect our students once again online in 2026. And I'll never stop fighting for a future where every child knows they have the freedom to play and smile and to thrive and just be themselves. That is my promise to every New York family. Thank you very much.

Let me welcome Kate Chudoba, who has a story to tell you as a parent, and I'm so grateful that she's lending her voice to our efforts to protect all of our students. Kate.