Statement on efforts by the administration and Congress to block the states from protecting their residents from harmful AI
SAN FRANCISCO, November 20, 2025 — At a moment when families across the political spectrum have serious concerns about the risks AI poses to children, the White House is preparing to issue an executive order to hamstring states' rights to implement AI safety laws. At the same time, some members of Congress are also trying to stifle state lawmaking on AI.
In response, Common Sense Media Founder and CEO James P. Steyer issued the following statement:
"This is an outrageous betrayal of kids and families across the country and across the political spectrum. With this indefensible — and no doubt illegal — executive order, the administration has made clear that it thinks it is okay for AI chatbots to recommend suicide to teenagers. The same is true for those members of Congress who are currently trying, yet again, to use a must-pass bill to preempt the rights of states to protect their residents from the very real risks of AI. I could not disagree with them more. Congress and the President have had all the time in the world to pass meaningful legislation to protect kids online — whether from social media or AI — and they have failed to do so.
"The administration claims this order only targets ‘onerous' state laws, but let's be clear — what's onerous, devastating, and tragic is for a family to have to grapple with the loss of their child because of a distorted emotional relationship with an unsafe AI chatbot.
"We've seen this irresponsible behavior before with the rise of social media, when companies used our kids as guinea pigs for a massive, uncontrolled experiment, and the federal government did nothing to protect them before it was too late. That gave way to a full-blown mental health crisis that took more than a decade to play out. We can't make the same mistakes with AI.
"The states have taken the mantle of leadership to begin to build guardrails for kids and families. Stripping states of their constitutional rights to protect their residents from unsafe AI is a non-starter for parents, educators, and Americans across the country, and it is a non-starter for Common Sense Media and the many other non-partisan organizations that work on these issues every day. The states are standing up for kids and families, and nothing should be allowed to get in their way."
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