Social Media Disclosure And Transparency of Advertisements Act of 2021 or the Social Media DATA Act
This bill requires consumer-facing websites and mobile applications with a large number of users to maintain advertisement libraries and make them available to academic researchers and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Each library must include, among other things, a digital copy of the advertisement content, a description of the target audience, and the number of views generated from the advertisement. The FTC and state attorneys general are authorized to enforce these requirements, and the FTC must use information from the advertisement libraries to enforce other laws within its jurisdiction.
Additionally, the bill establishes a working group to address social media research access and make policy recommendations with respect to the information an interactive computer service (e.g., a social media company) should make available to academic researchers.
[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3451 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3451
To require covered platforms to provide information about their
advertising to academic researchers, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 20, 2021
Mrs. Trahan (for herself and Ms. Castor of Florida) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and
Commerce
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To require covered platforms to provide information about their
advertising to academic researchers, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Social Media Disclosure And
Transparency of Advertisements Act of 2021'' or the ``Social Media DATA
Act''.
SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT.
(a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, and every 3 years thereafter as needed, the
Commission shall, in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United
States Code, issue regulations that require the following:
(1) A covered platform to maintain, and grant academic
researchers and the Commission access to, an ad library that
contains in a searchable, machine-readable format and that is
collected by the covered platform in the ordinary course of
business the following information (which may be updated by the
Commission as the Commission determines to be necessary)
related to any advertiser that purchases $500 or more of
advertising in a calender year:
(A) The legal name and unique identification number
for each advertiser.
(B) A digital copy of the ad content.
(C) The method used, as selected either by the
advertiser or by the covered platform, to target an ad
to platform users, including uploaded lists of platform
users, pre-set categories of platform users, key words,
and contextual information.
(D) The optimization objective chosen by the
advertiser (such as awareness, reach, traffic, and
engagement).
(E) A description of the targeted audience for each
advertisement, including information (that may have
been collected from the profile of a user or based on
an algorithm) on the demographics of the audience
(including age, gender, geographic location, race,
ethnicity, and political affiliation), interests of the
audience, and any other description of the targeted
audience determined to be reasonable by the Commission.
(F) A description of the audience of the
advertisement determined by a count of advertiser
viewership, including information (that may have been
collected from the profile of a user or based on an
algorithm) on the demographics of the audience
(including age, gender, geographic location, race,
ethnicity, and political affiliation), interests of the
audience, and any other description of the targeted
audience determined to be reasonable by the Commission.
(G) The number of views generated from the
advertisement.
(H) Ad conversion (including how often an ad was
shared, liked, or clicked-through).
(I) The date and time that the advertisement was
first displayed and last displayed.
(J) The amount an advertiser budgeted for the
purchase of the advertisement on the platform and the
amount paid for the purchase of the advertisement on
the platform.
(K) The category of an ad as defined by the covered
platform (such as politics, employment opportunity,
housing opportunity, or apparel).
(L) Each language contained within the ad.
(M) Each advertising policy of the covered platform
that is made available to advertising customers on the
covered platform.
(2) The Commission to use the information in the ad library
for law enforcement and studies unrelated to this Act.
(3) The methodology to calculate the demographics of the
targeted audience described in paragraph (1)(E) to be the same
method as the demographics calculated for the delivery audience
described in paragraph (1)(F).
(4) Guidelines for the treatment of advertisements that are
deleted by the advertiser or blocked by the terms of service of
the covered platform.
(5) Guidelines for the time allotted between when an ad is
posted on a covered platform and when the information about the
ad needs to be made available in the ad library.
(6) Guidelines for how long an ad is required to remain
available in the ad library.
(b) Enforcement.--
(1) Enforcement by the federal trade commission.--
(A) Unfair or deceptive acts or practices.--A
violation of subsection (a) shall be treated as a
violation of a regulation under section 18(a)(1)(B) of
the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C.
57a(a)(1)(B)) regarding unfair or deceptive acts or
practices.
(B) Powers of commission.--The Commission shall
enforce subsection (a) in the same manner, by the same
means, and with the same jurisdiction, powers, and
duties as though all applicable terms and provisions of
the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.)
were incorporated into and made a part of this Act. Any
person who violates such subsection shall be subject to
the penalties and entitled to the privileges and
immunities provided in the Federal Trade Commission
Act.
(2) Effect on other laws.--Nothing in this section shall be
construed in any way to limit the authority of the Commission
under any other provision of law or to limit the application of
any Federal or State law.
(3) Enforcement by state attorneys general.--
(A) In general.--If the chief law enforcement
officer of a State, or an official or agency designated
by a State, has reason to believe that any person has
violated or is violating subsection (a), the attorney
general, official, or agency of the State, in addition
to any authority it may have to bring an action in
State court under its consumer protection law, may
bring a civil action in any appropriate United States
district court or in any other court of competent
jurisdiction, including a State court, to--
(i) enjoin further such violation by such
person;
(ii) enforce compliance with such
subsection;
(iii) obtain civil penalties; and
(iv) obtain damages, restitution, or other
compensation on behalf of residents of the
State.
(B) Notice and intervention by the federal trade
commission.--The attorney general of a State shall
provide prior written notice of any action under
subparagraph (A) to the Commission and provide the
Commission with a copy of the complaint in the action,
except in any case in which such prior notice is not
feasible, in which case the attorney general shall
serve such notice immediately upon instituting such
action. The Commission shall have the right--
(i) to intervene in the action;
(ii) upon so intervening, to be heard on
all matters arising therein; and
(iii) to file petitions for appeal.
(C) Limitation on state action while federal action
is pending.--If the Commission has instituted a civil
action for violation of this section, no State attorney
general, or official or agency of a State, may bring an
action under this paragraph during the pendency of that
action against any defendant named in the complaint of
the Commission for any violation of this section
alleged in the complaint.
(c) Working Group for Social Media Research Access.--
(1) Employment authority.--Not later than 60 days after the
date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall hire 2
or 3 employees who are privacy and technology experts to lead a
series of stakeholder engagements, including round tables,
public workshops, and open comment periods. Stakeholders may
include social media researchers, information science
researchers, privacy and civil rights advocates, technologists,
representatives from social media companies, representatives
from standards organizations, and representatives from
international data governance bodies.
(2) Establishment of working group.--Not later than 30 days
after the date on which the employees described in paragraph
(1) are hired, the Commission shall establish a working group
for social media research access (in this subsection the
``working group'') composed of the stakeholders described in
paragraph (1).
(3) No compensation for members.--A member of the working
group shall serve without compensation in addition to any
compensation received for the service of the member as an
officer or employee of the United States, if applicable.
(4) Reports required.--
(A) Best practices and code of conduct.--Not later
than 1 year after the date on which the working group
is established pursuant to paragraph (2), the
Commission, in consultation with the working group,
shall make available to the public on the website of
the Commission a report containing--
(i) a description of the best practices
regarding what type of information from an
interactive computer service should be made
available, and under what circumstances, to
academic researchers; and
(ii) a recommended code of conduct for
academic researchers working with such
information.
(B) Policy recommendations.--Not later than 1 year
after the date on which the working group is
established pursuant to paragraph (2), the working
group shall submit to Congress a report with
recommendations for policy changes, which may include
any of the following:
(i) The types of information that should be
made available to academic researchers and
under what circumstances interactive computer
services should be required to grant access to
academic researchers.
(ii) Circumstances in which additional
legal protections for interactive computer
services may be needed related to the sharing
of data with researchers.
(iii) Recommendation for penalties for
academic researchers who misuse or seek to
inappropriately reidentify information provided
to them by interactive computer services for
research purposes.
(C) Requirements for reports.--In preparing the
reports described under subparagraph (A) and (B), the
working group may consider the following:
(i) The type of information considered,
including the following:
(I) Information related to content
moderation decisions including choices
related to the ranking, ordering,
promotion, recommendation of content,
and requests for content removals.
(II) Information related to
engagement (such as sharing and likes)
with public links (such as news
articles and video clips), including
the demographic breakdown of users that
interact with content.
(III) Information related to
exposure (viewership or impressions)
with public links (such as news
articles and video clips), including
the demographic breakdown of users that
interact with content.
(IV) Classification of public
information sources (such as opinion
and journalism).
(V) Archives of formerly public
accounts that were removed, including
any special treatment of accounts that
previously belonged to high-profile
individuals.
(VI) Archives of fake or bot
accounts that have been removed.
(VII) Archives of coordinated
influence operation accounts that have
been removed.
(VIII) Research conducted by an
interactive computer service internally
related to the online behavior of a
user including A/B studies and other
internal research, including studies on
interventions to slow spread of
misinformation and disinformation, and
to increase user deliberation,
including warning labels, limits on
sharing and posting, time delay on
sharing and posting, and prompts to
confirm.
(IX) The most popular content on a
platform.
(ii) Storage of information and treatment
for each type of information considered,
including the following:
(I) Limits on time and amount of
information stored broken down by the
type of information.
(II) Under what circumstances
privacy preserving techniques such as
differential privacy and statistical
noise could be used.
(III) Required level of aggregation
for demographic information.
(IV) Standardized variable names
across platforms for specific types of
information.
(V) Under what circumstances
erasure policies (related to who and
how an individual can request to be
removed from a dataset) may be needed,
specifically for individuals who are
less than 18 years old.
(VI) Adherence to data security
best practices.
(iii) A consideration of access for each
type of information considered, including the
following:
(I) Designation of secure
facilities and computers to analyze
information.
(II) Set criteria for researcher
access.
(III) Any limit on the type of
research that specific datasets can be
used for.
(iv) An analysis of how any of the
recommendations might interact with
international law and jurisdiction.
(v) Policies for assuring that open science
principles of reproducibility of results and
replication of analyses can be respected.
(vi) Recommendations for the size and type
of interactive computer service, which may
vary.
(5) Inapplicability of faca.--The Federal Advisory
Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) does not apply to the working
group.
(d) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Academic researcher.--
(A) In general.--The term ``academic researcher''
means an individual that conducts research--
(i) in collaboration with an institution of
higher education (as defined in section 101(a)
of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C.
1001(a))); and
(ii) that is not for commercial purposes.
(B) Definition by commission.--The Commission may
update this definition as the Commission determines to
be necessary.
(2) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Federal
Trade Commission.
(3) Covered platform.--
(A) In general.--The term ``covered platform''
means any website, desktop application, or mobile
application that is consumer-facing, sells digital
advertising space, and has more than 100,000,000
monthly active users for a majority of months during
the preceding 12 months. The Commission may update this
definition as the Commission determines to be
necessary.
(B) Definition by commission.--The Commission may
update this definition as the Commission determines to
be necessary.
(4) Interactive computer service.--The term ``interactive
computer service'' has the meaning given that term in section
230(f) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230(f)).
(e) Authorization of Appropriations.--To assist the Commission in
carrying out this Act, there is authorized to be appropriated and to
remain available until expended--
(1) for fiscal year 2022, $2,000,000; and
(2) for fiscal year 2023, $2,000,000.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce.
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