Digital Social Platform Transparency Act
This bill requires large digital social platforms, or their parent companies, to make certain public disclosures about platforms' terms of service, responses to content flagged as violating those terms, and content moderation policies. The bill directs digital social platforms to post their terms of service publicly, and such terms must include a description of the mechanisms through which users may report content that violates the terms.
The bill also requires each platform to submit semiannual reports to the Department of Justice (DOJ) that include, among other disclosures
• the platform’s current terms of service;
• a statement of whether and how certain categories of content are defined in the platform’s terms, including hate speech, racism, disinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference;
• a description of the platform’s content moderation policies; and
• reports on flagged violations of the platform’s terms of service and the disposition of any flagged content.
DOJ must make such reports publicly available online. The bill imposes a per-day fine on platforms that fail to report or misrepresent required information.
Under the bill, digital social platforms are defined as internet-based platforms that function primarily to allow users to interact socially by creating and viewing content and which generate more than $100 million in annual gross revenue. Some categories of online platforms are explicitly excluded, including those that primarily facilitate email communications and consumer transactions.
[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 9126 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 9126
To require digital social companies to adopt terms of service that meet
certain minimum requirements.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 24, 2024
Ms. Porter introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Energy and Commerce
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To require digital social companies to adopt terms of service that meet
certain minimum requirements.
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 ``Digital Social Platform Transparency
Act''.
SEC. 2. TERMS OF SERVICE REQUIREMENT.
(a) Terms of Service.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, digital social companies shall post terms of
service for each digital social platform owned or operated by the
company in a manner reasonably designed to inform all users of the
digital social platform of the existence and contents of the terms of
service. The terms of service posted pursuant to this section shall
include each of the following:
(1) Contact information for the purpose of allowing users
to ask the digital social company questions about the terms of
service.
(2) A description of the process that users must follow to
flag content, groups, or other users that they believe violate
the terms of service, and the digital social company's
commitments on response and resolution time.
(3) A list of potential actions the digital social company
may take against an item of content or a user, including
demonetization, deprioritization, muting, or banning.
(b) Translations.--The terms of service posted pursuant to this
section shall be made available in all languages in which the digital
social platform offers product features, including menus and prompts.
SEC. 3. REPORTING REQUIREMENT.
(a) Terms of Service Report.--Not later than 360 days after the
date of enactment of this Act, and on a semiannual basis thereafter,
each digital social company shall electronically submit to the Attorney
General a terms of service report.
(b) Contents of Terms of Service Report.--The terms of service
report shall include, for each digital social platform owned or
operated by the company, each of the following:
(1) The version of the terms of service of the digital
social platform in effect on the date of the report.
(2) If applicable, a complete and detailed description of
any changes to the terms of service since the previous report.
(3) A statement of whether the version of the terms of
service in effect on the date of the report defines each of the
following categories of content (or any substantially similar
categories), and, if so, the definitions of those categories,
including any subcategories:
(A) Hate speech or racism.
(B) Extremism or radicalization.
(C) Disinformation or misinformation.
(D) Harassment.
(E) Foreign political interference.
(4) A detailed description of content moderation practices
used by the digital social company for that platform, including
each of the following:
(A) Any existing policies intended to address the
categories of content described in paragraph (3).
(B) How automated content moderation systems
enforce terms of service of the digital social platform
and when these systems involve human review.
(C) How the digital social company responds to user
reports of violations of the terms of service.
(D) What standards, policies, or decision-making
systems the digital social company employs when
deciding to action individual pieces of content, users,
or groups.
(5) Information on content that was flagged to the digital
social company as belonging to any of the categories described
in paragraph (3), including each of the following:
(A) The total number of flagged items of content.
(B) The total number of actioned items of content.
(C) The total number of actioned items of content
that were removed, demonetized, deprioritized, muted,
or banned by the digital social company, disaggregated
by each type of action.
(D) The number of times actioned items of content
were viewed by users.
(E) The number of times actioned items of content
were shared, and the number of users that viewed the
content before it was actioned.
(F) The number of times users appealed digital
social company actions taken on that platform.
(G) The number of reversals of digital social
company actions on appeal disaggregated by each type of
action.
(6) All information required by paragraphs (4) and (5)
shall be disaggregated into the following categories:
(A) The category of content, including any relevant
categories described in paragraph (3).
(B) The type of content, including posts, comments,
messages, in-game structures or objects, or profiles of
users, or groups of users.
(C) The type of media of the content, including
text, images, videos, and audio.
(D) How the content was flagged, including flagged
by company employees or contractors, flagged by
artificial intelligence software, flagged by community
moderators, flagged by civil society partners, and
flagged by users.
(E) How the content was actioned, including
actioned by company employees or contractors, actioned
by artificial intelligence software, or actioned by
community moderators.
(c) Activity Report.--A digital social company shall report--
(1) activity within the third and fourth quarters of the
preceding calendar year, to the Attorney General no later than
April 1 of each year; and
(2) activity within the first and second quarters of the
current calendar year, to the Attorney General no later than
October 1 of each year.
(d) Repository.--The Attorney General shall make all terms of
service reports submitted pursuant to this section available to the
public in a searchable repository on its official internet website.
SEC. 4. PENALTIES FOR LACK OF SUBMISSION.
(a) Administrative Assessment.--A digital social company that
violates the provisions of this Act shall be liable for an
administrative assessment not to exceed $15,000 per violation per day.
(b) Violations.--A digital social company shall be considered in
violation of the provisions of this Act for each day the digital social
company does any of the following:
(1) Fails to post terms of service in accordance with
section 2.
(2) Fails to timely submit to the Attorney General a report
required pursuant to section 3.
(3) Materially omits or misrepresents required information
in a report submitted pursuant to section 3.
(c) Relief.--The Attorney General has the exclusive authority to
bring an action in any court of competent jurisdiction, upon their own
complaint or upon the complaint of any board, officer, person,
corporation, or association, to enjoin a violation of this Act by a
digital social company.
(d) Deposits Into Fund.--
(1) Establishment.--There is established in the Treasury a
separate account to be known as the Digital Social Platform
Terms of Service Fund (hereinafter referred to as the
``Fund'').
(2) Deposits.--There shall be deposited in the Fund one-
half of the administrative assessment funds collected pursuant
to this section, which funds may be used to maintain the
reporting website and support the enforcement of this Act.
SEC. 5. DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS; REMEDIES AND PENALTIES.
(a) Duties and Obligations.--The duties and obligations authorized
under this Act are cumulative to any other duties or obligations
imposed under local, State, or Federal law and shall not be construed
to relieve any party from any duties or obligations imposed under law.
(b) Remedies and Penalties.--Remedies or penalties authorized under
this Act are cumulative to any other remedies or penalties available
under local law, State law, this Act or any other Federal law.
SEC. 6. RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.
(a) Limitation on Application.--This Act may not be construed to
apply to an internet-based service or application for which
interactions between users are limited to direct messages, commercial
transactions, consumer reviews of products, sellers, services, events,
or places, or any combination thereof.
(b) End-to-End Encryption.--This Act may not be construed to
require or encourage any internet-based service or application to
change the effectiveness of end-to-end encryption of that service or
application.
SEC. 7. DEFERENCE TO AGENCY INTERPRETATIONS.
Notwithstanding section 706 of title 5, United States Code, the
Attorney General may make such interpretations and determinations as
are reasonable and necessary to carry out this Act, with respect to
which courts shall defer.
SEC. 8. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Actioned.--The term ``actioned'' means that a digital
social company, due to a suspected or confirmed violation of
the terms of service, has taken some form of action, including
removal, demonetization, deprioritization, muting, suspending,
or banning, against a relevant user or relevant item of
content.
(2) Content.--The term ``content'' means statements, posts,
comments, messages, videos, audio, images, in-game structures
or other user-created objects, or profiles of users or groups
of users, or structures that are created, posted, shared, or
otherwise interacted with by users on an internet-based service
or application. The term ``content'' does not include media put
on a service or application exclusively for the purpose of
cloud storage, transmitting files, or file collaboration.
(3) Digital social company.--The term ``digital social
company'' means a person or entity that owns or operates one or
more digital social platforms, including social media platforms
and online games.
(4) Digital social platform.--
(A) In general.--The term ``digital social
platform'' means a public or semipublic internet-based
service or application that has users in the United
States and that meets the following criteria:
(i) A substantial function of the service
or application is to introduce users in order
to allow users to interact socially with each
other within the service or application.
(ii) The service or application allows
users to do each of the following:
(I) Construct a public or
semipublic profile for purposes of
signing into and using the service or
application.
(II) Populate a list of other users
with whom an individual shares a social
connection within the system.
(III) Create or post content
viewable by other groups or communities
of users, including on message boards,
in chat rooms, or through a landing
page or main feed.
(iii) A service or application that
generates more than $100,000,000 in gross
revenue during the preceding calendar year.
(B) Exclusion.--The term ``digital social
platform'' does not include a service or application
that provides email or direct messages, commercial
transactions, consumer reviews of products, sellers,
services, events, or places, or any combination thereof
on the basis of that function alone.
(5) End-to-end encryption.--The term ``end-to-end
encryption'' means communications encryption in which data is
encrypted when being passed through a network, but routing
information remains visible.
(6) Public or semipublic internet-based service or
application.--The term ``public or semipublic internet-based
service or application'' excludes a service or application used
to facilitate communication within a business or enterprise
among employees or affiliates of the business or enterprise,
provided that access to the service or application is
restricted to employees or affiliates of the business or
enterprise using the service or application.
(7) Terms of service.--The term ``terms of service'' means
a policy or set of policies adopted by a digital social company
that specifies, at least, the user behavior and activities that
are permitted on the internet-based service owned or operated
by the digital social company, and the user behavior and
activities that may subject the user or an item of content to
being actioned.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
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