Bill Text: CA SB680 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Features that harm child users: civil penalty.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)
Status: (Engrossed) 2023-09-01 - September 1 hearing: Held in committee and under submission. [SB680 Detail]
Download: California-2023-SB680-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
July 13, 2023 |
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
June 12, 2023 |
|
Amended
IN
Senate
April 27, 2023 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
No. 680
| Introduced by Senator Skinner (Coauthors: Assembly Members Kalra and Lowenthal) |
February 16, 2023 |
An act to add Section 1714.48 to the Civil Code, relating to social media platforms.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 680, as amended, Skinner.
Features that harm child users: civil penalty.
The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 prohibits a business from selling the personal information of a consumer if the business has actual knowledge that the consumer is less than 16 years of age, unless the consumer, in the case of a consumer at least 13 years of age and less than 16 years of age, or the consumer’s parent or guardian, in the case of a consumer who is less than 13 years of age, has affirmatively authorized the sale of the consumer’s personal information.
The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act requires, beginning July 1, 2024, a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements, including a requirement to configure all default privacy settings offered by the online service, product, or feature to the settings that offer a high level
of privacy, as prescribed, and requires a business, before any new online services, products, or features are offered to the public, to complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment for any online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children and maintain documentation of this assessment as long as the online service, product, or feature is likely to be accessed by children.
This bill would prohibit a social media platform, as defined, from using a design, algorithm, or feature that the platform knows, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, causes child users, as defined, to do any of certain things, including experience addiction to the social media platform.
This bill would provide that a social media platform is not in violation of the bill if the social media platform instituted and maintained a program of at least quarterly audits, as defined, of its designs, algorithms, and features
that have the potential to cause violations of the provision described above, and the social media platform corrected, within 30 60 days of the completion of the audit, any design, algorithm, or feature discovered by the audit to present more than a de minimis risk of violating that provision.
This bill would subject a social media platform that knowingly and willfully violates these provisions to a civil penalty not to exceed $250,000 per violation, an injunction, and an award of litigation costs and attorney’s fees in an action brought only by certain public attorneys, including the Attorney General.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NOBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
Section 1714.48 is added to the Civil Code, immediately following Section 1714.45, to read:1714.48.
(a) A social media platform shall not use a design, algorithm, or feature that the platform knows, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, causes a child user to do any of the following:(1) Inflict harm on themselves or others.
(2) Develop an eating disorder.
(3) Experience addiction to the social media platform.
(b) A social media platform is not in violation of this section if it demonstrates it did both of the following:
(1) The social media platform instituted and maintained a program of at least quarterly audits of its designs, algorithms, and features that have the potential to cause violations of subdivision (a).
(2) The social media platform corrected, within 30 60 days of the completion of an audit described in paragraph (1), any design, algorithm, or feature discovered by the audit to present more than a de minimis risk of violating subdivision (a).
(c) A social media platform that has knowingly and willfully violated this section shall be liable for a civil penalty not to exceed two hundred fifty thousand dollars
($250,000) per violation, an injunction, and an award of litigation costs and attorney’s fees.
(d) An action to enforce this section may be brought only by any of the following:
(1) The Attorney General.
(2) A district attorney.
(3) A city attorney of a city having a population in excess of 750,000.
(4) A county counsel of any county within which a city has a population in excess of 750,000.
(5) With the consent of the district attorney, a city prosecutor in a city that has a full-time city prosecutor.
(e) This section does not impose liability on a social media platform for either of the following:
(1) Conduct protected by Section 230 of Title 47 of the United States Code.
(2) Conduct protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or Section 2 of Article I of the California Constitution.
(f) An action to enforce a cause of action pursuant to this section shall be commenced within four years after the cause of action accrued.
(g) For purposes of this section:
(1) “Addiction” means a use of one or more social
media platforms that does both of the following:
(A) Indicates preoccupation or obsession with, or withdrawal or difficulty to cease or reduce use of, a social media platform.
(B) Causes physical, mental, emotional, developmental, or material harms to the user.
(2) “Audit” means a good faith, written, systemic review or appraisal by a social media platform that provides reasonable assurance of monitoring compliance with this section that meets both of the following criteria:
(A) The review or appraisal describes and analyzes each of the social media platform’s current and forthcoming designs, algorithms, and features that have the potential to cause a violation
described in subdivision (a).
(B) The review of appraisal includes any plans to change designs, algorithms, and features that pose more than a de minimis risk of violating subdivision (a).
(3) “Child user” means a person who uses a social media platform and is younger than 16 years of age.
(4) “Controlled substance” has the same meaning as defined in Section 11007 of the Health and Safety Code.
(5) “Eating disorder” means a behavioral condition characterized by a severe and persistent disturbance in eating behaviors and associated distressing thoughts and emotions, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and avoidant restrictive food intake
disorder.
(6) (A) “Harm” means physical, mental, or emotional harm.
(B) A social media platform shall be deemed to have caused a child user to inflict harm on themselves or others if, as a result of a social media platform’s design, algorithm, or feature, the platform sends a child user any of the following:
(i) Information regarding how to obtain a firearm in violation of Part 6 (commencing with Section 16000) of the Penal Code, and the child user obtains or uses the firearm.
(ii) Information regarding how to obtain a controlled substance, and the child user obtains or uses the controlled substance.
(iii) Information regarding how to die by suicide, and the child user acts on this information or becomes suicidal.
(7) (A) “Social media platform” has the same meaning as defined in Section 22675 of the Business and Professions Code. Code, except as provided in subparagraph (B).
(B) “Social media platform” does not mean a standalone direct
messaging service that provides end-to-end encrypted communication or the portion of a multiservice platform that uses end-to-end encrypted communication.
(h) This section does not apply to a social media platform that is controlled by a business entity that generated less than one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) in gross revenue during the preceding calendar year.
(i) This section does not negate or limit a cause of action under common law or any other statute, including any cause of action that may have existed or exists will exist against a social media platform under the law as it existed
enacted before January 1, 2024.
(j) A waiver of the provisions of this section is contrary to public policy and is void and unenforceable.
