Requires social media companies to post terms of service for each social media platform owned or operated by the company in a manner reasonably designed to inform all users of the social media platform of the existence and contents of the terms of service; requires social media companies to submit to the attorney general certain terms of service reports; provides remedies for violations.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A6789B
SPONSOR: Lee TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the general business law, in relation to requiring
disclosure of certain social media terms of service
PURPOSE:
Requires social media companies, as defined, to post their terms of
service and to submit reports to the Attorney General on their terms of
service and content moderation policies and outcomes.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one of the bill amends the general business law by adding a new
article 42.
Section 1100 of the new article 42 sets forth definitions.
Section 1101 of the new article 42 requires a social media company to
post terms of service for each social media platform owned or operated
by the company in a manner reasonably designed to inform all users of
the social media platform of the existence and contents of the terms of
service, and shall-include a description of the process through which
users may flag content. The terms of service to be available in the
twelve most common non-English languages spoken in the state, as
defined, in which the social media platform offers product features,
including, but not limited to, menus and prompts.
Section 1102 of the new article 42 requires the social media company to
submit a terms of service report to the attorney general that includes a
statement on whether the terms of services define, and how they define
hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or
misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference, as well
as how they enforce those policies, and steps taken and data on flagged
and actioned items of content. The attorney general shall make all terms
of service reports available to the public in a searchable repository on
its official Internet website.
Section 1103 of the new article 42 creates violations and remedies:
Subject companies in violation to penalties of up to $15,000 per
violation per day to be sought by the attorney general. Any social media
company determined to have a violation will have a thirty day period
during which they must rectify any violations.
Section 1104 of the new article 42 states that the law does not apply to
companies that generate less than one hundred million dollars in gross
revenue annually.
Section 2 is the effective date. This act shall take effect on the one
hundred eightieth day after it shall have become law.
JUSTIFICATION:
Social media platforms have not taken appropriate steps to manage the
spread of hate speech, racism and misinformation: most do not even
provide clear policies around enforcement, let alone clear reports on
their enforcement process. A survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation
League found that 58% of marginalized people reported hate-based harass-
ment online in. the last 12 months. LGBTQ+ respondents were more likely
than any other group surveyed to experience harassment.
And despite public attention to the issue, online harassment has, stayed
at similar levels since 2020. Current transparency reports self-issued
by social media companies are hard to find, full of inconsistent and
misleading data and metrics making it hard to understand and compare
platform policies, and lack the context to understand what the numbers
provided mean. Platforms rarely provide detailed insight into their
content moderation practices or the effectiveness of different
approaches. This bill would require the clear disclosure of current
policies on hate speech and racism, disinformation, extremism and
threats of violence, harassment, and foreign political interference,
provide key metrics and data on the numbers of content, groups and users
flagged for violation, method of flagging, number of actions taken and
types of enforcement actions.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
S.9594 of 2021-2022 (Boylman): Died in Rules
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after it
shall have become law.
