Sec. 105. Transparency
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/bill/118/s/2073/eas/section-105·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Subject to subsection (b), not less frequently than once a year, a covered platform shall issue a public report describing the reasonably foreseeable risks of harms to minors and assessing the prevention and mitigation measures taken to address such risk based on an independent, third-party audit conducted through reasonable inspection of the covered platform. The requirements of this section shall apply to a covered platform if— for the most recent calendar year, the platform averaged more than 10,000,000 active users on a monthly basis in the United States; and the platform predominantly provides a community forum for user-generated content and discussion, including sharing videos, images, games, audio files, discussion in a virtual setting, or other content, such as acting as a social media platform, virtual reality environment, or a social network service.
The public reports required of a covered platform under this section shall include— an assessment of the extent to which the platform is likely to be accessed by minors; a description of the commercial interests of the covered platform in use by minors; an accounting, based on the data held by the covered platform, of— the number of users using the covered platform that the platform knows to be minors in the United States; the median and mean amounts of time spent on the platform by users known to be minors in the United States who have accessed the platform during the reporting year on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis; and the amount of content being accessed by users that the platform knows to be minors in the United States that is in English, and the top 5 non-English languages used by users accessing the platform in the United States; an accounting of total reports received regarding, and the prevalence (which can be based on scientifically valid sampling methods using the content available to the covered platform in the normal course of business) of content related to, the harms described in section 102(a), disaggregated by category of harm and language, including English and the top 5 non-English languages used by users accessing the platform from the United States (as identified under subparagraph (C)(iii)); and a description of any material breaches of parental tools or assurances regarding minors, representations regarding the use of the personal data of minors, and other matters regarding non-compliance with this subtitle.
The public reports required of a covered platform under this section shall include— an assessment of the reasonably foreseeable risk of harms to minors posed by the covered platform, specifically identifying those physical, mental, developmental, or financial harms described in section 102(a); a description of whether and how the covered platform uses design features that encourage or increase the frequency, time spent, or activity of minors on the covered platform, such as infinite scrolling, auto playing, rewards for time spent on the platform, notifications, and other design features that result in compulsive usage of the covered platform by the minor; a description of whether, how, and for what purpose the platform collects or processes categories of personal data that may cause reasonably foreseeable risk of harms to minors; an evaluation of the efficacy of safeguards for minors and parental tools under section 103, and any issues in delivering such safeguards and the associated parental tools; an evaluation of any other relevant matters of public concern over risk of harms to minors associated with the use of the covered platform; and an assessment of differences in risk of harm to minors across different English and non-English languages and efficacy of safeguards in those languages.
The public reports required of a covered platform under this section shall include, for English and the top 5 non-English languages used by users accessing the platform from the United States (as identified under paragraph (2)(C)(iii)))— a description of the safeguards and parental tools available to minors and parents on the covered platform; a description of interventions by the covered platform when it had or has reason to believe that harms to minors could occur; a description of the prevention and mitigation measures intended to be taken in response to the known and emerging risks identified in its assessment of reasonably foreseeable risks of harms to minors, including steps taken to— prevent harms to minors, including adapting or removing design features or addressing through parental tools; provide the most protective level of control over privacy and safety by default; and adapt recommendation systems to mitigate reasonably foreseeable risk of harms to minors, as described in section 102(a); a description of internal processes for handling reports and automated detection mechanisms for harms to minors, including the rate, timeliness, and effectiveness of responses under the requirement of section 103(c); the status of implementing prevention and mitigation measures identified in prior assessments; and a description of the additional measures to be taken by the covered platform to address the circumvention of safeguards for minors and parental tools.
In conducting an inspection of the reasonably foreseeable risk of harm to minors under this section, an independent, third-party auditor shall— take into consideration the function of personalized recommendation systems; consult parents and youth experts, including youth and families with relevant past or current experience, public health and mental health nonprofit organizations, health and development organizations, and civil society with respect to the prevention of harms to minors; conduct research based on experiences of minors that use the covered platform, including reports under section 103(c) and information provided by law enforcement; take account of research, including research regarding design features, marketing, or product integrity, industry best practices, or outside research; consider indicia or inferences of age of users, in addition to any self-declared information about the age of users; and take into consideration differences in risk of reasonably foreseeable harms and effectiveness of safeguards across English and non-English languages.
To facilitate the report required by subsection (c), a covered platform shall— provide or otherwise make available to the independent third-party conducting the audit all information and material in its possession, custody, or control that is relevant to the audit; provide or otherwise make available to the independent third-party conducting the audit access to all network, systems, and assets relevant to the audit; and disclose all relevant facts to the independent third-party conducting the audit, and not misrepresent in any manner, expressly or by implication, any relevant fact.
In issuing the public reports required under this section, a covered platform shall take steps to safeguard the privacy of its users, including ensuring that data is presented in a de-identified, aggregated format such that it is not reasonably linkable to any user. This section shall not be construed to require the disclosure of information that will lead to material vulnerabilities for the privacy of users or the security of a covered platform's service or create a significant risk of the violation of Federal or State law.
As used in this subsection, the term de-identified means data that does not identify and is not linked or reasonably linkable to a device that is linked or reasonably linkable to an individual, regardless of whether the information is aggregated The public reports required under this section should be posted by a covered platform on an easy to find location on a publicly-available website.