Sec. 105. Transparency
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/bill/119/s/1748/is/section-105A 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 that addresses the matters in subsection
(c)based on an independent, third-party audit of the covered platform with a reasonable level of assurance. 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 being used 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 through the reporting mechanism described in section 103, disaggregated by 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 an assessment of the safeguards and parental tools under section 103, representations regarding the use of the personal data of minors, and other matters regarding compliance with this title. The public reports required under this section shall include— an assessment based on aggregate data on the exercise of safeguards and parental tools described in section 103, and other competent and reliable empirical evidence; a description of whether and how the covered platform uses design features that increase, sustain, or extend the use of a product or service by a minor; a description of whether, how, and for what purpose the platform collects or processes categories of personal data, including how personal data is used to operate personalized recommendation systems related 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 parental tools; and an assessment of differences, with respect to the matters described in subparagraphs
(A)through (D), 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 the prevention and mitigation measures a covered platform may take, if any, in response to the assessments conducted under paragraph (2), including steps take to provide the most protective level of control over safety by default; a description of the processes used for the creation and implementation of any design feature that will be used by minors; a description and assessment of handling reports under the requirement of section 103(c), including the rate of response, timeliness, and substantiveness of responses; and the status of implementing prevention and mitigation measures identified in prior assessments. 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; take into consideration 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.