Sponsored by:
Assemblywoman ANDREA KATZ
District 8 (Atlantic and Burlington)
Assemblyman HERB CONAWAY, JR.
District 7 (Burlington)
Assemblyman BENJIE E. WIMBERLY
District 35 (Bergen and Passaic)
SYNOPSIS
Prohibits social media platforms from promoting certain practices or features of eating disorders to child users.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act prohibiting social media platforms from promoting certain eating behaviors to child users and supplementing Title 56 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. As used in P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill):
Child user means a person who is younger than 18 years of age and who uses one or more social media platforms.
Content means any statements, materials, documents, photographs, graphics, or other information that is created, posted, shared, or otherwise transmitted on a social media platform, except that content shall not include any information that is posted online exclusively for the purpose of cloud storage, transmitting documents, or file collaboration.
Eating disorder means a behavioral condition characterized by a severe and persistent disturbance in eating behaviors and associated distressing thoughts and emotions, including but not limited to, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder.
Public or semi-public Internet-based service or application excludes any Internet-based service or application that is 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.
Social media platform or platform means a public or semi- public Internet-based service or application that has users in this State, which service or application:
a. allows users to construct a public or semipublic profile for the purposes of using the platform, populate a list of other users with whom the user shares a social connection through the platform, and post content viewable by other users of the platform; and
b. is designed to connect users within the platform to facilitate social interactions, except that a service or application that provides email or direct messaging services shall not be considered to meet this criterion solely based on the existence of that functionality.
2. a. Except as otherwise provided in this section, a social media platform shall not use a design, algorithm, practice, affordance, or feature that the platform knows, or which by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, could cause child users to develop an eating disorder, including, but not limited to, promoting diet products.
b. A social media platform shall not be deemed to violate the provisions of subsection a. of this section if:
(1) the social media platform demonstrates that the platform:
(a) instituted and maintained an internal audit program in which the platform:
(i) conducts quarterly audits of its practices, designs, features, and affordances to determine whether these practices, designs, features, or affordances cause, have the potential to cause, or contribute to the development of eating disorders in child users on the platform; and
(ii) hires an independent third party to conduct an annual audit of its practices, designs, features, or affordances to determine whether these practices, designs, features, or affordances cause, have the potential to cause, or contribute to the development of eating disorders in child users on the platform; and
(b) if an audit determines that any practice, design, feature, or affordance used by the platform causes, has the potential to cause, or contributes to the development of eating disorders in child users, the platform has taken action to correct the practice, design, feature, or affordance within 30 calendar days of the completion of the audit and upon the social media platforms receipt of notification of the issue;
(2) the social media platform is majority controlled by a business entity that generated less than $100 million in gross revenue during the preceding calendar year; or
(3) the primary function of the social media platform is to enable users to play video games.
c. Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose liability on a social media platform for:
(1) any content that is generated, uploaded, or shared on the social media platform by a user of the platform, unless the content is paid for, including through advertisement sales, by the social media platform;
(2) any content that is created solely by a third party and passively displayed by the social media platform;
(3) any information or content for which the social media platform was not, in whole or in part, responsible for creating or developing; or
(4) any content involving child users that would otherwise be protected by 47 U.S.C. s.230, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, or Article I, paragraph 6 of the State Constitution.
d. A social media platform that violates the provisions of subsection a. of this section shall be liable for a civil penalty, not to exceed $250,000 per violation, to be collected in a civil action by a summary proceeding under the Penalty Enforcement Law of 1999, P.L.1999, c.274 (C.2A:58-10 et seq.). The Superior Court and the municipal court shall have jurisdiction to enforce the provisions of the Penalty Enforcement Law of 1999, P.L.1999, c.274 (C.2A:58-10) pursuant to this subsection.
3. This act shall take effect six months after enactment.
STATEMENT
This bill prohibits social media platforms from promoting certain practices or features of eating disorders to child users in an effort to curb the rate of eating disorders amongst children in this State.
A social media platform is prohibited from using a design, algorithm, practice, affordance, or feature that the platform knows, or which by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, could cause child users to develop an eating disorder, including, but not limited to, promoting diet products.
A social media platform would not be found to violate the provisions of this bill if the social media platform: (1) demonstrates that the platform instituted and maintained an internal quarterly audit program in which the platform audits its practices, designs, features, and affordances to determine whether these practices, designs, features, or affordance