Sponsored by:
Assemblyman PAUL KANITRA
District 10 (Monmouth and Ocean)
SYNOPSIS
Establishes requirements for social media companies concerning content moderation practices; establishes cause of action against social media companies for violation of content moderation practices.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning social media companies that use content moderation practices and supplementing Title 56 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the Social Media Fairness and Transparency Act.
2. As used in P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill):
Algorithm means a mathematical set of rules that specify how a group of data will assist in ranking search results and maintaining order or will be used in sorting or ranking content or material based on relevancy or other factors instead of using published time or chronological order of such content or material.
Anonymous user ban means action by a social media company, through any means, whether the action is determined by a natural person or an algorithm, to limit or eliminate the exposure of a user to other users of the social media platform. Anonymous user ban includes acts of banning by a social media company that are not readily apparent to a user.
Censor means any action taken by a social media company to delete, regulate, restrict, edit, alter, inhibit the publication or republication of, suspend a right to post, remove, or post an addendum to any content or material posted by a user. Censor includes actions to inhibit the ability of a user to be viewable by or to interact with another user of the social media platform.
Individual means a human being.
Journalistic enterprise means any entity:
a. publishing words, audio, or video online and making such published material available to Internet users;
b. operating a cable television channel providing content for cable television subscribers; or
c. operating under a broadcast license issued by the Federal Communications Commission.
Obscene means material that a reasonable person, applying contemporary community ethical standards, would find that, taken as a whole, the dominant theme of the material appeals to prurient interests.
Post prioritization means action by a social media company or by the algorithm employed by the social media company to place, feature, or prioritize certain content or material ahead of other content or material in a newsfeed, view, or Internet search result list. Post prioritization does not include post prioritization of content and material based on payments by a third party, including other users, to the social media company.
Post suppression means action by a social media company or by the algorithm employed by the social media company to limit, censor, or suppress certain content or material in a newsfeed, view, or Internet search result list.
Selective suspension means the action or practice by a social media company to permanently delete or ban a user or to temporarily delete or ban a user for more than 60 days.
Social media advertising means a form of digital advertising that provides paid advertisements to a specific audience using social media platforms.
Social media company means a sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, association, or other legal entity that is organized or operated for the profit or financial benefit of its shareholders or other owners and that provides or operates a social media platform.
Social media platform means any information service, system, Internet search engine, or access software provider that does business in the State of New Jersey, and provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including an Internet website or a social media Internet website, or both that satisfies two or more of the following conditions:
a. is open to the public;
b. has annual gross revenues in excess of $100 million, as adjusted in January of every odd-numbered year to reflect any increase in the Consumer Price Index;
c. has at least 100 million monthly users globally; or
d. has at least 25 million consistent and unique monthly users who are located in the United States.
Trade secret means information, held by one or more people, without regard to form, including a formula, pattern, business data compilation, program, device, method, technique, design, diagram, drawing, invention, plan, procedure, prototype, or process, that: (1) derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and (2) is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.
"User" means a person who has an account on a social media platform, regardless of whether the person posts or has posted content or material to the social media platform.
3. a. It shall be an unlawful practice and violation of the New Jersey consumer fraud act, P.L.1960, c.39 (C.56:8-1 et seq.), if a social media company that operates within this State fails to comply with the requirements set forth in this section. A social media company that operates within this State shall:
(1) publish the standards, including detailed definitions, it uses or has used for determining how to censor, selectively suspend, or implement an anonymous user ban;
(2) apply censorship, selective suspension, and anonymous user banning standards in a consistent manner among its users on the social media platform;
(3) notify users about any changes to user rules, terms, and agreements prior to implementing such changes;
(4) not censor a user's content or material or selectively suspend a user from the social media platform without providing notification to the user who posted or attempted to post the content or material, or in a way that violates State deceptive and unfair trade practices;
(5) publish the keywords, search terms, and other means that are used to censor, selectively suspend, or implement an anonymous user ban;
(6) publish the keywords, search terms, and other means that are used for post prioritization;
(7) provide a mechanism for users who purchase a social media advertisement to request a list of other users unique identification codes or similar identifying information who were provided or shown the requesting users content or post upon request;
(8) categorize algorithms used for post prioritization, post suppression, and anonymous user banning and allow users to opt-out of post priori