On Thursday (Dec. 9), the bill was introduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators — Chris Coons (D-Del.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) — and would establish new rules that would require social media companies like Facebook to share data with “qualified researchers.”
The bill defines qualified researchers as being affiliated with a university and pursuing projects that have been approved by the National Science Foundation (NSF), according to the press release.
See also: New Privacy Rules Could Derail User Data Collection by Companies
Under the terms of the bill, social media platforms would be obliged to comply with requests for data once approved by the NSF.
The data would be held to strict protections in order to guard users’ privacy, and failure by a social platform to comply would cause the company to lose immunities associated with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Advertisement: Scroll to Continue
“Over the last several months, we’ve seen deeply concerning evidence of how social media platforms are harming our families, our communities, and our democracy,” Klobuchar said.
Read more: ‘No Surprise Act’ Could Bring Unexpected Transparency, Innovation to Healthcare Payments
The bill also gives the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the authority to mandate that platforms proactively make certain information available to researchers or the public on an ongoing basis, such as an advertising library that explains user targeting and engagement.
“It’s increasingly clear that more transparency is needed so that the billions of people who use Facebook, Twitter and similar platforms can fully understand the impact of those tradeoffs,” Coons said.
You may also enjoy: Merchants Move Streaming Commerce Off Social Media
Stanford Law Professor Nate Persily said that the bill is an important move in “opening a window onto tech” and making social media companies take responsibility.
“We cannot live in a world where the platforms know everything about us and we know next to nothing about them,” Persily said.
