Representatives DeSaulnier and Patronis Introduce Legislation to Hold Tech Companies Accountable and Protect Young Americans
Washington, D.C. – Today, Representatives Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10) and Jimmy Patronis (FL-01) introduced the Sunset Section 230 Act, which would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, making it possible for Americans to bring legal action against big tech companies responsible for online harm.
“With one in five American teenagers reporting harm to their mental health from social media sites, it is critical and urgent that we take action to rein in the big tech companies that are allowing the dissemination of harmful material on their platforms. These companies have been profiting at the expense of young people, who have been harassed and subjected to harmful content,” said Congressman DeSaulnier. “This legislation combined with the recent legal action against companies like Meta should send a loud message: Big Tech’s days of acting with impunity, wreaking havoc, and then asking for forgiveness once the damage has been done are over.”
“Big Tech has become a crooked dealer, pushing digital fentanyl to our kids while profiting from their addiction. Enough is enough. I’m proud to partner with Congressman DeSaulnier to co-lead the Sunset Section 230 Act and fight to repeal Section 230 once and for all. It’s time to hold Big Tech accountable and put our kids’ safety ahead of Big Tech’s profits,” said Congressman Patronis.
Section 230 was created in 1996 as part of the Communications Decency Act to help encourage innovation and growth among new social media companies, but 30 years later as these companies have become inordinately powerful, Section 230 has become obsolete and dangerous. By sunsetting Section 230 after two years, this bill would provide much needed reform to our tech policy that would protect all users of social media, particularly children, from harmful content and hold companies responsible for demonstrated injury to users of their platforms.
Introduction of this legislation comes as Meta agreed this summer to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims brought by 29 U.S. states that the company had contributed to the national youth mental health crisis. The deal also mandates that Meta introduce new guardrails for young users of its platforms, including default daily time limits and nighttime blocks that can only be lifted by a parent, an enhanced mechanism for teens to report potentially harmful content and a requirement that Meta respond to 90% of those reports within six hours, and bans on features such as cosmetic procedure image filters and the display of the numbers of likes on posts. Earlier this year, Meta suffered additional losses in court over claims it created addictive products that harmed young Americans.
Full text of the bill can be found here.
Congressman DeSaulnier is a senior member of the House Committee on Education & Workforce and a longtime advocate for consumer safety and the health and wellbeing of young people, having sponsored legislation to hold e-cigarette companies accountable for their role in the youth vaping crisis and to increase access to supports, services, and resources for children, students, workers, and families by strengthening school-based behavioral health care, bolstering mental health parity protections, and ensuring access to mental health and substance use disorder benefits for workers and families.