General (26)
Susana Barrios
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Subject:\[EXTERNAL\] Bring back CA State A 2408 AB-2408 Social media platform: child users:
addiction.(2021-2022) DIED/
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04-12-2024
(P.R.D.D.C.)
PARENTS FOR THE RIGHTS OF DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED CHILDREN
CRAIG A. DURFEY FOUNDER OF P.R.D.D.C.
U.S. HOUSE OF CONGRESS H2404 - HONORING CRAIG DURFEY FOR HIS FIGHT AGAINST AUTISM
... Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2003-03-27/pdf/CREC-2003-03-27.pdf
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To whom it may concern.
Calling for reintroduce language to address flaws education in order awareness
will change to address social media addiction.
Top of Form
AB-2408 Social media platform: child users: addiction.(2021-2022)
Text Votes History Bill Analysis Today's Law As Amended Compare
Versions Status Comments To Author
Bottom of Form
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SHARE THIS:
Date Published: 06/30/2022 09:00 PM
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BILL START
AMENDED IN SENATE JUNE 30, 2022
AMENDED IN SENATE JUNE 20, 2022
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MAY 04, 2022
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 24, 2022
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION
ASSEMBLY BILL
NO. 2408
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Introduced by Assembly Members Cunningham and Wicks
February 17, 2022
An act to amend add Section 1714 of 17052 to the Civil Business and
Professions Code, relating to social media platforms.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 2408, as amended, Cunningham. Social media platform: child users:
addiction.
Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, prohibits a
business from selling the personal information of a consumer if the business
has actual knowledge that the consumer is less than 16 years of age, unless
the consumer, in the case of a consumer at least 13 years of age and less
than 16 years of age, or the consumer’s parent or guardian, in the case of a
consumer who is less than 13 years of age, has affirmatively authorized the
sale of the consumer’s personal information.
Existing law provides that everyone is responsible not only for the result of
their willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by their want of
ordinary care or skill in the management of their property or person.
Existing law, the Unfair Practices Act, makes certain business practices
unlawful and regulates various businesses to, among other things, preserve
and regulate competition, prohibit unfair trade practices, and regulate
advertising.
This bill, the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act, would specify
that prohibit a social media platform, as defined, is also responsible for an
injury occasioned to another by their want of ordinary care or skill in the
management of their property or person, and would specify, for a social
medial platform, that “ordinary care or skill” includes the platform’s use of
any design, feature, or affordance that from using a design, feature, or
affordance that the platform knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care
should have known, causes a child user, as defined, to become addicted to
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the platform. The act would authorize a public prosecutor the Attorney
General or a district attorney, county counsel, or city attorney to bring an
action to recover or obtain certain relief, including a civil penalty of up
to $25,000 per violation, and a mimumum amount of damages to be awarded
per member of the class in a class action. The bill would also specify a
mimumum amount of damages to be awarded per member of the class in any
class action that is not brought by a public prosecutor. $250,000 for a
knowing and willful violation, and an award of litigation costs and attorneys’
fees. The bill would provide that a social media platform is not subject to a
civil penalty if it demonstrates that it met certain requirements, and would
exempt a social media platform that is controlled by a business entity that
generated less than $100,000,000 in gross revenue during the preceding
calendar year or whose primary function is to allow users to play video
games.
DIGEST KEY
Vote: majority Appropriation: no Fiscal Committee: yes Local
Program: no
BILL TEXT
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1.
This act shall be known as the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act.
SEC. 2.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) California should take reasonable, proportional, and effective steps to
ensure that its children are not harmed by addictions of any kind.
(b) A broad diversity of psychologists and psychiatrists in the field of
addiction, as well as scientists, doctors, and other researchers,
acknowledge the existence of social media addiction.
(1) Research using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, a widely used
measure of social media platform addiction, has found that social media
platform addiction has a prevalence across the general population of about
5 percent.
(2) In people who become addicted, the brain’s reward system is more
active when using social media than it is in the brains of people who are
not addicted. The result, according to health experts and researchers, is
compulsive and excessive social media use.
(c) There is growing evidence that social media platform addiction is a
particular problem, particularly among adolescent children.
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(1) The largest social media platform company in the world’s own secret
internal research validates both the existence of social media addiction in
children and that social media addiction hurts children. As an example, in
September 2021, The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles
referred to as “The Facebook Files.” Those articles, citing a trove of
internal documents obtained from Frances Haugen, a whistleblower,
demonstrated the extent to which Facebook knew that its platforms cause
significant harm to users, especially children.
(2) More specifically, as revealed by Haugen’s sworn testimony before
Congress and the accompanying secret research she revealed to The Wall
Street Journal, “Facebook has studied a pattern that they call problematic
use, what we might more commonly call addiction. It has a very high bar
for what it believes \[problematic use\] is. It \[means\] you self-identify that
you don’t have control over your usage and that it is materially harming
your health, your schoolwork or your physical health.” … “Facebook’s
internal research is aware that there are a variety of problems facing
children on Instagram, they know that severe harm is happening to
children.”
(3) During whistleblower Haugen’s sworn testimony to Congress, she
revealed that, when it comes to meeting the platform’s addiction-like
definition of “problematic use”: “Five to six percent of 14 year olds have
the self-awareness to admit both those questions” that qualify a child as
having problematic use.
(4) Five to six percent of Instagram’s child users is millions of children,
certainly many thousands of which reside in California.
(d) Social media platform addiction is more acute in girls than boys.
(1) Girls experience a higher prevalence of social media addiction than
boys.
(2) Girls who admit to excessive social media platform use are two to three
times more likely to report being depressed than girls who use social
media platforms lightly.
(3) A March 2020 presentation posted by Facebook researchers to
Facebook’s internal message board reported that “66% of teen girls on IG
experience negative social comparison (compared to 40% of teen boys)”
and that “\[a\]spects of Instagram exacerbate each other to create a perfect
storm.”
(e) The business models of some social media platform companies financially
motivate them to deploy design features that increase the likelihood of
addiction among all users, including children.
(1) Instead of charging to sign up, social media platforms earn
“substantially all” of their revenue through advertising.
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(2) The more time users engage with the platform, the more ads users see,
and the more valuable the advertising becomes.
(3) In this regard, addicted consumers are particularly profitable because
their consumption behavior goes beyond normal engagement levels.
(4) For these profit-driven reasons, social media platform companies
intentionally invent, design, and deploy features that are intended to make
it hard for users to stop using the platform, including deploying techniques
used in gambling and techniques that mask or avoid cues that might
prompt a user to stop using.
(f) Companies that market high-volume addictive products, including
tobacco, have a special incentive to addict young, potentially lifelong,
consumers.
(g) Adolescent children are at far greater risk than adults to becoming
addicted to social media platforms.
(1) Adolescent children exhibit higher levels of stress and an increased
proclivity toward taking risks.
(2) During adolescence, children’s reward systems develop much faster,
while their self-control systems, which are not fully developed until 21
years of age, lag behind. For this reason, rates of behavioral addictions are
elevated in adolescence as compared to adulthood.
(3) Social media platform companies can use the data they collect on
children to determine which children are most likely to be vulnerable to a
given ad, thereby exacerbating the risks of addiction.
(4) As compared to adults, children are more susceptible to the pressures
and influence of advertisements, less likely to recognize paid-for content,
and less likely to understand how data is used for these purposes.
(h) Because their brains are still developing, children are at far greater risk
of being harmed by social media platform addiction than adults. Addiction
adversely influences the development of judgment, attention, and memory in
the brain.
(1) Higher daily rates of checking social media platforms have been linked
to a reduction in the volume of brain tissue that controls memory,
emotions, speech, decisionmaking, and self-control.
(2) For this reason, reduction in this kind of brain tissue is in turn
correlated with higher impulsivity, something with which children and
adolescents are already susceptible by dint of their youth.
(3) Several studies have found links between spending time on social
media platforms and rates of suicide and depression among teens.
(4) Numerous studies show that reducing social media platform use results
in mental health benefits.
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(5) Social media platform addiction can create a vicious cycle for shy and
lonely youth. Discomfort with real-life interactions leads to internet
interactions, isolation from real-world interaction causes loneliness,
loneliness combined with social phobia motivate additional engagement
online.
(i) When social media platform companies create, design, implement, or
maintain features for users, including child users, on their social media
platforms that the company knows or should know are addictive to children,
they should be held liable for the harms that result.
(j) Other addictions, including gambling addictions, have had a demonstrable
negative effect on state economies.
(k) California has a compelling interest in protecting the mental health of its
children from social media platform addiction that is foreseeable for, at a
minimum, all of the following reasons:
(1) To prevent needless suffering to California children and their families.
(2) To ensure the capacity of all its children to fulfill their potential and to
reach normal goals for social and educational achievement to the benefit
of all Californians.
(3) To prevent the costs of treating mental health harms to children from
being incurred by and shifted to California families, businesses, insurers,
schools, and mental health professionals.
SEC. 3.Section 1714 of the Civil Code is amended to read:
1714.
(a)Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of their willful acts, but
also for an injury occasioned to another by their want of ordinary care or skill
in the management of their property or person, except so far as the latter
has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon themself.
The design, distribution, or marketing of firearms and ammunition is not
exempt from the duty to use ordinary care and skill that is required by this
section. The extent of liability in these cases is defined by the Title on
Compensatory Relief.
(b)It is the intent of the Legislature to abrogate the holdings in cases such as
Vesely v. Sager (1971) 5 Cal.3d 153, Bernhard v. Harrah’s Club (1976) 16
Cal.3d 313, and Coulter v. Superior Court (1978) 21 Cal.3d 144 and to
reinstate the prior judicial interpretation of this section as it relates to
proximate cause for injuries incurred as a result of furnishing alcoholic
beverages to an intoxicated person, namely that the furnishing of alcoholic
beverages is not the proximate cause of injuries resulting from intoxication,
but rather the consumption of alcoholic beverages is the proximate cause of
injuries inflicted upon another by an intoxicated person.
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(c)Except as provided in subdivision (d), no social host who furnishes
alcoholic beverages to any person may be held legally accountable for
damages suffered by that person, or for injury to the person or property of, or
death of, any third person, resulting from the consumption of those
beverages.
(d)(1)Nothing in subdivision (c) shall preclude a claim against a parent,
guardian, or another adult who knowingly furnishes alcoholic beverages at
their residence to a person whom the parent, guardian, or other adult knows,
or should have known, to be under 21 years of age, in which case,
notwithstanding subdivision (b), the furnishing of the alcoholic beverage may
be found to be the proximate cause of resulting injuries or death.
(2)A claim under this subdivision may be brought by, or on behalf of, the
person under 21 years of age or by a person who was harmed by the person
under 21 years of age.
(e)(1)“Everyone,” as described in subdivision (a), includes a social media
platform.
(2)The “want of ordinary care or skill,” as described in subdivision (a),
includes a social media platform’s use of a design, feature, or affordance
that causes a child user to become addicted to the platform.
(3)A child user, or parent or guardian on behalf of a child user, in any suit
filed under this section who alleges, in whole or in part, that a social media
platform through want of ordinary care in the use of a design, feature, or
affordance caused a child user to become addicted to a platform, shall not
prevail in such an action unless the trier of fact finds, based on the
preponderance of the evidence, all of the following:
(A)The design, feature, or affordance was a substantial factor in causing
the child user’s addiction and harm.
(B)It was reasonably foreseeable that the use of that design, feature, or
affordance would addict and harm child users.
(C)The child user in such a suit became addicted and was therefore
harmed.
(4)In any class action brought with regard to this subdivision that is not
brought by a public prosecutor, the amount of damages awarded shall not
be less than one thousand dollars ($1,000) per member of the class.
(5)A public prosecutor may bring an action under this subdivision, to
obtain, in addition to any other remedy available under law, any of the
following relief:
(A)In a class action, the amount of damages awarded pursuant to this
paragraph shall not be less than one thousand dollars ($1,000) per
member of the class.
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(B)A civil penalty of up to twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) per
violation.
(C)An award of litigation costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.
(D)(i)An additional civil penalty not to exceed two hundred fifty thousand
dollars ($250,000) per violation for a knowing and willful violation.
(ii)A civil penalty pursuant to this subparagraph shall not be treated
as an offset against an award of damages caused by the same
knowing or willful violation in an action pursuant to this subdivision.
(6)(A)A social media platform that, before January 1, 2023, developed,
designed, implemented, or maintained features that were known, or should
have been known, by the platform to be addictive to child users shall be
liable for all damages under this subdivision to child users that are, in
whole or in part, caused by the platform’s features, including, but not
limited to, suicide, mental illness, eating disorders, emotional distress, and
costs for medical care, including care provided by licensed mental health
professionals.
(B)A social media platform shall not be held liable for a violation under
this subdivision if, by _____, the platform ceases development, design,
implementation, or maintenance of features that were known, or should
have been known, by the platform to be addictive to child users.
(7)An operator of a social media platform shall not be subject to a civil
penalty under this subdivision if the operator did both of the following:
(A)Instituted and maintained a program of at least quarterly audits of its
practices, designs, features, and affordances to detect practices or
features that have the potential to cause or contribute to the addiction
of child users.
(B)Corrected, within _____ days of the completion of an audit described in
subparagraph (A), any practice, design, feature, or affordance
discovered by the audit to present more than a de minimis risk of
violating this subdivision.
(8)The provisions of this subdivision are cumulative to any other duties or
obligations imposed under other law.
(9)This section shall not be construed to impose liability for a social media
platform for any of the following:
(A)Content that is generated by a user of the service, or uploaded to or
shared on the service by a user of the service, that may be encountered
by another user, or other users, of the service.
(B)Passively displaying content that is created entirely by third parties.
(C)Information or content for which the social media platform was not,
in whole or in part, responsible for creating or developing.
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(D)Any conduct by a social media platform involving child users that
would otherwise be protected by 47 U.S.C. 230, or by application of case
law interpreting the First Amendment of the United States Constitution
or Section 2 of Article 1 of the California Constitution.
(10)This subdivision shall not be construed to negate or limit a cause of
action that may have existed or exists against an operator of a social
media platform under the law as it existed before the effective date of this
subdivision.
(11)The provisions of this subdivision are severable. If any provision of this
subdivision or its application is held invalid, that invalidity shall not affect
other provisions or applications that can be given effect without the invalid
provision or application.
(12)A waiver of this subdivision is unenforceable as void against public
policy.
(13)For purposes of this subdivision:
(A)“Addict” means to knowingly or negligently cause addiction through
any act or omission or any combination of acts or omissions.
(B)“Addiction” means use of one or more social media platforms that
does both of the following:
(i)Indicates preoccupation or obsession with, or withdrawal or
difficulty to cease or reduce use of, a social media platform despite
the user’s desire to cease or reduce that use.
(ii)Causes physical, mental, emotional, developmental, or material
harms to the user.
(C)“Child user” means a person who uses a social media platform and is
younger than 18 years of age.
(D)(i)“Social media platform” means an internet-based service or
application that has users in the state, and that meets all of the
following criteria:
(I)The primary purpose of the service or application is to connect
users and allow users to interact with each other within the
service or application.
(II)The service or application is controlled by a business entity that
generated at least one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) in
gross revenue during the preceding calendar year.
(III)The service or application allows users to do all of the
following:
(ia)Construct a public or semipublic profile within a bounded
system created by the service or application.
(ib)Populate a list of other users with whom an individual shares
a connection within the system.
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(ic)View and navigate a list of connections made by other
individuals within the system.
(id)Create or post content viewable by other users.
(ii)“Social media platform” does not include any of the following:
(I)An email service, if emails are the only user-generated content
enabled by the service.
(II)An SMS and MMS service, if SMS or MMS messages are the only
user-generated content enabled by the service.
(III)A service offering only one-to-one live aural communications.
(IV)An internal business service that is an internal resource or tool
for a business or nonprofit organization in which the services is not
available to children in the general public.
(V)A service, including a comment section on a digital news
internet website or a consumer review of a product and service on
an online commerce internet website, with functionalities that
allow users to communicate only in any of the following ways:
(ia)Posting comments or reviews relating to content produced
and published by the provider of the service or by a person
acting on behalf of the provider of the service.
(ib)Sharing comments or reviews described in sub-subclause (ia)
on a different internet service.
(ic)Expressing a view on comments or reviews described in sub-
subclause (ia), or on content mentioned in clause (i), by means
of any of the following:
(Ia)Applying a “like” or “dislike” button or other button of that
nature.
(Ib)Applying an emoji or symbol of any kind.
(Ic)Engaging in yes or no voting.
(Id)Rating or scoring the content, or the comments or
reviews, in any way.
(VI)An internet-based subscription streaming service offered to
consumers for the exclusive purpose of transmitting licensed
media, including audio or video files, or video games, in a
continuous flow from the internet-based service to the end user.
(VII)A service that operates for the sole purpose of cloud storage
or shared document or file collaboration.
(VIII)A service that operates for the sole purpose of providing
general or tailored internet search services.
SEC. 3.
Section 17052 is added to the Business and Professions Code, to read:
17052.
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(a) A social media platform shall not use a design, feature, or affordance
that the platform knew, or which by the exercise of reasonable care should
have known, causes child users to become addicted to the platform.
(b) Actions for relief pursuant to this section may be prosecuted exclusively
by the Attorney General or by a district attorney, county counsel, or city
attorney, as described in Section 17204.
(c) In addition to any other relief available pursuant to Chapter 5
(commencing with Section 17200), including relief or penalties available
under Sections 17204 and 17206, any person who has violated subdivision (a)
may be liable for an additional civil penalty not to exceed two hundred fifty
thousand dollars ($250,000) per violation for a knowing and willful violation,
and an award of litigation costs and attorneys’ fees.
(d) A social media platform shall not be subject to a civil penalty under this
section or Section 17206 for violating subdivision (a) if the platform, as an
affirmative defense, demonstrates it did both of the following:
(1) Instituted and maintained a program of at least quarterly audits of its
practices, designs, features, and affordances to detect practices or
features that have the potential to cause or contribute to the addiction of
child users.
(2) Corrected, within 30 days of the completion of an audit described in
paragraph (1), any practice, design, feature, or affordance discovered by
the audit to present more than a de minimis risk of violating this
subdivision.
(e) The provisions of this section are cumulative to any other duties or
obligations imposed under other law.
(f) This section shall not be construed to impose liability for a social media
platform for any of the following:
(1) Content that is generated by a user of the service, or uploaded to or
shared on the service by a user of the service, that may be encountered by
another user, or other users, of the service.
(2) Passively displaying content that is created entirely by third parties.
(3) Information or content for which the social media platform was not, in
whole or in part, responsible for creating or developing.
(4) Any conduct by a social media platform involving child users that would
otherwise be protected by Section 230 of Title 47 of the United States
Code, or by application of case law interpreting the First Amendment of the
United States Constitution or Section 2 of Article 1 of the California
Constitution.
(g) This section shall not be construed to negate or limit a cause of action
that may have existed or exists against a social media platform under the
law as it existed before the effective date of this section and nothing in the
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legislative history of Assembly Bill 2408 (Cunningham and Wicks) of the
Legislative Session 2022 shall be used or be admissible as evidence of
legislative intent for any claim or cause of action not brought under this
section.
(h) The provisions of this section are severable. If any provision of this
subdivision or its application is held invalid, that invalidity shall not affect
other provisions or applications that can be given effect without the invalid
provision or application.
(i) A waiver of this section is unenforceable as void against public policy.
(j) For purposes of this section, the following shall apply:
(1) “Addicted” means to knowingly or negligently cause addiction through
any act or omission or any combination of acts or omissions.
(2) “Addiction” means use of one or more social media platforms that does
both of the following:
(A) Indicates preoccupation or obsession with, or withdrawal or
difficulty to cease or reduce use of, a social media platform despite the
user’s desire to cease or reduce that use.
(B) Causes physical, mental, emotional, developmental, or material
harms to the user.
(3) “Child user” means a person who uses a social media platform and is
younger than 18 years of age.
(4) (A) “Content” means statements or comments made by users and media
that are created, posted, shared, or otherwise interacted with by users on
an internet-based service or application.
(B) “Content” does not include media put online exclusively for the
purpose of cloud storage, transmitting documents, or file collaboration.
(5) “Social media platform” means a public or semipublic internet-based
service or application that has users in California and that meets all of the
following criteria:
(A) A substantial function of the service or application is to connect
users in order to allow users to interact socially with each other within
the service or application.
(B) A service or application that provides email or direct messaging
services shall not be considered to meet this criterion on the basis of
that function alone.
(C) The service or application allows users to do all of the following:
(i) Construct a public or semipublic profile for purposes of signing into
and using the service.
(ii) Populate a list of other users with whom an individual shares a
social connection within the system.
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(iii) Create or post content viewable by other users, including, but not
limited to, on message boards, in chat rooms, or through a landing
page or main feed that presents the user with content generated by
other users.
(6) “Public or semipublic internet-based service or application” excludes a
service or application 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.
(k) This section does not apply to:
(1) A social media platform that is controlled by a business entity that
generated less than one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) in gross
revenue during the preceding calendar year.
(2) A social media platform whose primary function is to allow users to play
video games.
Bill Text - AB-2408 Social media platform: child users: addiction. (ca.gov)
The bill represents language key points demonstrates that a lack of education
standards precludes any reel reform.
Thank You
Craig A Durfey
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