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Chris Coons is a senator from Delaware.
Photo by Alex Brandon.
A bipartisan group of US senators have announced a new bill that would require social media companies to share platform data with independent researchers.
The bill was announced by Democrats Chris Coons, Amy Klobuchar, and Rob Portman. The platform accountability and transparency act would establish new rules compelling social media platforms to share data with qualified researchers, defined as university-affiliated researchers pursuing projects that have been approved by the National Science Foundation.
The legislation would allow researchers to better understand online harms.
Once research is approved by the National Science Foundation, platforms would have to comply with requests for data. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act requires platforms to give data to projects that are eligible.
Laura Edelson, a PhD candidate at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and lead researcher at NYU's Cybersecurity for Democracy project, said in an email that the PATA act is a truly comprehensive platform transparency proposal. The legislation would give researchers a way to understand online harms and come up with solutions.
The NYU Ad Observatory project was banned from Facebook after the platform alleged that their research violated terms of service.
The PATA bill is the latest in a long line of proposed legislation aimed at peering into the black box of social media. The Filter Bubble transparency act was meant to make it easier for users to opt out of news feed and search personalization. The PACT Act proposed to amend Section 230 as a means to hold platforms more accountable for content moderation decisions.
The latest bill comes at a time when social media companies in general and Facebook in particular are under increased scrutiny.
Research showing that Facebook products could be harmful to children and teens was one of the most damaging documents leaked by Haugen.
Adam Mosseri, the head of the photo-sharing app, appeared before a Senate Commerce subcommittee to answer questions about the mental health of young users. At that hearing, senators from both sides of the aisle expressed deep frustration at a perceived lack of action on longstanding safety issues from Meta.
According to NPR, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that some of the big tech companies said to trust them. That seems to be the case, but self-policing depends on trust. The trust is gone.
