[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 50 (Wednesday, March 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1615-S1616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SCHATZ (for himself and Mr. Thune):
  S. 797. A bill to require transparency, accountability, and 
protections for consumers online; to the Committee on Commerce, 
Science, and Transportation.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, social media platforms have become a pretty 
significant part of Americans' lives. We use them to stay up to date on 
news from friends and family--something that has become especially 
essential during the pandemic--to communicate with relatives and 
friends, for entertainment, and as a shopping resource. Social media 
sites provide ways to network, to connect with like-minded individuals 
from fellow theater lovers to fellow basketball fans, to advocate for 
causes that we believe in, to conduct business, even to date, and more 
and more we rely on social media sites as a primary source of news and 
information, from Presidential election news to updates on COVID 
vaccinations.
  Social media offers a lot of benefits and opportunities, but the 
increasing dominance of social media, particularly in the news and 
information space, has also raised concerns. Consumers have become 
increasingly troubled about the way their information is used by social 
media platforms and how these sites decide what news and information we 
see. And there are increasing numbers of anecdotes to suggest that some 
social media platforms are moderating content in a biased or political 
way.
  Currently, content moderation on social media platforms is governed 
by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was enacted 
into law 25 years ago. Section 230 provides internet sites that host 
user-generated content--sites like YouTube or Twitter or Facebook--with 
immunity for the content that users post on their sites. So, for 
example, if somebody posts a video on YouTube that contains illegal 
content, YouTube isn't held legally responsible for that content.
  Section 230 has been critical to the development of the internet as 
we know it today. Without section 230 protections, many of the sites we 
rely on for social connection or news or entertainment would never have 
come into being.

[[Page S1616]]

  But as the internet and social media have grown and developed, it has 
also become clear that some changes need to be made. In particular, it 
has become increasingly clear that sites need to provide greater 
transparency when it comes to their content moderation practices and 
decisions. Social media sites are no longer just providing a platform 
for user-generated content as they did in their infancy. They are now 
making a lot of decisions about that content and carefully shaping our 
social media experience--what ads we see, what posts we see, what news 
stories we see.
  Currently, Federal law does not require that social media sites be at 
all accountable to consumers for those content moderation decisions. 
That is why, today, I am introducing the Platform Accountability and 
Consumer Transparency Act, or the PACT Act, along with my colleague 
Senator Schatz. Our bill would preserve the benefits of section 230, 
like the internet growth and widespread dissemination of free speech it 
has enabled, while increasing accountability and consumer transparency 
around content moderation.
  Now, content moderation is certainly not all bad. For example, most 
of us are happy to have YouTube or Instagram suggest additional content 
that matches the music that we like to listen to or the hobbies that we 
are interested in. The problem is that content moderation has been and 
largely continues to be a black box, with consumers having little or no 
idea how the information they see has been shaped by the sites that 
they are visiting.
  The PACT Act would address this problem by increasing transparency 
around the content moderation process. Sites would be required to 
provide an easily digestible disclosure of their content moderation 
practices for users, and, importantly, they would be required to 
explain their decisions to remove material to consumers.
  Until relatively recently, sites like Facebook and Twitter would 
remove a user's post without explanation and without an appeals 
process. And even as platforms start to shape up their act with regard 
to transparency and due process, it is still hard for users to get good 
information about how content is moderated.
  Under the PACT Act, if a site chooses to remove your post, it has to 
tell you why it decided to remove your post and explain how your post 
violated the site's terms of use. The PACT Act would also require sites 
to have an appeals process. So if Facebook, for example, removes one of 
your posts, it would not only have to tell you why, but it would have 
to provide a way for you to appeal that decision.
  We have seen increased concern lately about news articles being 
removed from social media sites. Under the PACT Act, a newspaper whose 
article was posted on Facebook or Twitter and then removed by one of 
those platforms could challenge Facebook or Twitter, which would have 
to provide a reason for removing the article and allow the newspaper to 
appeal the decision.
  The PACT Act would also help us develop the data necessary to 
demonstrate whether social media platforms are removing content in a 
biased or political fashion. As I said earlier, there has been 
increasing concern about biased content moderation on social media 
sites. The PACT Act requires detailed transparency reports every 6 
months from large social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, 
which will provide the data it needed to determine whether and where 
biased moderation exists.
  The PACT Act would also bolster efforts by State governments to hold 
social media platforms accountable. The bill would allow State 
attorneys general to bring civil lawsuits against social media 
platforms when these platforms have violated Federal civil laws.
  The PACT Act would also require companies to remove material that has 
been adjudicated as illegal by a court. Internet platforms would be 
required to remove illegal content within 4 days. Failure to remove 
illegal material would result in the platform's losing its 230 
protections for that content or activity, a provision that matches a 
recommendation made by the Trump Department of Justice for section 230 
reform.
  I am grateful to Senator Schatz for partnering with me on this 
legislation. Our bill is a serious, bipartisan approach to the issue of 
section 230 reform, and it would go a long way toward making social 
media platforms more accountable to consumers and increasing 
transparency around the content moderation process.
  I invite our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in 
advancing this legislation.
                                 ______