I 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 9126 

To require digital social companies to adopt terms of service that meet 

certain minimum requirements. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JULY 24, 2024 

Ms. PORTER introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 

Committee on Energy and Commerce 

A BILL 

To require digital social companies to adopt terms of service 

that meet certain minimum requirements. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Digital Social Platform 

5 Transparency Act’’. 

6 SEC. 2. TERMS OF SERVICE REQUIREMENT. 

7 (a) TERMS OF SERVICE.—Not later than 180 days 

8 after the date of enactment of this Act, digital social com9 panies shall post terms of service for each digital social 

10 platform owned or operated by the company in a manner 


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1 reasonably designed to inform all users of the digital social 

2 platform of the existence and contents of the terms of 

3 service. The terms of service posted pursuant to this sec4 tion shall include each of the following: 

5 (1) Contact information for the purpose of al6 lowing users to ask the digital social company ques7 tions about the terms of service. 

8 (2) A description of the process that users must 

9 follow to flag content, groups, or other users that 

10 they believe violate the terms of service, and the dig11 ital social company’s commitments on response and 

12 resolution time. 

13 (3) A list of potential actions the digital social 

14 company may take against an item of content or a 

15 user, including demonetization, deprioritization, 

16 muting, or banning. 

17 (b) TRANSLATIONS.—The terms of service posted 

18 pursuant to this section shall be made available in all lan19 guages in which the digital social platform offers product 

20 features, including menus and prompts. 

21 SEC. 3. REPORTING REQUIREMENT. 

22 (a) TERMS OF SERVICE REPORT.—Not later than 

23 360 days after the date of enactment of this Act, and on 

24 a semiannual basis thereafter, each digital social company 


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1 shall electronically submit to the Attorney General a terms 

2 of service report. 

3 (b) CONTENTS OF TERMS OF SERVICE REPORT.— 

4 The terms of service report shall include, for each digital 

5 social platform owned or operated by the company, each 

6 of the following: 

7 (1) The version of the terms of service of the 

8 digital social platform in effect on the date of the re9 port. 

10 (2) If applicable, a complete and detailed de11 scription of any changes to the terms of service since 

12 the previous report. 

13 (3) A statement of whether the version of the 

14 terms of service in effect on the date of the report 

15 defines each of the following categories of content 

16 (or any substantially similar categories), and, if so, 

17 the definitions of those categories, including any 

18 subcategories: 

19 (A) Hate speech or racism. 

20 (B) Extremism or radicalization. 

21 (C) Disinformation or misinformation. 

22 (D) Harassment. 

23 (E) Foreign political interference. 


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1 (4) A detailed description of content moderation 

2 practices used by the digital social company for that 

3 platform, including each of the following: 

4 (A) Any existing policies intended to ad5 dress the categories of content described in 

6 paragraph (3). 

7 (B) How automated content moderation 

8 systems enforce terms of service of the digital 

9 social platform and when these systems involve 

10 human review. 

11 (C) How the digital social company re12 sponds to user reports of violations of the terms 

13 of service. 

14 (D) What standards, policies, or decision15 making systems the digital social company em16 ploys when deciding to action individual pieces 

17 of content, users, or groups. 

18 (5) Information on content that was flagged to 

19 the digital social company as belonging to any of the 

20 categories described in paragraph (3), including each 

21 of the following: 

22 (A) The total number of flagged items of 

23 content. 

24 (B) The total number of actioned items of 

25 content. 


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1 (C) The total number of actioned items of 

2 content that were removed, demonetized, 

3 deprioritized, muted, or banned by the digital 

4 social company, disaggregated by each type of 

5 action. 

6 (D) The number of times actioned items of 

7 content were viewed by users. 

8 (E) The number of times actioned items of 

9 content were shared, and the number of users 

10 that viewed the content before it was actioned. 

11 (F) The number of times users appealed 

12 digital social company actions taken on that 

13 platform. 

14 (G) The number of reversals of digital so15 cial company actions on appeal disaggregated 

16 by each type of action. 

17 (6) All information required by paragraphs (4) 

18 and (5) shall be disaggregated into the following cat19 egories: 

20 (A) The category of content, including any 

21 relevant categories described in paragraph (3). 

22 (B) The type of content, including posts, 

23 comments, messages, in-game structures or ob24 jects, or profiles of users, or groups of users. 


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1 (C) The type of media of the content, in2 cluding text, images, videos, and audio. 

3 (D) How the content was flagged, includ4 ing flagged by company employees or contrac5 tors, flagged by artificial intelligence software, 

6 flagged by community moderators, flagged by 

7 civil society partners, and flagged by users. 

8 (E) How the content was actioned, includ9 ing actioned by company employees or contrac10 tors, actioned by artificial intelligence software, 

11 or actioned by community moderators. 

12 (c) ACTIVITY REPORT.—A digital social company 

13 shall report— 

14 (1) activity within the third and fourth quarters 

15 of the preceding calendar year, to the Attorney Gen16 eral no later than April 1 of each year; and 

17 (2) activity within the first and second quarters 

18 of the current calendar year, to the Attorney Gen19 eral no later than October 1 of each year. 

20 (d) REPOSITORY.—The Attorney General shall make 

21 all terms of service reports submitted pursuant to this sec22 tion available to the public in a searchable repository on 

23 its official internet website. 


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1 SEC. 4. PENALTIES FOR LACK OF SUBMISSION. 

2 (a) ADMINISTRATIVE ASSESSMENT.—A digital social 

3 company that violates the provisions of this Act shall be 

4 liable for an administrative assessment not to exceed 

5 $15,000 per violation per day. 

6 (b) VIOLATIONS.—A digital social company shall be 

7 considered in violation of the provisions of this Act for 

8 each day the digital social company does any of the fol9 lowing: 

10 (1) Fails to post terms of service in accordance 

11 with section 2. 

12 (2) Fails to timely submit to the Attorney Gen13 eral a report required pursuant to section 3. 

14 (3) Materially omits or misrepresents required 

15 information in a report submitted pursuant to sec16 tion 3. 

17 (c) RELIEF.—The Attorney General has the exclusive 

18 authority to bring an action in any court of competent 

19 jurisdiction, upon their own complaint or upon the com20 plaint of any board, officer, person, corporation, or asso21 ciation, to enjoin a violation of this Act by a digital social 

22 company. 

23 (d) DEPOSITS INTO FUND.— 

24 (1) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is established in 

25 the Treasury a separate account to be known as the 


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1 Digital Social Platform Terms of Service Fund 

2 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘‘Fund’’). 

3 (2) DEPOSITS.—There shall be deposited in the 

4 Fund one-half of the administrative assessment 

5 funds collected pursuant to this section, which funds 

6 may be used to maintain the reporting website and 

7 support the enforcement of this Act. 

8 SEC. 5. DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS; REMEDIES AND PEN9 ALTIES. 

10 (a) DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS.—The duties and obli11 gations authorized under this Act are cumulative to any 

12 other duties or obligations imposed under local, State, or 

13 Federal law and shall not be construed to relieve any party 

14 from any duties or obligations imposed under law. 

15 (b) REMEDIES AND PENALTIES.—Remedies or pen16 alties authorized under this Act are cumulative to any 

17 other remedies or penalties available under local law, State 

18 law, this Act or any other Federal law. 

19 SEC. 6. RULES OF CONSTRUCTION. 

20 (a) LIMITATION ON APPLICATION.—This Act may 

21 not be construed to apply to an internet-based service or 

22 application for which interactions between users are lim23 ited to direct messages, commercial transactions, con24 sumer reviews of products, sellers, services, events, or 

25 places, or any combination thereof. 


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1 (b) END-TO-END ENCRYPTION.—This Act may not 

2 be construed to require or encourage any internet-based 

3 service or application to change the effectiveness of end4 to-end encryption of that service or application. 

5 SEC. 7. DEFERENCE TO AGENCY INTERPRETATIONS. 

6 Notwithstanding section 706 of title 5, United States 

7 Code, the Attorney General may make such interpreta8 tions and determinations as are reasonable and necessary 

9 to carry out this Act, with respect to which courts shall 

10 defer. 

11 SEC. 8. DEFINITIONS. 

12 In this Act: 

13 (1) ACTIONED.—The term ‘‘actioned’’ means 

14 that a digital social company, due to a suspected or 

15 confirmed violation of the terms of service, has 

16 taken some form of action, including removal, de17 monetization, deprioritization, muting, suspending, 

18 or banning, against a relevant user or relevant item 

19 of content. 

20 (2) CONTENT.—The term ‘‘content’’ means 

21 statements, posts, comments, messages, videos, 

22 audio, images, in-game structures or other user-cre23 ated objects, or profiles of users or groups of users, 

24 or structures that are created, posted, shared, or 

25 otherwise interacted with by users on an internetVerDate Sep 11 2014 23:36 Aug 20, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H9126.IH H9126

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1 based service or application. The term ‘‘content’’ 

2 does not include media put on a service or applica3 tion exclusively for the purpose of cloud storage, 

4 transmitting files, or file collaboration. 

5 (3) DIGITAL SOCIAL COMPANY.—The term 

6 ‘‘digital social company’’ means a person or entity 

7 that owns or operates one or more digital social plat8 forms, including social media platforms and online 

9 games. 

10 (4) DIGITAL SOCIAL PLATFORM.— 

11 (A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘digital so12 cial platform’’ means a public or semipublic 

13 internet-based service or application that has 

14 users in the United States and that meets the 

15 following criteria: 

16 (i) A substantial function of the serv17 ice or application is to introduce users in 

18 order to allow users to interact socially 

19 with each other within the service or appli20 cation. 

21 (ii) The service or application allows 

22 users to do each of the following: 

23 (I) Construct a public or 

24 semipublic profile for purposes of 


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1 signing into and using the service or 

2 application. 

3 (II) Populate a list of other users 

4 with whom an individual shares a so5 cial connection within the system. 

6 (III) Create or post content 

7 viewable by other groups or commu8 nities of users, including on message 

9 boards, in chat rooms, or through a 

10 landing page or main feed. 

11 (iii) A service or application that gen12 erates more than $100,000,000 in gross 

13 revenue during the preceding calendar 

14 year. 

15 (B) EXCLUSION.—The term ‘‘digital social 

16 platform’’ does not include a service or applica17 tion that provides email or direct messages, 

18 commercial transactions, consumer reviews of 

19 products, sellers, services, events, or places, or 

20 any combination thereof on the basis of that 

21 function alone. 

22 (5) END-TO-END ENCRYPTION.—The term 

23 ‘‘end-to-end encryption’’ means communications 

24 encryption in which data is encrypted when being 


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1 passed through a network, but routing information 

2 remains visible. 

3 (6) PUBLIC OR SEMIPUBLIC INTERNET-BASED

4 SERVICE OR APPLICATION.—The term ‘‘public or 

5 semipublic internet-based service or application’’ ex6 cludes a service or application used to facilitate com7 munication within a business or enterprise among 

8 employees or affiliates of the business or enterprise, 

9 provided that access to the service or application is 

10 restricted to employees or affiliates of the business 

11 or enterprise using the service or application. 

12 (7) TERMS OF SERVICE.—The term ‘‘terms of 

13 service’’ means a policy or set of policies adopted by 

14 a digital social company that specifies, at least, the 

15 user behavior and activities that are permitted on 

16 the internet-based service owned or operated by the 

17 digital social company, and the user behavior and 

18 activities that may subject the user or an item of 

19 content to being actioned. 

Æ 


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