I 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 6463 
To require the publication of the terms of service of certain social media 
company platforms. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 21, 2023 
Mr. GOTTHEIMER (for himself and Mr. BACON) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in 
addition to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, for a period 
to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
A BILL 
To require the publication of the terms of service of certain 
social media company platforms. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Stopping Terrorists 
Online Presence and Holding Accountable Tech Entities 
Act of 2023’’ or as the ‘‘STOP HATE Act of 2023’’. 
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SEC. 2. TERMS OF SERVICE PUBLICATION. 
(a) No later than 180 days after the date of enact-
ment, a social media company shall post terms of service, 
or lack thereof, for each social media platform owned or 
operated by the company in a manner reasonably designed 
to inform all users of the social media platform of the ex-
istence and contents of the terms of service applicable to 
the following: 
(1) A foreign terrorist organization designated 
under section 219 of the Immigration and Nation-
ality Act. 
(2) Individuals or entities designated as Spe-
cially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive 
Order 13224. 
(b) In addition to the terms of service published pur-
suant to (a), the social media company shall also publish 
the following information: 
(1) Contact information for the purpose of al-
lowing users to ask the social media company ques-
tions about the terms of service. 
(2) A description of the process that users must 
follow to flag content, groups, or other users that 
they believe violate the terms of service, and the so-
cial media company’s commitments on response and 
resolution time. 
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(3) A list of potential actions the social media 
company may take against an item of content or a 
user, including, but not limited to, removal, demone-
tization, deprioritization, or banning. 
SEC. 3. TERMS OF SERVICE REPORT TO THE ATTORNEY 
GENERAL. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—A social media company shall 
electronically submit on a triannual basis a terms of serv-
ice report to the Attorney General pursuant to (b), regard-
ing information and enforcement of the terms of service 
identified in section 2(a), that will include— 
(1) the version of the terms of service for each 
social media platform owned or operated by the com-
pany in effect as of the date of the report; 
(2) data related to violations of the terms of 
service of identified under section 2 of this Act, in-
cluding but not limited to: 
(A) The total number of flagged items of 
content. 
(B) The total number of actioned items of 
content. 
(C) The total number of actioned items of 
content that resulted in action taken by the so-
cial media company against the user or group 
of users responsible for the content. 
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(D) The total number of actioned items of 
content that were removed, demonetized, or 
deprioritized by the social media company. 
(E) The number of times actioned items of 
content were viewed by users. 
(F) The number of times actioned items of 
content were shared, and the number of users 
that viewed the content before it was actioned. 
(G) The number of times users appealed 
social media company actions taken on that 
platform and the number of reversals of social 
media company actions on appeal disaggregated 
by each type of action. 
(3) All information required by (2) shall be 
disaggregated into the following categories: 
(A) The category of content, including any 
relevant categories described in (2). 
(B) The type of content, including, but not 
limited to, posts, comments, messages, profiles 
of users, or groups of users. 
(C) The type of media of the content, in-
cluding, but not limited to, text, images, and 
videos. 
(D) How the content was flagged, includ-
ing, but not limited to, flagged by company em-
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ployees or contractors, flagged by artificial in-
telligence software, flagged by community mod-
erators, flagged by civil society partners, and 
flagged by users. 
(E) How the content was actioned, includ-
ing, but not limited to, actioned by company 
employees or contractors, actioned by artificial 
intelligence software, actioned by community 
moderators, actioned by civil society partners, 
and actioned by users. 
(4) A complete and detailed evaluation of the 
changes over time, including identifiable trends and 
analysis, with respect to the information in clauses 
(1)–(3) since the previous report, if applicable, and 
those thereafter. 
(b) DEADLINE.—Not later than 360 days after the 
date of enactment of this Act, a social media company 
shall submit the first report required pursuant to sub-
section (a). After the submission of the first report, the 
following reports will occur no later than January 31, 
April 30, and October 31 the following years. 
(c) PUBLICATION.—The Attorney General shall make 
all reports submitted under this section available to the 
public in a searchable repository on the Department of 
Justice’s website. 
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SEC. 4. CIVIL PENALTY. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Attorney General may bring 
an action for a civil penalty of not more than $5,000,000 
per violation per day against any social media company 
that does not submit a report required under section 3. 
(b) VIOLATIONS.—A social media company shall be 
considered in violation of the provisions of this chapter 
for each day the social media company does any of the 
following: 
(1) Fails to post terms of service in accordance 
with section 2. 
(2) Fails to timely submit to the Attorney Gen-
eral a report required pursuant to section 3. 
(3) Materially omits or misrepresents required 
information in a report submitted pursuant to sec-
tion 3. 
SEC. 5. REPORTS. 
(a) NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE.—Not later 
than 360 days after the date of enactment, the Director 
of National Intelligence shall submit a National Intel-
ligence Estimate on the use of platforms by the individuals 
and entities identified under section 2(a) to Congress. The 
Director shall ensure an unclassified version of the assess-
ment is published on the Department’s website no later 
than 30 days following the submission to Congress. 
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(b) COMPTROLLER GENERAL REPORTS.—Not later 
than 540 days after the date of enactment, and then again 
540 days after, the Comptroller General shall submit to 
Congress reports on the implementation of this Act. 
SEC. 6. SUNSET. 
The authority to carry out this Act shall terminate 
on the date that is five years after the date of enactment 
of this Act. 
SEC. 7. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(a) ACTIONED.—The term ‘‘actioned’’ means a social 
media company, due to a suspected or confirmed violation 
of the terms of service, has taken some form of action, 
including, but not limited to, removal, demonetization, 
deprioritization, or banning, against the relevant user or 
relevant item of content. 
(b) CONTENT.—The term ‘‘content’’ means state-
ments 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. This 
does not include media put on a service or application ex-
clusively for the purpose of cloud storage, transmitting 
files, or file collaboration. 
(c) SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM.—The term ‘‘social 
media platform’’ means any entity subject to the jurisdic-
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tion of the Federal Trade Commission under section 
5(a)(2) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 
45(a)(2)) that— 
(1) is a website, desktop application, or mobile 
application that— 
(A) permits a person to become a reg-
istered user, establish an account, or create a 
profile for the purpose of allowing the user to 
create, share, and view user-generated content 
through such an account or profile; 
(B) enables one or more users to generate 
content that can be viewed by other users of the 
platform; and 
(C) primarily serves as a medium for users 
to interact with content generated by other 
users of the platform and for the platform to 
deliver ads to users; and 
(2) has at least 25,000,000 unique monthly 
users in the United States for a majority of the 
months in the most recent 12-month period. 
(d) SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY.—The term ‘‘social 
media company’’ means a person or entity that owns or 
operates one or more social media platforms. 
(e) PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY.—The term ‘‘pub-
licly traded company’’ means any company whose prin-
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cipal class of shares is listed on a stock exchange; and 
can be readily purchased or sold by the public; and in-
cludes all subsidiaries of a company. 
(f) CRITICAL TRADING PARTNER.—The term ‘‘crit-
ical trading partner’’ means an entity that has the ability 
to restrict or impede the access of a business user to— 
‘‘the users or customers of the business user; or a tool 
or service that the business user needs to effectively serve 
the users or customers of the business user.’’ 
(g) TERMS OF SERVICE.—The term ‘‘terms of serv-
ice’’ means a policy or set of policies adopted by a social 
media company that specifies, at least, the user behavior 
and activities that are permitted on the internet-based 
service owned or operated by the social media company, 
and the user behavior and activities that may subject the 
user or an item of content to being actioned. 
Æ 
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