Social Media DATA Act
Bill: H.R.3451 | Sponsor: Rep. Trahan, Lori (D-MA)
Policy area: Commerce

Summary:
Social Media Disclosure And Transparency of Advertisements Act of 2021 or the Social Media DATA Act
This bill requires consumer-facing websites and mobile applications with a large number of users to maintain advertisement libraries and make them available to academic researchers and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Each library must include, among other things, a digital copy of the advertisement content, a description of the target audience, and the number of views generated from the advertisement. The FTC and state attorneys general are authorized to enforce these requirements, and the FTC must use information from the advertisement libraries to enforce other laws within its jurisdiction.
Additionally, the bill establishes a working group to address social media research access and make policy recommendations with respect to the information an interactive computer service (e.g., a social media company) should make available to academic researchers.

To require covered platforms to provide information about their 
      advertising to academic researchers, and for other purposes.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Social Media Disclosure And 
Transparency of Advertisements Act of 2021'' or the ``Social Media DATA 
Act''.

SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, and every 3 years thereafter as needed, the 
Commission shall, in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United 
States Code, issue regulations that require the following:
            (1) A covered platform to maintain, and grant academic 
        researchers and the Commission access to, an ad library that 
        contains in a searchable, machine-readable format and that is 
        collected by the covered platform in the ordinary course of 
        business the following information (which may be updated by the 
        Commission as the Commission determines to be necessary) 
        related to any advertiser that purchases $500 or more of 
        advertising in a calender year:
                    (A) The legal name and unique identification number 
                for each advertiser.
                    (B) A digital copy of the ad content.
                    (C) The method used, as selected either by the 
                advertiser or by the covered platform, to target an ad 
                to platform users, including uploaded lists of platform 
                users, pre-set categories of platform users, key words, 
                and contextual information.
                    (D) The optimization objective chosen by the 
                advertiser (such as awareness, reach, traffic, and 
                engagement).
                    (E) A description of the targeted audience for each 
                advertisement, including information (that may have 
                been collected from the profile of a user or based on 
                an algorithm) on the demographics of the audience 
                (including age, gender, geographic location, race, 
                ethnicity, and political affiliation), interests of the 
                audience, and any other description of the targeted 
                audience determined to be reasonable by the Commission.
                    (F) A description of the audience of the 
                advertisement determined by a count of advertiser 
                viewership, including information (that may have been 
                collected from the profile of a user or based on an 
                algorithm) on the demographics of the audience 
                (including age, gender, geographic location, race, 
                ethnicity, and political affiliation), interests of the 
                audience, and any other description of the targeted 
                audience determined to be reasonable by the Commission.
                    (G) The number of views generated from the 
                advertisement.
                    (H) Ad conversion (including how often an ad was 
                shared, liked, or clicked-through).
                    (I) The date and time that the advertisement was 
                first displayed and last displayed.
                    (J) The amount an advertiser budgeted for the 
                purchase of the advertisement on the platform and the 
                amount paid for the purchase of the advertisement on 
                the platform.
                    (K) The category of an ad as defined by the covered 
                platform (such as politics, employment opportunity, 
                housing opportunity, or apparel).
                    (L) Each language contained within the ad.
                    (M) Each advertising policy of the covered platform 
                that is made available to advertising customers on the 
                covered platform.
            (2) The Commission to use the information in the ad library 
        for law enforcement and studies unrelated to this Act.
            (3) The methodology to calculate the demographics of the 
        targeted audience described in paragraph (1)(E) to be the same 
        method as the demographics calculated for the delivery audience 
        described in paragraph (1)(F).
            (4) Guidelines for the treatment of advertisements that are 
        deleted by the advertiser or blocked by the terms of service of 
        the covered platform.
            (5) Guidelines for the time allotted between when an ad is 
        posted on a covered platform and when the information about the 
        ad needs to be made available in the ad library.
            (6) Guidelines for how long an ad is required to remain 
        available in the ad library.
    (b) Enforcement.--
            (1) Enforcement by the federal trade commission.--
                    (A) Unfair or deceptive acts or practices.--A 
                violation of subsection (a) shall be treated as a 
                violation of a regulation under section 18(a)(1)(B) of 
                the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 
                57a(a)(1)(B)) regarding unfair or deceptive acts or 
                practices.
                    (B) Powers of commission.--The Commission shall 
                enforce subsection (a) in the same manner, by the same 
                means, and with the same jurisdiction, powers, and 
                duties as though all applicable terms and provisions of 
                the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.) 
                were incorporated into and made a part of this Act. Any 
                person who violates such subsection shall be subject to 
                the penalties and entitled to the privileges and 
                immunities provided in the Federal Trade Commission 
                Act.
            (2) Effect on other laws.--Nothing in this section shall be 
        construed in any way to limit the authority of the Commission 
        under any other provision of law or to limit the application of 
        any Federal or State law.
            (3) Enforcement by state attorneys general.--
                    (A) In general.--If the chief law enforcement 
                officer of a State, or an official or agency designated 
                by a State, has reason to believe that any person has 
                violated or is violating subsection (a), the attorney 
                general, official, or agency of the State, in addition 
                to any authority it may have to bring an action in 
                State court under its consumer protection law, may 
                bring a civil action in any appropriate United States 
                district court or in any other court of competent 
                jurisdiction, including a State court, to--
                            (i) enjoin further such violation by such 
                        person;
                            (ii) enforce compliance with such 
                        subsection;
                            (iii) obtain civil penalties; and
                            (iv) obtain damages, restitution, or other 
                        compensation on behalf of residents of the 
                        State.
                    (B) Notice and intervention by the federal trade 
                commission.--The attorney general of a State shall 
                provide prior written notice of any action under 
                subparagraph (A) to the Commission and provide the 
                Commission with a copy of the complaint in the action, 
                except in any case in which such prior notice is not 
                feasible, in which case the attorney general shall 
                serve such notice immediately upon instituting such 
                action. The Commission shall have the right--
                            (i) to intervene in the action;
                            (ii) upon so intervening, to be heard on 
                        all matters arising therein; and
                            (iii) to file petitions for appeal.
                    (C) Limitation on state action while federal action 
                is pending.--If the Commission has instituted a civil 
                action for violation of this section, no State attorney 
                general, or official or agency of a State, may bring an 
                action under this paragraph during the pendency of that 
                action against any defendant named in the complaint of 
                the Commission for any violation of this section 
                alleged in the complaint.
    (c) Working Group for Social Media Research Access.--
            (1) Employment authority.--Not later than 60 days after the 
        date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall hire 2 
        or 3 employees who are privacy and technology experts to lead a 
        series of stakeholder engagements, including round tables, 
        public workshops, and open comment periods. Stakeholders may 
        include social media researchers, information science 
        researchers, privacy and civil rights advocates, technologists, 
        representatives from social media companies, representatives 
        from standards organizations, and representatives from 
        international data governance bodies.
            (2) Establishment of working group.--Not later than 30 days 
        after the date on which the employees described in paragraph 
        (1) are hired, the Commission shall establish a working group 
        for social media research access (in this subsection the 
        ``working group'') composed of the stakeholders described in 
        paragraph (1).
            (3) No compensation for members.--A member of the working 
        group shall serve without compensation in addition to any 
        compensation received for the service of the member as an 
        officer or employee of the United States, if applicable.
            (4) Reports required.--
                    (A) Best practices and code of conduct.--Not later 
                than 1 year after the date on which the working group 
                is established pursuant to paragraph (2), the 
                Commission, in consultation with the working group, 
                shall make available to the public on the website of 
                the Commission a report containing--
                            (i) a description of the best practices 
                        regarding what type of information from an 
                        interactive computer service should be made 
                        available, and under what circumstances, to 
                        academic researchers; and
                            (ii) a recommended code of conduct for 
                        academic researchers working with such 
                        information.
                    (B) Policy recommendations.--Not later than 1 year 
                after the date on which the working group is 
                established pursuant to paragraph (2), the working 
                group shall submit to Congress a report with 
                recommendations for policy changes, which may include 
                any of the following:
                            (i) The types of information that should be 
                        made available to academic researchers and 
                        under what circumstances interactive computer 
                        services should be required to grant access to 
                        academic researchers.
                            (ii) Circumstances in which additional 
                        legal protections for interactive computer 
                        services may be needed related to the sharing 
                        of data with researchers.
                            (iii) Recommendation for penalties for 
                        academic researchers who misuse or seek to 
                        inappropriately reidentify information provided 
                        to them by interactive computer services for 
                        research purposes.
                    (C) Requirements for reports.--In preparing the 
                reports described under subparagraph (A) and (B), the 
                working group may consider the following:
                            (i) The type of information considered, 
                        including the following:
                                    (I) Information related to content 
                                moderation decisions including choices 
                                related to the ranking, ordering, 
                                promotion, recommendation of content, 
                                and requests for content removals.
                                    (II) Information related to 
                                engagement (such as sharing and likes) 
                                with public links (such as news 
                                articles and video clips), including 
                                the demographic breakdown of users that 
                                interact with content.
                                    (III) Information related to 
                                exposure (viewership or impressions) 
                                with public links (such as news 
                                articles and video clips), including 
                                the demographic breakdown of users that 
                                interact with content.
                                    (IV) Classification of public 
                                information sources (such as opinion 
                                and journalism).
                                    (V) Archives of formerly public 
                                accounts that were removed, including 
                                any special treatment of accounts that 
                                previously belonged to high-profile 
                                individuals.
                                    (VI) Archives of fake or bot 
                                accounts that have been removed.
                                    (VII) Archives of coordinated 
                                influence operation accounts that have 
                                been removed.
                                    (VIII) Research conducted by an 
                                interactive computer service internally 
                                related to the online behavior of a 
                                user including A/B studies and other 
                                internal research, including studies on 
                                interventions to slow spread of 
                                misinformation and disinformation, and 
                                to increase user deliberation, 
                                including warning labels, limits on 
                                sharing and posting, time delay on 
                                sharing and posting, and prompts to 
                                confirm.
                                    (IX) The most popular content on a 
                                platform.
                            (ii) Storage of information and treatment 
                        for each type of information considered, 
                        including the following:
                                    (I) Limits on time and amount of 
                                information stored broken down by the 
                                type of information.
                                    (II) Under what circumstances 
                                privacy preserving techniques such as 
                                differential privacy and statistical 
                                noise could be used.
                                    (III) Required level of aggregation 
                                for demographic information.
                                    (IV) Standardized variable names 
                                across platforms for specific types of 
                                information.
                                    (V) Under what circumstances 
                                erasure policies (related to who and 
                                how an individual can request to be 
                                removed from a dataset) may be needed, 
                                specifically for individuals who are 
                                less than 18 years old.
                                    (VI) Adherence to data security 
                                best practices.
                            (iii) A consideration of access for each 
                        type of information considered, including the 
                        following:
                                    (I) Designation of secure 
                                facilities and computers to analyze 
                                information.
                                    (II) Set criteria for researcher 
                                access.
                                    (III) Any limit on the type of 
                                research that specific datasets can be 
                                used for.
                            (iv) An analysis of how any of the 
                        recommendations might interact with 
                        international law and jurisdiction.
                            (v) Policies for assuring that open science 
                        principles of reproducibility of results and 
                        replication of analyses can be respected.
                            (vi) Recommendations for the size and type 
                        of interactive computer service, which may 
                        vary.
            (5) Inapplicability of faca.--The Federal Advisory 
        Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) does not apply to the working 
        group.
    (d) Definitions.--In this section:
            (1) Academic researcher.--
                    (A) In general.--The term ``academic researcher'' 
                means an individual that conducts research--
                            (i) in collaboration with an institution of 
                        higher education (as defined in section 101(a) 
                        of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 
                        1001(a))); and
                            (ii) that is not for commercial purposes.
                    (B) Definition by commission.--The Commission may 
                update this definition as the Commission determines to 
                be necessary.
            (2) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Federal 
        Trade Commission.
            (3) Covered platform.--
                    (A) In general.--The term ``covered platform'' 
                means any website, desktop application, or mobile 
                application that is consumer-facing, sells digital 
                advertising space, and has more than 100,000,000 
                monthly active users for a majority of months during 
                the preceding 12 months. The Commission may update this 
                definition as the Commission determines to be 
                necessary.
                    (B) Definition by commission.--The Commission may 
                update this definition as the Commission determines to 
                be necessary.
            (4) Interactive computer service.--The term ``interactive 
        computer service'' has the meaning given that term in section 
        230(f) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230(f)).
    (e) Authorization of Appropriations.--To assist the Commission in 
carrying out this Act, there is authorized to be appropriated and to 
remain available until expended--
            (1) for fiscal year 2022, $2,000,000; and
            (2) for fiscal year 2023, $2,000,000.
                                 <all>