California lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill aimed at combating child sexual abuse material on social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 1394, would hold social media companies liable for failing to remove content, including child pornography and other obscene material

depict

children.

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“The purpose of the bill is to end the practice of social media becoming a superhighway for child sexual abuse material,” Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the legislation, said in an interview .

The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate on Tuesday. The General Assembly unanimously approved an amended version of the bill on Wednesday and it now heads to the governor’s desk for consideration.

Efforts to pass a package of bills to make social media safer for young people have been met with fierce opposition from tech industry groups such as TechNet and NetChoice, who feared the legislation would lead platforms to become overly cautious and more legal would remove content.

Child safety groups clashed with the tech companies over proposed changes to the bill. They feared it would make it easier for social media platforms to avoid liability for failing to remove child sexual abuse material. Wicks made changes to the bill last week, delaying the date it would come into effect until January 2025. The changes also give social media companies more time to respond to a report of child sexual abuse material and a way to to pay a lower fine if they comply. certain requirements.

Technology groups including NetChoice and TechNet still opposed the bill after Wicks made changes and told lawmakers it would still face legal challenges in court. The groups and business organizations such as the California Chamber of Commerce urged lawmakers to delay passage of the bill until next year.

“The bill in print misses the mark and will certainly lead to lawsuits,” the groups said in a floor warning sent to the Legislature.

Other legislation targeting social media platforms died earlier this month, underscoring the pushback lawmakers face from tech companies. The fight extends beyond the California Legislature and into the courts. Lawmakers passed child online safety legislation in 2022, but groups like NetChoice have sued the state to prevent the law from taking effect. X, formerly Twitter, Southern California last week over a law aimed at making social media platforms more transparent about how they moderate content.

said Wieken

That

She is confident her bill will withstand all possible legal challenges.

“These companies know they need to take a more proactive role in being part of the solution to the problem,” she said. “This bill will force and require that conversation.”

According to the bill, social media companies may not knowingly facilitate, support or encourage commercial sexual exploitation. A court should award damages between $1 million and $4 million for any exploitation that the social media platform facilitated, aided or encouraged.

Social media companies would also be required to provide California users with a way to report child sexual abuse material in which they are depicted and respond to the report within 36 hours. The platform would be required to permanently block the material so it cannot be viewed. If the company did not do this, it would be liable for the damage.

Social media companies can be fined up to $250,000 per violation. The fine would be reduced to $75,000 per violation if they meet certain requirements, including reporting the child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and participating in a program called Take

It

Down helps minors remove sexually explicit images and nude photos.

The program assigns a digital fingerprint to the reported image or video, allowing platforms to find child sexual abuse material. Under the amended version of the bill, they would have 36 hours to remove the materials after receiving this digital fingerprint from the NCMEC. Companies are already required by federal law to report child sexual abuse material to NCMEC, and major online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snap and TikTok are participating in the Take It Down program.