2024 Regular Session - Day 44 - HB 463, Rep. Stephanie Dietz

thank you Mr Speaker House Bill 463 and the floor amendment is an opportunity for this legislative body to protect our children and give parents and caregivers the tools they need to protect children from the harm caused by social media I did a simple search today before we came on the floor and I looked for the top 10 social media sites for miners they are Facebook Instagram Snapchat WhatsApp YouTube Tik Tok Twitter Ask FM Pinterest and Tumblr the next search that I did was the top 10 most dangerous social media sites for miners these were chat spin kick Tumblr Snapchat Tinder Instagram whisper Roblox Discord and Tik Tock with the passage of House Bill 463 and the floor Amendment Kentucky is going to join 12 other states in passing legislation aimed at protecting our children from online predators and exploitation that occurs from access to various media platforms and that has created a mental health care crisis for our children social media companies are providing a dangerous platform by establishing and creating algorithms that provide endless content fail to limit time limitations provide intermittent variable rewards that create a rush of endorphins to the user Target algorithms notifications of likes filters connection of child and adult users private chats geolocation no age verification and lack of parental controls our children are struggling with anxiety depression self harm and suicide and many would say isn't this the job for parents we know that we have parents who are neglectful or incapable of monitoring and controlling their children but even the best parents are overwhelmed by technology that seemingly changes every day in committee we heard from a mother who was a great child and by all accounts is a great mother but her son was playing a game on one of the media platforms that I just listed he was playing with an adult who he thought was a child and then that child was groomed and convinced to go to an offline social media site from there they continued to chat and he convinced him to meet someone else as background it's important to understand section 230 of the communications decency act that was passed in 1996 the 1996 statute gives tech companies immunity for content posted on their platforms by Third parties this law was passed before modern social media many of you maybe have seen the recent Congressional hearings where Federal lawmakers are evaluating the actions of companies like meta and the impact of section 230 and the potential need for reform while our legislative body cannot make changes to section 230 we can pass a bill here in the Commonwealth that will protect Kentucky children from addictive and harmful approaches in the internal controls social media companies employ in short House Bill 463 establishes definitions for the types of social media companies covered and then sets parameters for how those companies must regulate their internal algorithms to protect children and their private information this bill has been a thoughtful process beginning with drafting in the interim meeting with various stakeholders including representatives from Google meta the gaming and entertainment industry Educators and many more we considered what other states have done reviewed Court decisions that considered those bills and we tried hard to draft this legislation in a way that reflects a consideration of all those interests what does this bill do it establishes definitions for key Provisions it specifies what entities are and what entities are not subject to the provisions of this bill it places a duty to register the age of the user on the digital service provider it directs the social media company to duties relating to agreements with miners a social media company must do the following limit use and collection of identifying information not allow the user to make purchases or engage in other Financial transactions not protected by the First Amendment may not share disclose or sell the user's personal information may not collect the user's precise location and date and may not display targeted advertising it places a duty on the digital service provider to prevent harm to known miners by focusing on their internal controls and algorithms most importantly what we did in this is we have a parental kill switch which allows the parent to go in and temporarily or permanently deactivate the account the floor Amendment adds an exclusion and there are other exclusions but this one is for an educational agency or institution that is subject to the family educational rights and by note we were also asked to exclude gaming Industries which I decided not to do House Bill 463 is not a government initiative that requires age verification or parental consent to access access constitutionally protected speech instead it gives parents and caregivers additional tools to keep their children safe online including the ability to temporarily or permanently deactivate their child's account the focus of this bill is on the actions of the social media companies versus the actions of the third parties who are posting the content this is what makes this bill different than others that are currently being litigated Mr Speaker if there are no questions I would move for passage of how Bill 463 as amended by the committee substitute and the house 4 Amendment