Senator Coons, colleagues introduce legislation to increase transparency around social media platforms

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) introduced the bipartisan Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA) alongside Senate colleagues Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Mitt Romney (R-UT). The bill would require social media companies to share more data with the public and researchers.

• Independent researchers would be able to submit proposals to the National Science Foundation, an independent agency that approves research and development proposals across the sciences. If the requests are approved, social media companies would be required to provide the necessary data to the researchers subject to strict privacy protections.
• The bill would require that platforms proactively make certain information available to researchers and the public on an ongoing basis, such as:
  • A comprehensive ad library;
  • Statistics about content moderation;
  • Real-time data about viral content; and
  • Descriptions of a platform’s ranking and recommendation algorithms.
• The proposal would also protect researchers from legal liability that may arise from automatically collecting public-facing platform information if they comply with various privacy safeguards.