Senator Hawley Introduces Legislation to Curb Social Media Addiction

Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation to curb addictive and deceptive techniques that tech giants use to exploit users. The Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act would ban certain features that are designed to be addictive, would require choice parity for consent, and would give users the power to monitor their time spent on social media. The bill:

• Bans infinite scroll, autoplay, and other addictive features on social media
  • Social media platforms would have to include natural stopping points
• Requires choice parity for consent
  • Companies would no longer be allowed to manipulate people into consenting by making it difficult to decline consent, and would have to design “accept” and “decline” boxes using the same formats, fonts, and sizes
• Gives the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services authority to ban other similar practices
  • Rules would expire after 3 years unless ratified by Congress
• Gives users power to monitor and control their use time on social media
  • Social media companies must provide an in-app tool that enables users to track the time they spend on social media across all devices and allows users to impose caps on the amount of time they spend