The Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, Take Two

Abstraction: Details of formally introduced PATA bill expanding researcher and public access to social media data

Key points:

• Introduced December 2022 by Sens. Coons (D-DE), Portman (R-OH), Klobuchar (D-MN), and Cassidy (R-LA) — bipartisan co-sponsorship
• Expands researcher consortium to include nonprofit organizations alongside university researchers; requires public databases of viral/high-engagement content with full text and media
• Adds transparency reporting on content moderation practices and recommendation algorithms; extends coverage to augmented and virtual reality platforms
• Data protection provisions explicitly exclude researcher access to direct messages, biometric data, and location data; datasets must be encrypted and anonymized
• Attempts to close legal loopholes for government or law enforcement access to research data shared under the bill
• Goes beyond EU DSA by including public access to high-engagement content and explicitly enabling nonprofit researchers — areas where EU regulations are weaker

Connections: Stanford Internet Observatory · Tiktok · Twitter · Platform Transparency · Social Media Regulation

Source: https://techpolicy.press/the-platform-accountability-and-transparency-act-take-two/