United States of America: Platform Accountability and Transparency Act amended with research disclosure requirement

On 10 March 2022, SB-1018, the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, was amended in the California Senate. The original Bill made slight changes in the wording of an existing requirement in state law that any individual or business with a website for commercial purposes through which they collect personally identifiable information about consumers must conspicuously post their privacy policy on their website. The amended Bill would establish a class of research projects to which platform operators would be required to disclose qualified information for research purposes. Platform operators are defined as operators of any online user-generated content platform with at least 1 million unique users in California in 7 of the previous 12 months. The amended Bill would also require platform operators to make annual disclosures of data and information about content engagement, algorithms and metrics, and content moderation violations on their platform.