Reporting mechanism: child sexual abuse material.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill does not provide specific details on how penalties for non-compliance will be determined or enforced.

Reporting Child Sexual Abuse Material on Social Media

This law updates how social media companies handle reports about child sexual abuse material, making it easier for users to report and ensuring the companies take action.

What This Bill Does

• Expands the definition of 'child sexual abuse material' to include any picture or video that shows a minor in an intimate way.
• Requires social media platforms to have clear and accessible ways for California residents to report child sexual abuse material, regardless of whether they are depicted in it.
• Ensures reports go through a hash-matching process before being reviewed by people if there is no known match.
• Makes social media companies liable to individuals depicted in the reported material for damages and imposes civil penalties on non-compliant companies.
• Requires social media platforms to submit audits to the Attorney General to be exempt from laws about commercial sexual exploitation.

Who It Names or Affects

• Social media users who are California residents
• Social media companies operating in California

Terms To Know

Child Sexual Abuse Material

Pictures or videos that show a minor in an intimate way.

Hash-matching process

A system used to check if reported images match known harmful pictures.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify the exact penalties for non-compliance by social media companies.
• It is unclear what specific actions social media platforms must take after reviewing reports of child sexual abuse material.
• The amount of civil penalties imposed on non-compliant companies is not detailed.

Official Summary Text

AB 1946, as amended, Wicks.
Youth: commercial sexual exploitation.
Reporting mechanism: child sexual abuse material.
Existing law requires a social media platform to take certain actions with respect to child sexual abuse material on the social media platform, including requiring the platform to provide, in a mechanism that is reasonably accessible to users, a means for a user who is a California resident to report material to the platform that the user reasonably believes meets certain criteria, including that the reported material is child sexual abuse material and that the reporting user is depicted in the material. Existing law also requires the social media platform to collect information reasonably sufficient to enable the platform to contact, as specified, a reporting user. Existing law defines child sexual abuse material for these purposes to include obscene matter that depicts a minor personally engaging in, or
personally simulating, sexual conduct.
This bill would revise the definition of child sexual abuse material to instead include an intimate visual depiction, as defined, involving an identifiable individual who is, or reasonably appears to be, a minor. The bill would additionally require the above-described mechanism to be clear and conspicuous, as specified, and would delete the requirement that the reporting user be depicted in the material. The bill would require a social media platform to ensure that any report submitted using the reporting mechanism is reviewed through a hash-matching process and would require a social media company to ensure review by a natural person if there is not an established or known hash match to child sexual abuse material with respect to the reported material and the reported material is not otherwise blocked.
Existing law makes a noncomplying social media company liable to a reporting user
for actual damages and statutory damages, as specified.
This bill would instead make a social media company liable to a depicted individual, as defined, for actual and statutory damages. The bill would also impose a civil penalty on a noncomplying company to be collected in a civil action by certain public attorneys, including the Attorney General.
Existing law establishes the Survivor Support Fund within the state treasury and makes moneys in the fund available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for grants by the California Victim Compensation Board to community-based organizations that provide direct services to vulnerable individuals in areas with a high concentration of sex trafficking.
This bill would require any penalty collected in a civil action by the Attorney General under these provisions to be deposited into the Survivor Support Fund.
Existing law prohibits a social media platform from knowingly facilitating, aiding, or abetting commercial sexual exploitation, as defined, and exempts a social media platform from being deemed in violation of this prohibition if it instituted a specified audit program and provided to each member of its board of directors a true and correct copy of each audit, as prescribed.
This bill would, in order to be exempt from that prohibition, require the social media platform to also submit the audit to the Attorney General, and if requested, to certain other public officials.
This bill would declare its provisions severable.
Existing law prohibits a social media platform from knowingly, aiding, or abetting commercial sexual exploitation, as defined, and authorizes a civil action for a violation of that prohibition brought by, or on behalf of, or for the benefit of, a person who is a minor or nonminor dependent, as defined, and is a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. Existing law requires a court to award damages not exceeding $4,000,000 and not less than $1,000,000 for each act of commercial sexual exploitation facilitated, aided, or abetted by the social media platform in violation of those provisions.
This bill would increase those statutory damages to at least not
$1,500,000 and not exceeding $4,500,000 and for each act of commercial sexual exploitation.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF