Prohibits social media platforms from promoting certain practices or features of eating disorders to child users.

A2739 1R

[First Reprint]

ASSEMBLY, No. 2739

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

222nd LEGISLATURE

�

PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2026 SESSION

Sponsored by:

Assemblywoman ANDREA KATZ

District 8 (Atlantic and Burlington)

Assemblyman� MICHAEL VENEZIA

District 34 (Essex)

Assemblywoman� MARISA SWEENEY

District 25 (Morris and Passaic)

Co-Sponsored by:

Assemblyman Sampson, Assemblywomen Speight, Park, Brennan,
Carter, Peterpaul, Haider, Assemblyman Singh, Assemblywomen Morales and Bagolie

SYNOPSIS

���� Prohibits social media platforms from promoting
certain practices or features of eating disorders to child users.

CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT

���� As reported by the Assembly Oversight, Reform and
Federal Relations Committee on February 12, 2026, with amendments.

��

An Act
prohibiting social media platforms from promoting
certain eating behaviors to child users and supplementing Title 56 of the
Revised Statutes.

����
Be It
Enacted
by the Senate and General Assembly of
the State of New Jersey:

����� 1.�
As used in P.L.��� , c.��� (C.������� ) (pending before the Legislature as this
bill):

����� �Child
user� means a person who is younger than 18 years of age and who uses one or
more social media platforms.

����� �Content�
means any statements, materials, documents, photographs, graphics, or other
information that is created, posted, shared, or otherwise transmitted on a
social media platform, except that �content� shall not include any information
that is posted online exclusively for the purpose of cloud storage,
transmitting documents, or file collaboration.

����� �Eating
disorder� means a behavioral condition characterized by a severe and persistent
disturbance in eating behaviors and associated distressing thoughts and
emotions, including but not limited to, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa,
binge eating disorder, and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder.

����� �Public
or semi-public Internet-based service or application� excludes any
Internet-based service or application that is used to facilitate communication
within a business or enterprise among employees or affiliates of the business
or enterprise, provided that access to the service or application is restricted
to employees or affiliates of the business or enterprise using the service or
application.

����� �Social
media platform� or �platform� means a public or semi-public Internet-based
service or application that has users in this State

and
meets the following criteria:

����� a.�
a primary function of the service or application is to connect users in order
to allow users to interact socially with each other within the service or
application, except that a service or application that provides email or direct
messaging services shall not be considered to meet this criterion on the basis
of that function alone; and

����� b.�
the service or application allows users to do all of the following:

����� (1)
construct a public or semipublic profile for purposes of signing into and using
the service or application;

����� (2)
populate a public list of other users with whom an individual shares a social
connection within the service or application; and

����� (3)
create or post content viewable by other users, including, but not limited to,
on message boards, in chat rooms, or through a landing page or main feed that
presents the user with content generated by other users.

����� A
service or application that consists primarily of news, sports, entertainment,
e-commerce, or content that is preselected by the provider, or for which any
chat, comments, or interactive functionality is incidental to, directly related
to, or dependent on the provision of such content, shall not be considered to
meet the criteria of this subsection of this definition on the basis of these
functions alone.

�����
1
�Social media platform� or �platform� shall not
include an online service, website, platform, or application where the
predominant or exclusive function is providing career development
opportunities, including professional networking, job skills, learning
certifications, and job posting and application services platforms that
primarily provide career networking and professional development opportunities.
1

���� 2.��� a.� Except as otherwise
provided in this section, a social media platform shall not use a design,
algorithm, practice, affordance, or feature that the platform knows, or which
by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, could cause child users to
develop an eating disorder, including, but not limited to, promoting diet
products.

���� b.� A social media platform
shall not be deemed to violate the provisions of subsection a. of this section
if:

���� (1) the social media platform
demonstrates that the platform:

���� (a) instituted and maintained
an internal audit program in which the platform:

���� (i) conducts quarterly audits
of its practices, algorithms, designs, features, and affordances to determine
whether these practices, algorithms, designs, features, or affordances cause,
have the potential to cause, or contribute to the development of eating
disorders in child users on the platform; and

���� (ii) hires an independent
third party to conduct an annual audit of its practices, algorithms, designs,
features, or affordances to determine whether these practices, algorithms,
designs, features, or affordances cause, have the potential to cause, or contribute
to the development of eating disorders in child users on the platform; and

���� (b) if an audit determines
that any practice, algorithm, design, feature, or affordance used by the
platform causes, has the potential to cause, or contributes to the development
of eating disorders in child users, the platform has taken action to correct
the practice, algorithm, design, feature, or affordance within 30 calendar days
of the completion of the audit and upon the social media platform�s receipt of
notification of the issue; or

���� (2) the social media platform
is majority controlled by a business entity that generated less than $100
million in gross revenue during the preceding calendar year.

���� c.� Nothing in this section
shall be construed to impose liability on a social media platform for:

���� (1) any content that is
generated, uploaded, or shared on the social media platform by a user of the
platform, unless the content is paid for, including through advertisement
sales, by the social media platform;

���� (2) any content that is
created solely by a third party and passively displayed by the social media
platform;

���� (3) any information or content
for which the social media platform was not, in whole or in part, responsible
for creating or developing; or

���� (4) any content involving
child users that would otherwise be protected by 47 U.S.C. s.230, the First
Amendment of the United States Constitution, or Article I, paragraph 6 of the
State Constitution.

���� d.� A social media platform
that violates the provisions of subsection a. of this section shall be liable
for a civil penalty, not to exceed $250,000 per violation, to be collected in a
civil action by a summary proceeding under the �Penalty Enforcement Law of
1999,� P.L.1999, c.274 (C.2A:58-10 et seq.).� The Superior Court and the
municipal court shall have jurisdiction to enforce the provisions of the
�Penalty Enforcement Law of 1999,� P.L.1999, c.274 (C.2A:58-10) pursuant to
this subsection.

���� 3.� This act shall take effect
six months after enactment.