AB 1946: 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 defined, 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. The bill would require a social media platform to restore availability or functionality of the reporting mechanism if the reporting mechanism is unavailable or nonfunctional.

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, as provided. 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. Existing law deems a social media platform to have knowledge for the purposes of this prohibition if material was reported to the social media platform using the reporting mechanism for 4 consecutive months, as provided. Existing law 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 remove the requirement that material was reported for 4 consecutive months to deem a social media platform to have knowledge for the purposes of the above-described prohibition. The 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. The bill would provide that an audit submitted as described above is confidential and shall be exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act.

This bill would declare its provisions severable.