Legislators Call For Social Media Transparency Regarding Its Role In Fueling Violence

Elected officials and civil rights advocates held a news conference in Sacramento on Tuesday to discuss social media’s role in amplifying recent surges in violence across the country and to call for the passage of a bill that would require major social media companies to publicly disclose their content moderation practices and report key data about how they enforce their policies.

“Our message today is simple. The public deserves basic transparency and accountability from big tech,” said state Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills. “It’s time for social media companies to step out of the shadows and to come clean about how they are responding to the avalanche of hate online.”

Gabriel, who is the chair of the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection and of California’s Legislative Jewish Caucus, hopes that Assembly Bill 587 will pass through the state Senate in the next coming weeks and if signed into law, the public will be seeing quarterly reports from the major technology and social media companies starting in January.

“Simply put, the safety of our kids and our communities should come before these companies’ corporate profit,” said Gabriel.

The Anti-Defamation League reported its findings on the national state of online hate and harassment.

“65% of those from marginalized groups, including Jews, women, people of color, have at some time experienced hate-based harassment online because of their identity,” said Jeffrey Abrams, the regional director of Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles. “The LGBTQ community experiences harassment in far greater numbers than any other marginalized community.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who is the vice chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus and former chair of the LGBTQ Legislative Caucus, spoke of his own experience of online hate as a gay Jewish man.

Wiener shared receiving thousands of death threats, being called a pedophile, and about a week ago receiving a bomb threat to his home.

Assemblymember Evan Low, D-Campbell, who is chair of the current LGBTQ Legislative Caucus and vice chair of the AAPI Legislative Caucus, spoke of how social media should be a safe space for everyone.

As chair of the state’s Tech Caucus and a representative of a district in Silicon Valley, Low spoke directly to the California homegrown technology companies and asked them to join this conversation and provide solutions and fundamental data points to the children, parents and Californians who are suffering.

“How much more extremist violence needs to occur in order for us to hold social media platforms accountable?” asked Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a co-author of the bill.

State Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, chair of the AAPI Legislative Caucus, warned that online harassment manifests into physical harassment and violence.

“I really need to emphasize is that online hate and threats of violence become real life and threats and violence,” said Pan.