House Bill 1224, dubbed the "Mississippi Keeping Kids Safe Online Act," passed both chambers Wednesday and now heads to Gov. Tate Reeves.
The measure combines two ideas lawmakers considered separately earlier this session: requiring the Mississippi Department of Education to create social media safety materials for schools, and creating a new legal framework allowing the state and, in some cases, parents to sue social media companies.
Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, the bill's House sponsor, said lawmakers are trying to respond to both the educational and legal sides of the issue.
"It is beyond time that we take affirmative steps to protect our children," Hood said during House debate. "These children and these parents don't have lobbyists. They have us."
Under the bill, the Department of Education would have to develop a social media safety curriculum for grades 6 through 12 focused on cyberbullying, predatory behavior and other online risks. Parents could opt their children out. The department would also have to publish internet safety materials online for schools and families.
But the most far-reaching section of the bill is aimed not at schools, but at the design of social media platforms themselves.
The bill creates a new category of "covered interactive computer services" that includes online platforms likely to be used by minors and that include features designed to drive engagement. Those features include infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, badges, appearance-altering filters, in-game purchases and other tools commonly used by social media and app companies.
"We're not going to allow them to falsely say that it's not addictive if it is addictive," Hood said. "We're not going to allow them to falsely say that it's safe for children if evidence-based data shows that it is harmful."
If the bill becomes law, it would also allow social media platforms with those design features to be treated as defective products under Mississippi law.
That language could give the attorney general and private plaintiffs a new way to sue tech companies.
Brian Downing, a law professor at the University of Mississippi, said lawmakers are trying to take advantage of a broader shift in how courts view the legal protections technology companies have traditionally enjoyed.
"There had in the past been a pretty robust view of their immunity to make choices about content that ultimately is created by others, but there has really been an opening in that lately,” Downing said.
Rather than arguing that social media companies should be liable for what users post, these newer cases focus on features critics say are intentionally designed to maximize time spent on the platform.
"The theory is just like your toaster may explode on you, these services are in some sense exploding on us," Downing said. "So there should be a product liability-like reason for that direct liability for the social media platforms of the world.”
Under HB 1224, the Mississippi attorney general could sue a company that knowingly and willfully violates the law. The state could seek injunctions, attorney's fees and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.
If a company repeatedly and knowingly violates the law and that leads to a child being repeatedly exposed to harmful material, a parent could also sue on the child's behalf. Parents could seek economic and non-economic damages, attorney's fees and, in some cases, punitive damages.
Half of any money collected through those penalties would go to the attorney general's consumer protection office. The other half would go to the Department of Education to pay for the new curriculum and safety materials.
The bill is not as broad as some similar proposals considered around the country. It exempts news organizations, search engines, cloud providers, broadband providers, text messaging services, e-commerce platforms and video streaming services.
Still, Downing said the legislation may face some of the same legal problems that have plagued similar efforts in other states.
One challenge is that many of the features listed in the bill are common across a wide range of apps and websites, and courts may struggle to distinguish between ordinary engagement tools and features designed to be addictive.
"It is hard to draw that line," Downing said. "And because those laws are often considered vague or overbroad, they have had trouble passing constitutional scrutiny when they get to court."
