Law / United States / 
California
Social media platform reporting and removal of sexually explicit digital identity theft (SB 981)
SB 981 (Ch. 292, Stats. 2024), Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code Sections 22670 and 22671
In force since .
A specific illegal content rule binding private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Governance
As of .
What it requires
- If you operate a social media platform, provide a mechanism that is reasonably accessible to a reporting user who is a California resident with an account on your platform to report sexually explicit digital identity theft, meaning an image or video created or altered through digitization that appears to show the reporting person's intimate body part or sexual act without their consent and is displayed, stored or hosted on your platform (Business and Professions Code Sections 22670 and 22671(a)).
- Collect information reasonably sufficient to locate each reported instance and to contact the reporting user, confirm receipt within 48 hours of the report, and send a written status update within seven days of that confirmation (Section 22671(b)).
- Within 30 days of the confirmation, or no later than 60 days after the material was first reported where circumstances beyond your reasonable control prevent that, determine whether there is a reasonable basis to believe the report is correct, and give the reporting user written notice of the delay within 48 hours of knowing it was likely (Section 22671(c)).
- Temporarily block the reported instance from being publicly viewable pending your determination, and immediately remove it from being publicly viewable if you determine there is a reasonable basis to believe it is sexually explicit digital identity theft (Section 22671(d)).
- A stand-alone direct messaging service with end-to-end encrypted communication, the end-to-end encrypted portion of a multiservice platform, and a service owned or operated by a nonprofit organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are not covered (Section 22670(d)(2)).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text, as of .
What this law does
SB 981 was chaptered on as Chapter 292 of the Statutes of 2024. It added Chapter 22.7, Digital Identity Theft, to Division 8 of the Business and Professions Code. Sections 22670 and 22671 are effective per the code's own history note. A social media platform must provide a mechanism that is reasonably accessible to a reporting user who is a California resident with an account on the platform to report sexually explicit digital identity theft.
Covered material is an image or video created or altered through digitization that would appear to a reasonable person to show an intimate body part of an identifiable person, or that person engaged in sexual intercourse, sodomy, oral copulation, sexual penetration or masturbation, where the reporting person is the person depicted, did not consent and the material is displayed, stored or hosted on the platform.
The platform must collect information reasonably sufficient to locate the material and to contact the reporting user, confirm receipt of the report within 48 hours, and send a written status update within seven days of that confirmation.
It must determine within 30 days of the confirmation whether there is a reasonable basis to believe the reported material is sexually explicit digital identity theft, or within 60 days after the material was first reported where circumstances beyond its reasonable control prevent that, and must give the reporting user written notice of the delay within 48 hours of knowing it was likely.
It must temporarily block the reported instance from being publicly viewable pending that determination, and must immediately remove it from being publicly viewable if it determines there is a reasonable basis to believe the report is correct.
A stand-alone direct messaging service with end-to-end encrypted communication, the end-to-end encrypted portion of a multiservice platform, and an internet-based service or application owned or operated by a nonprofit organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are not social media platforms for this purpose.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform or publishes adult content.