Law / United States / 
Texas
Texas H.B. 20 (2021), social media platform disclosure, complaint and viewpoint-neutrality rules
Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 120; Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 143A
A transparency and process rule binding public and private bodies.
- Private right of action
- Yes
As of .
What it requires
- A federal court's preliminary injunction of enjoins the Texas Attorney General, until the court enters judgment, from enforcing Section 2 and Section 7 of House Bill 20 (chapter 120 of the Business and Commerce Code and chapter 143A of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code) against the plaintiff trade associations NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association and their members, so read the duties below as context for a law whose enforcement against those members is enjoined. Section 143A.007(d) lets a user sue under chapter 143A whether or not another court has enjoined the Attorney General, unless that court's decision is binding on the court in which the user sues.
- Publicly disclose accurate information about your content management, data management and business practices on an easily accessible website, including how you curate and target content, place and promote content and services including your own, moderate content, use search, ranking or other algorithms or procedures, and provide users' performance data, in enough detail for users to make an informed choice about using the platform.
- Publish an acceptable use policy in a location easily accessible to users that tells them what types of content are allowed, the steps you will take to ensure content complies, and how they can notify you of content that potentially violates the policy or is illegal, including an e-mail address or complaint intake mechanism and your complaint system.
- Publish a biannual transparency report as part of the acceptable use policy, with an open license, in a machine-readable and open format, covering the preceding six months: the instances you were alerted to illegal content, illegal activity or potentially policy-violating content by a user complaint, an employee or contractor, or an internal automated detection tool; the actions you took, categorized by the rule violated and the source of the alert; the country of the user who provided the content; the number of coordinated campaigns, if applicable; the number of appeals and the percentage that restored content; and a description of each tool, practice, action or technique used in enforcing the policy.
- Provide an easily accessible complaint system that lets a user submit a complaint in good faith and track its status, including a complaint about illegal content or activity or about your decision to remove content the user posted, and give clear, conspicuous, plain-language notice of the system and its procedures that describes your duties under section 120.102 and how a user submits a complaint.
- Make a good faith effort to evaluate the legality of content or activity within 48 hours of receiving notice that it is illegal, excluding hours during a Saturday or Sunday and subject to reasonable exceptions based on concerns about the legitimacy of the notice.
- When you remove content for a violation of your acceptable use policy, notify the user who provided it and explain the reason concurrently with the removal, let the user appeal to you, and give written notice of the appeal determination and, if you reverse the removal, the reason. You need not if you cannot contact the user after reasonable steps, you know the content relates to an ongoing law enforcement investigation, or you removed it on an explicit deep fake complaint.
- On a user's complaint that you removed content the user believes was not potentially policy-violating, review the content, determine whether it adheres to your acceptable use policy, take appropriate steps, and notify the user of the determination and the steps taken, not later than the 14th day, excluding Saturdays and Sundays, after you receive the complaint.
- Do not censor a user, a user's expression, or a user's ability to receive another person's expression based on the viewpoint of the user or another person, the viewpoint represented in the expression, or the user's geographic location in this state or any part of this state. To censor means to block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.
- You may still censor expression that federal law specifically authorizes you to censor, that is the subject of a referral or request from an organization with the purpose of preventing the sexual exploitation of children and protecting survivors of sexual abuse from ongoing harassment, that directly incites criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group because of their race, color, disability, religion, national origin or ancestry, age, sex, or status as a peace officer or judge, or that is unlawful expression, and you may let a user censor specific expression on the user's own platform or page at the user's request.
- Do not rely on a contract term or choice-of-law clause to avoid chapter 143A: a waiver of its protections is void, and an action under the chapter must be brought in a court in this state under the law of this state.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
The Texas Attorney General may bring an action to enjoin a violation of chapter 120 (section 120.151) and a violation or potential violation of chapter 143A (section 143A.008); a violation of chapter 120 is also a deceptive trade practice actionable under Subchapter E, Chapter 17 (section 120.152); a user may sue a platform under section 143A.007.
Settledness
- As of
- Case link
- https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
- Case citation
- Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707 (2024)
- Under challenge
- Yes
- Open questions
- Which social media platforms, and which of their functions, fall within the definition of social media platform in section 120.001 of the Business and Commerce Code, given that the Supreme Court left the full range of the statute's applications to be determined on remand?
- Do the notice, appeal and explanation duties in sections 120.101 to 120.104 unduly burden a covered platform's expression under Zauderer once its functions and algorithms are examined?
What it reaches
Obligation class
Disclosure, Prohibition
Applicability criteria
- As of
- Combinator
- All of
- Criteria
- Applies only to a user who resides in this state, does business in this state, or shares or receives content on a social media platform in this state.
- Applies only to a social media platform that functionally has more than 50 million active users in the United States in a calendar month.
What this law does
Section 2 of House Bill 20 added chapter 120 to the Business and Commerce Code effective . Section 7 of House Bill 20 added chapter 143A to the Civil Practice and Remedies Code effective .
Chapter 120 of the Business and Commerce Code requires a social media platform to publicly disclose accurate information regarding its content management, data management, and business practices, including how it curates and targets content, places and promotes content, moderates content, uses search, ranking, or other algorithms or procedures, and provides users' performance data.
The public disclosure must be sufficient to enable users to make an informed choice regarding the purchase of or use of access to or services from the platform.
A platform must publish an acceptable use policy in a location that is easily accessible to a user, which reasonably informs users about the types of content allowed, explains the steps the platform will take to ensure content complies with the policy, and explains how users can notify the platform of content that potentially violates the policy, illegal content, or illegal activity, including an e-mail address or relevant complaint intake mechanism and its complaint system.
As part of the acceptable use policy, a platform must publish a biannual transparency report covering the preceding six-month period. The platform must publish the information in the transparency report with an open license, in a machine-readable and open format, and in a location that is easily accessible to users.
The transparency report must state, among other things, the number of instances in which the platform was alerted to illegal content, illegal activity, or potentially policy-violating content, the actions it took, categorized by the rule violated and the source of the alert, the country of the user who provided the content, the number of appeals and the percentage of appeals that resulted in restoration of content, and a description of each tool, practice, action, or technique used in enforcing the policy.
A platform must provide an easily accessible complaint system to enable a user to submit a complaint in good faith and track its status, including a complaint about illegal content or activity or about a decision by the platform to remove content posted by the user.
House Bill 3133 added section 120.1015 effective , which requires notice on the platform of the complaint system and procedures that is clear and conspicuous, written in plain language, and describes the platform's duties under section 120.102 and the process for submitting a complaint. Sections 120.1001 and 120.1025 and subsection 120.102(b) concern explicit deep fake material and are not described here.
A platform that receives notice of illegal content or illegal activity must make a good faith effort to evaluate the legality of the content or activity within 48 hours of receiving the notice, excluding hours during a Saturday or Sunday and subject to reasonable exceptions based on concerns about the legitimacy of the notice.
When a platform removes content based on a violation of its acceptable use policy, it must concurrently notify the user who provided the content and explain the reason, allow the user to appeal the decision to the platform, and give written notice of the determination of the appeal and, if it reverses its decision, the reason.
A platform need not give that notice or opportunity to appeal if it is unable to contact the user after taking reasonable steps, knows that the content relates to an ongoing law enforcement investigation, or removed the content on a complaint that it was explicit deep fake material.
If a platform receives a user complaint about its removal of content that the user believes was not potentially policy-violating, it must, not later than the 14th day, excluding Saturdays and Sundays, after receiving the complaint, review the content, determine whether it adheres to the acceptable use policy, take appropriate steps, and notify the user of the determination and the steps taken.
A violation of chapter 120 is a deceptive trade practice, actionable as provided in Subchapter E of Chapter 17, a provision House Bill 3133 added in section 120.152 effective . The attorney general may bring an action against a social media platform to enjoin a violation of chapter 120 and, if an injunction is granted, may recover costs, including reasonable attorney's fees and reasonable investigative costs.
Chapter 143A of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code bars a social media platform from censoring a user, a user's expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on the viewpoint of the user or another person, the viewpoint represented in the user's or another person's expression, or a user's geographic location in this state or any part of this state.
Under chapter 143A, to censor means to block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.
Chapter 143A does not prohibit a platform from censoring expression that federal law specifically authorizes it to censor, that is the subject of a referral or request from an organization with the purpose of preventing the sexual exploitation of children and protecting survivors of sexual abuse from ongoing harassment, that directly incites criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group because of their race, color, disability, religion, national origin or ancestry, age, sex, or status as a peace officer or judge, or that is unlawful expression.
A waiver or purported waiver of the protections of chapter 143A is void as unlawful and against public policy. An action brought under chapter 143A against a social media platform must be brought and maintained in a court in this state, and the law of this state applies, notwithstanding any contract, venue, forum selection, or choice-of-law provision, a rule Senate Bill 1602 added effective .
A user may bring an action against a social media platform that violates chapter 143A with respect to the user, and on proof of the violation is entitled to declaratory relief, including costs and reasonable and necessary attorney's fees, and injunctive relief.
A user may bring an action pursuant to chapter 143A regardless of whether another court has enjoined the attorney general from enforcing the chapter or declared any provision unconstitutional, unless that court decision is binding on the court in which the action is brought. The attorney general may bring an action to enjoin a violation or a potential violation of chapter 143A and, if an injunction is granted, may recover costs, reasonable attorney's fees, and reasonable investigative costs.
Chapter 143A does not subject a social media platform to damages or other legal remedies to the extent the platform is protected from those remedies under federal law. Whether a platform is covered by chapter 120 turns on the tests in section 120.002 of the Business and Commerce Code.
Section 143A.004 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code states the corresponding tests for chapter 143A. On a federal district court enjoined the Texas Attorney General, until the court enters judgment, from enforcing Section 2 and Section 7 of House Bill 20 against the plaintiff trade associations and their members. On the Fifth Circuit vacated that preliminary injunction and remanded the case.
On the Supreme Court vacated the Fifth Circuit's judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. On the Fifth Circuit remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.
The Fifth Circuit's opinion of records that its earlier holding that the one-and-done disclosures and the biannual transparency-report requirement were facially constitutional was not reviewed by the Supreme Court and, as the parties agree, still binds the district court on remand.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform.