The Committee on Judiciary proposes the following amendment (LC-4591.SA0001H):

Amend the bill, as and if amended, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-910(1), (2), (3), and (4) and inserting:

  (1) "Account holder" means a South Carolina resident who has an account or a profile with a covered social media platform that is associated by the covered social media platform with a unique identifier during any period in which a covered social media platform knows or should reasonably know is physically located in this State.
 (2) "Addictive interface features" means:
   (a) infinite scrolling, which means:
    (i) continuously loading content, or content that loads as the account holder scrolls down the page without the need to open a separate page; or
    (ii) seamless content or the use of pages with no visible or apparent end or page breaks;
   (b) display of a profile-exploiting based feed;
   (c) push notifications, whether audible, visual, or tactile, designed to call the attention of the account holder to newly posted content, or to user responses to content posted by the account holder, or to inform the account holder about other specific activities or events related to the account holder's account. Push notifications do not include a notification for the purpose of alerting the account holder to incoming calls, text messages, email messages, or similar messages sent by human contacts and delivered by means of any application;
   (d) auto-play video or video that begins to play without the account holder first clicking on the video or on a play button for that video;
   (e) display of personal metrics that indicate the number of times other users have clicked a button or taken other action to indicate their reaction to content posted by the account holder, or have shared or reposted content posted by the account holder; or
   (f) display of awards, badges, tiers, or any form of recognition of the account holder based on hours spent by the account holder on the social media platform, numbers of followers, numbers of postings, frequency or regularity of postings, or any other metric of usage or performance on the social media platform.
  (3) "Child" means a South Carolina resident under the age of seventeensixteen.
  (4) "Covered social media platform" means a social media platform, including any parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of the social media platform, that collectively generated at least one billion dollars in gross advertising revenues annually, worldwide in one or more of the preceding three years.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-910(7) and inserting:

  (7) "Minor" means a South Carolina resident who is under the age of majority but not including emancipated minors.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-910(9) and inserting:

  (9) "Parent" includes any legal guardian of a minor child who is a South Carolina resident.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-910(11) and inserting:

  (11) "Profile-based paid commercial advertising" means paid commercial advertising that has been selected or prioritized for display to an account holder based in whole or in part on personal information of the account holder. Advertising selected for display to an account holder is not profile-based paid commercial advertising if that selection process considers information about or an estimate of the age of the account holder solely for the purpose of excluding advertisements which by law or policy of the covered social media platform are not suitable for presentation to minorsa child of that age.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-910(12)(a) and (b) and inserting:

  (12)(a) "Profile-based feed" means a feed in which the material presented has been selected or prioritized by the social media platform for display to an account holder based in whole or in part on personal information of that account holder. Content created by a third party that is displayed to the account holder because the account holder has taken an affirmative step to select the third party's content for inclusion in the feed displayed to the account holder, such as by following, friending, or engaging in a similar action in relation to the third party, and not otherwise selected or prioritized for display to the account holder based on personal information, may shall not render such feed a profile-based feed.
   (b) An exclusion by a covered social media platform of certain content from the feed of an account holder based on information about or any estimate of the age of an account holder, solely for the purpose of excluding content which is obscene as to children aged seventeen sixteen or younger or by a policy of the covered social media platform that the content is not suitable for presentation to children of that age, does not render that feed a profile-based feed.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-910(14)(b) and inserting:

   (b) an online service, website, or application where the exclusive function is the support of communications, including email, video conferencing, or direct messaging consisting of text, photographs, pictures, images, or videos, only between the sender and recipients specifically identified by the sender, without displaying or posting publicly or to other users not specifically identified as the recipients by the sender; or

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-920(A), (B), (C), and (D) and inserting:

 (A) Within fourteen days of the first trigger date, the covered social media platform must use reasonable means and reasonable efforts, taking into consideration available technology and the data in the possession of the covered social media platform, to estimate the age of the account holder. If the covered social media platform is able to conclude with eighty percent confidence that the account holder is over seventeen fifteen years of age, the covered social media platform may treat the account holder to be other than a child for purposes of this article. Otherwise, the covered social media platform must treat the account holder as a child for purposes of this article.
 (B) Within fourteen days of the second trigger date, the covered social media platform must use reasonable means and reasonable efforts to revise its estimate of the age of the account holder. If the covered social media platform is able to conclude with ninety percent confidence that the account holder is over seventeen fifteen years of age, the covered social media platform may treat the account holder to be other than a child for purposes of this act. Otherwise, the covered social media platform must treat the account holder as a child for purposes of this act.
 (C) A covered social media platform shall update its estimate of the age of each account holder after every additional one hundred hours spent by the account holder on the covered social media platform, or as often as the covered social media platform applies any form of data analytics or artificial intelligence to update its estimate of any other demographic characteristic of the account holder for any reason, whichever period is shorter.
 (D) This section does not create any duty on the part of a covered social media platform to request, collect, or retain any information from or about any account holder. Rather, the age estimate required by this section must be derived based on information collected and retained by the covered social media platform in the ordinary course of operation of the covered social media platform.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-930(A)(1) and inserting:

(1) A covered social media platform shall require applicants for an account to provide their birth dates as part of the account application process and may not provide any default birth date in the course of requesting that information.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-930(C) and (D) and inserting:

 (C) A covered social media platform may not present addictive interface features in the display or feed of any child.
 (D) A covered social media platform may not present profile-based paid commercial advertising in the display or feed of any child.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-940(B), (C), and (D) and inserting:

 (B) A covered social media platform shall terminate an account of a minor child within no more than seven days after receipt of a request for termination from the account holder.
 (C) A covered social media platform shall terminate the account of a minor child within no more than fourteen days after receipt of a request for termination from a parent of the minorchild. Upon receipt of such a request, the covered social media platform shall verify that the requesting party is a parent of the account holder by whatever means of verification the covered social media platform uses for purposes of ascertaining the validity of verifiable parental consent.
 (D) A covered social media platform shall provide clear, simple, and easy-to-locate means for the parent of any minor child to request termination of any account of a minor.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-950(D) and inserting:

 (D) A covered social media platform shall make a reasonable determination of such dispute within thirty days of the completion of the age verification process.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-970 and inserting:

 Section 39-5-970. If a covered social media platform permits a child to open or continue an account on such platform in the absence of parental consent sufficient for the formation of a binding contract with a minor under ordinary principles of contract law under the laws of this State, then any purported contract pertaining to such account is invalid void and unenforceable as contrary to public policy including, but not limited to, any arbitration provision, limitation of liability, or limitation of remedies, without regard to whether such the covered social media platform had actual or constructive knowledge that the account holder was a child.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-980(D) and inserting:

 (D) A covered social media platform may not be liable to a child or parent for any violation of this article if it has used reasonable means and reasonable efforts, taking into consideration available technology and the data in possession of the covered social media platform, to comply with the requirements of this act.

Amend the bill further, SECTION 2, by striking Section 39-5-990 and inserting:

 Section 39-5-990. (A) Any knowing or reckless violation of this article constitutes a violation of this chapter.
 (B) If the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that any covered social media platform has engaged in, is engaging in, or is about to engage in, any knowing or reckless violation of this article, the Attorney General may investigate and seek remedies as provided by law pursuant to this chapter.A violation of this article is a violation of Section 39-5-20, and the Attorney General may investigate and enforce this article including, but not limited to, seeking remedies under Sections 39-5-50 and 39-5-110, as provided by law pursuant to this chapter.

Amend the bill further, by striking SECTION 4 and inserting:

SECTION 4. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governoron January 1, 2027.

Renumber sections to conform.

Amend title to conform.