Let’s Talk Privacy

If this bill passed, what is one way a social media interface could look?

Mockup for a hypothetical screenshot of a social media feed where one post is displayed at a time, along with a timer for long many likes a user has remaining before reseting, and the number of seconds left before the screen dims.

What are some things this bill would do?

Ban infinite scroll, autoplay, and other addictive features on social media.: Social media platforms would be required to include natural stopping points, since infinite scroll, autoplay, and “achievements” such as “Snapstreak” exploit the science of addiction to make it difficult to leave a social media platform.

Give users power to monitor and control their use time on social media.: Social media companies would be required to provide an in-app tool that enables users to track the time they spend on social media across all devices and allows users to impose caps on the amount of time they spend.

Require choice parity for consent.: Companies would be banned from manipulating people into consent by making it difficult to decline consent. They would also need to design “accept” and “decline” boxes using the same formats, fonts, and sizes.

Give the FTC and HHS authority to ban other similar practices.: Rules would expire after 3 years unless ratified by Congress.

We compiled these highlights from: Full text of the bill, Official Hawley SMART Act Press Release.

If this bill passed, what is one way a social media interface could look?

Thoughts from a technology expert

“It seems odd to ban very specific interaction behavior. I think this is hard to define and there are just so many corner cases including ways to work around these types of constraints, so specifically banning what currently are perceived to be the addictive aspects of social media would not be easily enforceable.”
- Peter Dolanjski, former Director of Privacy & Security products at Mozilla

Insights from our interviews

Banning specific features could be hard to enforce.: Industry practitioners and researchers were skeptical of banning specific features, since this could be difficult to enforce and lead companies to develop workarounds.

People expressed that more transparency could hinder usability.: Notifying people of time limits and providing regular disclosures promotes transparency. However, industry practitioners pointed out that this could also reduce the quality of a user’s experience on a platform by burdening them with too much information.

People might not be comfortable with usage limits.: Some interviewees expressed that people generally have a bad reaction to technology that tries to change their behavior. One person expressed that usage limits invoke a “protestant work ethic” – based on a desire to have people to work instead of use social media.

Thoughts from a technology expert

“It seems odd to ban very specific interaction behavior. I think this is hard to define and there are just so many corner cases including ways to work around these types of constraints, so specifically banning what currently are perceived to be the addictive aspects of social media would not be easily enforceable.”
- Peter Dolanjski, former Director of Privacy & Security products at Mozilla

Positive responses to the bill

“I think I agree with it in general, like app design is made to be as addicting as possible. And it kind of preys on the human instinct. So this is a good way to curb that on the company side.”
- Valerie Michel, Systems Engineering PhD Candidate at University of Virginia

“In the Kindergarten through 12th grade context, especially with fifth and sixth graders, I think that's a good thing, right? You don't want people glued to a screen for hours and hours.”
- Najarian Peters, Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Institute for Privacy Protection at Seton Hall Law School and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

Concerns over the bill

“The way I think about this question of social media is not ‘we need to ban and control’. I think more, you should press the goals and let the company figure out how to do it. And it's not clear to me that even if you did this, smart companies couldn't just avoid requirements and still create different products in different ways.”
- Government Employee

“I think that there would be a lot of pushback from social media companies on a bill like this, I don't think they would ever use the word addiction, but the idea is that for them, each post read is money in the bank.”
- Mason Kortz, Clinical Instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic

Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act

If this bill passed, what is one way a social media interface could look?

What are some things this bill would do?

If this bill passed, what is one way a social media interface could look?

How people responded to the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act

Thoughts from a technology expert

Insights from our interviews

Thoughts from a technology expert

Positive responses to the bill

Concerns over the bill