LISTOS Act

II 118TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 1801 To ensure that large online platforms are addressing the needs of non- English users. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JUNE 1, 2023 Mr. LUJA´N (for himself, Mr. PADILLA, Mr. MENENDEZ, Ms. HIRONO, and Mr. WYDEN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation A BILL To ensure that large online platforms are addressing the needs of non-English users. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. 3 (a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 4 ‘‘Language-Inclusive Support and Transparency for On- 5 line Services Act of 2023’’ or the ‘‘LISTOS Act’’. 6 (b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents of 7 this Act is as follows: 8 Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. Sec. 2. Sense of Congress. Sec. 3. Duty to ensure consistent enforcement. Sec. 4. Disclosures on staffing and automated processes. VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6211 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •S 1801 IS Sec. 5. Consistent access to tools and documentation. Sec. 6. Advisory Group. Sec. 7. Enforcement. Sec. 8. Regulations. Sec. 9. Effective dates. Sec. 10. International online communication research activities pilot program. Sec. 11. Definitions. SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 1 It is the sense of Congress that— 2 (1) substantial and deliberate investments 3 across languages are essential to protect the safety 4 of users online and ensure equitable access to digital 5 spaces; 6 (2) online platforms have historically under-in- 7 vested in ensuring non-English content moderation 8 and automated content detection and filtering proc- 9 esses keep pace with their English counterparts, pro- 10 viding little transparency into the efficacy of efforts 11 to detect, review, and remove content that violates 12 laws or platform policies across languages; 13 (3) this difference in enforcement for platforms’ 14 existing policies and uneven moderation practices 15 across both manual and automated processes has in- 16 creased the proliferation of illegal and harmful con- 17 tent across many languages and the deliberate tar- 18 geting of non-English-speaking communities for 19 fraud and harassment; and 20 (4) any reform effort for online platform safety 21 must ensure equitable investment across languages 22 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •S 1801 IS in order to promote economic opportunity, public 1 health, and civil rights. 2 SEC. 3. DUTY TO ENSURE CONSISTENT ENFORCEMENT. 3 (a) IN GENERAL.—The operator of a covered plat- 4 form shall provide that processes used by the platform for 5 detecting, suppressing, and removing illegal content, or 6 content that otherwise violates platform policies, are rea- 7 sonably consistent for languages in which the covered plat- 8 form engages in monetization practices. 9 (b) CONSIDERATIONS.—Any entity enforcing or pro- 10 mulgating rules under subsection (a) shall take into con- 11 sideration factors that may impact the covered platform’s 12 ability to enforce its policies with respect to content in a 13 given language, including staffing levels and language pro- 14 ficiency, or the effectiveness of automated systems de- 15 signed to filter or flag content for additional review. 16 (c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION; LIMITATION ON REGU- 17 LATION.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to re- 18 quire, and no regulation issued by the Commission to 19 carry out this section may require, that a covered platform 20 take any particular action on a specific piece of content 21 or class of content. 22 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 4 •S 1801 IS SEC. 4. DISCLOSURES ON STAFFING AND AUTOMATED 1 PROCESSES. 2 (a) IN GENERAL.—The operator of a covered plat- 3 form shall, not less than annually, submit to the Commis- 4 sion and make available to the public, in a machine-read- 5 able format, a clear and easily comprehensible report on 6 any manual and algorithmic content moderation that the 7 covered platform engaged in during the relevant period. 8 Each such report shall be in compliance with the rules 9 established under subsection (b). 10 (b) RULES.—The Commission shall, in accordance 11 with section 8, establish rules for reports under subsection 12 (a). Such rules shall require that a report include the fol- 13 lowing information: 14 (1) CONTENT MODERATION STAFFING.— 15 (A) IN GENERAL.—The number of staff 16 employed by the covered platform (whether di- 17 rectly employed by the platform or contracted 18 through a third party) for the purposes of 19 manually reviewing content for removal or other 20 interventions, in aggregate and broken down 21 by— 22 (i) the countries in which the employ- 23 ees are located; 24 (ii) the geographic or regional area to 25 which the employees are assigned; and 26 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 5 •S 1801 IS (iii) languages spoken by the employ- 1 ees relevant to their employment and their 2 levels of language proficiency. 3 (B) STAFF SUPPORT.—A description of the 4 training and support provided to content mod- 5 eration staff, including— 6 (i) the training processes and guide- 7 lines provided; 8 (ii) the support services, such as men- 9 tal health services, available to the em- 10 ployee; and 11 (iii) if training or support services dif- 12 fer by factors such as geographic region, 13 languages spoken, or direct-hire versus 14 contracted employees, descriptions and 15 breakdowns of such differences. 16 (2) AUTOMATED CONTENT DETECTION AND DE- 17 CISION-MAKING PROCESSES.—If the covered plat- 18 form elects to use algorithmic processes to detect 19 content for additional manual review or automated 20 decision-making for content moderation, information 21 on such processes, including— 22 (A) performance metrics that are mon- 23 itored to ensure consistent behavior for such 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 6 •S 1801 IS processes across languages and the languages 1 that are monitored; and 2 (B) other safeguards in place to ensure 3 consistent behavior of such systems across lan- 4 guages. 5 (3) MONETIZATION ACROSS LANGUAGES.—The 6 list of languages in which the covered platform en- 7 gages in monetization practices and the percentage 8 breakdown by language of the covered platform’s 9 revenue throughout the duration of the relevant re- 10 porting period. 11 (4) IN-LANGUAGE REVIEW.—Of all content that 12 is manually reviewed by staff, provide information 13 on content that is reviewed in the original language 14 used to create the content rather than being subject 15 to automated translation before review, including— 16 (A) the percentage of content reviewed in 17 the original language for each language in 18 which the covered platform engages in mone- 19 tization practices; and 20 (B) a description of the policies governing 21 whether and to what extent content will be 22 manually reviewed in the original language or 23 automatically translated prior to manual review. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 7 •S 1801 IS (5) TRANSLATION AND REVIEW PROCESSES.— 1 With respect to the content review practices of the 2 covered platform— 3 (A) the list of languages in which content 4 is reviewed without translation; and 5 (B) for languages in which automated 6 translation is applied prior to manual review, a 7 description of— 8 (i) the process by which content is 9 translated; and 10 (ii) the process by which that content 11 is reviewed and how, if at all, that process 12 differs from the process used to review 13 content in the original language. 14 (6) CONTENT MODERATION OUTCOME MEAS- 15 URES.— 16 (A) NUMBER OF CONTENT TAKEDOWNS.— 17 The number of content takedowns over the rel- 18 evant reporting period for each language in 19 which the covered platform engages in mone- 20 tization practices. 21 (B) RESPONSE TIME.—The average re- 22 sponse time to user-initiated takedown or con- 23 tent review requests over the relevant reporting 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 8 •S 1801 IS period for each language in which the covered 1 platform engages in monetization practices. 2 (7) ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.—Other infor- 3 mation determined appropriate by the Commission, 4 including additional categories or criteria relevant to 5 the information described in paragraphs (1), (2), 6 and (4). 7 SEC. 5. CONSISTENT ACCESS TO TOOLS AND DOCUMENTA- 8 TION. 9 The operator of a covered platform shall— 10 (1) provide that all user tools for reporting con- 11 tent for review or automated action are accessible 12 across all languages in which the covered platform 13 offers its service; and 14 (2) post all platform policies and other informa- 15 tion concerning acceptable use of the covered plat- 16 form in the same manner for all languages in which 17 the platform offers its service. 18 SEC. 6. ADVISORY GROUP. 19 (a) ESTABLISHMENT.—Not later than 360 days after 20 the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall 21 establish a group to be known as the ‘‘Advisory Group 22 on Language-Sensitive Technologies’’ (referred to in this 23 section as the ‘‘Advisory Group’’). 24 (b) DUTIES.— 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 9 •S 1801 IS (1) IN GENERAL.—The Advisory Group shall 1 provide consensus advice and guidance to the Com- 2 mission on best practices for private enterprises or 3 public entities using covered technology that may 4 have different performance outcomes depending on 5 the underlying language of the content being ana- 6 lyzed in order to ensure the nondiscriminatory appli- 7 cation of such technology. 8 (2) COVERED TECHNOLOGY.—For purposes of 9 paragraph (1), the term ‘‘covered technology’’ means 10 technology used to— 11 (A) detect and process input language 12 from sources, such as analog text and audio, 13 into a machine-readable format, such as speech 14 and optical character recognition; 15 (B) process or generate language stored in 16 a machine-readable format, such as natural lan- 17 guage processing, including large language 18 models; 19 (C) detect and process images and videos 20 into a machine-readable format, or process im- 21 ages or videos stored in a machine-readable for- 22 mat; and 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 10 •S 1801 IS (D) make automated decisions related to 1 content removal, ranking, or presentation to a 2 user of an online platform. 3 (3) MEMBERSHIP.—The Commission shall ap- 4 point the members of the Advisory Group. In mak- 5 ing such appointments, the Commission shall provide 6 that the membership of the Advisory Group— 7 (A) includes different points of view and 8 background experience; and 9 (B) includes both Federal employees and 10 non-Federal employee stakeholders, including 11 representatives of communities most impacted 12 by the systemic risks of harmful non-English 13 language content and current or former content 14 moderators and employees of covered platforms. 15 (4) REPORT.—The Commission shall make 16 available on its website the findings of the Advisory 17 Group with recommendations and best practices as 18 reported by the Advisory Group concerning the use 19 of covered technology. 20 (c) NON-APPLICABILITY OF THE FEDERAL ADVI- 21 SORY COMMITTEE ACT.—Chapter 10 of title 5, United 22 States Code, shall not apply to the Advisory Group. 23 (d) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There is 24 authorized to be appropriated to the Advisory Group such 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 11 •S 1801 IS sums as are necessary to carry out the requirements of 1 this section. 2 SEC. 7. ENFORCEMENT. 3 (a) ENFORCEMENT BY THE FEDERAL TRADE COM- 4 MISSION.— 5 (1) UNFAIR OR DECEPTIVE ACTS OR PRAC- 6 TICES.—A violation of section 3, 4, or 5 shall be 7 treated as a violation of a rule defining an unfair or 8 a deceptive act or practice under section 18(a)(1)(B) 9 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 10 57a(a)(1)(B)). 11 (2) POWERS OF COMMISSION.— 12 (A) IN GENERAL.—The Commission shall 13 enforce this Act in the same manner, by the 14 same means, and with the same jurisdiction, 15 powers, and duties as though all applicable 16 terms and provisions of the Federal Trade 17 Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.) were in- 18 corporated into and made a part of this Act. 19 (B) PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES.—Any 20 person who violates section 3, 4, or 5 shall be 21 subject to the penalties and entitled to the 22 privileges and immunities provided in the Fed- 23 eral Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et 24 seq.). 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:49 Jun 20, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1801.IS S1801 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 12 •S 1801 IS (C) AUTHORITY PRESERVED.—Nothing in 1 this Act shall be construed to limit the author- 2 ity of the Federal Trade Commission under any 3 other provision of law. 4 (b) ENFORCEMENT BY STATES.— 5 (1) IN GENERAL.—In any case in which the at- 6 torney general of a State has reason to believe that 7 an interest of the residents of the State has been or 8 is threatened or adversely affected by the engage- 9 ment of any person subject to section 3 or 5 in a 10 practice that violates such section, the attorney gen- 11 eral of the State may, as parens patriae, bring a 12 civil action on behalf of the residents of the State in 13 an appropriate district court of the United States— 14 (A) to enjoin further violation of such sec- 15 tion by such person; 16 (B) to compel compliance with such sec- 17 tion; and 18 (C) to obtain damages, restitution, or other 19 compensation on behalf of such residents. 20 (2) SCOPE OF JURISDICTION.—The attorney 21 general of a [Text truncated for display. 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