I personally am a huge fan of some social media (Twitter, Tumblr) less so of others (Facebook). I certainly do think tools like these are going to be a significant communication tool for a long time to come. Apparently state legislatures agree, and have been introducing an ever growing number of bills involving social media to one degree or another.
Here’s a map of states with social media related bills (I used the search terms “social media” “social network” “blog” “microblogging” “tweet” “twitter“ “facebook” “linkedin”)
As you can see, well over half the states are considering bills this year.
Bills with a focus on social media come in three basic flavors:
- Encouraging (or requiring) it’s use as a new communication channel, such as requiring public meetings to be shared on social media channels, or protecting people’s right to use it
- Defining ways in which it can’t be used (or limits on who can use it)
- Expanding the definitions of existing laws, like laws about identity theft or what’s admissible in court, to include social media
There’s a natural tension in the above themes. Social media is good, no it’s bad, or it’s here to stay let’s deal with it. So what point of view is winning out? Let’s take a look at the types of bills introduced this session:
A few trends have definitely emerged. Last year California passed two bills prohibiting employers and schools from asking employees or students for their log in info. Both of these bills passed easily. They were also the only such bills to pass last year – although Pennsylvania and Minnesota had both introduced such bills. This year, as you can see above, lots of states have taken up the subject. I wouldn’t be surprised to see many more next year.
Several cyber bullying laws also passed last year, including this bill from Louisiana, including social media explicitly as a potential stage for bullying. This bill was a little more controversial in the Senate, though it passed easily out of the House. Again, several more states have introduced bills involving social media and cyber bullying for this year, such as this fairly typical example from Oklahoma.
There are several bills regarding people on sex offender lists this year. These bills either limit what social media offenders can use, or require them to disclose their sex offender status. Only one such bill was passed last year, out of a handful introduced, but we’ll probably be seeing more of these kinds of bills in the next few years. Given the controversial nature of sex offender lists, I find this particular trend a bit troubling.
Finally, the other big piece of the pie is transparency, but I lumped a wide variety of things into this category. I’d like to highlight some as good examples, and some just as interesting. First is the government trying to use social media to do a better job informing people about meetings and other government business. I particularly like “MA H2908 – To enhance technology in civic engagement”. Another theme is using social media to help get emergency information out, such as this Washington bill adding social media to the ways in which a missing children alert is sent out, which seems to be making good progress. Finally there are some interesting bills requiring certain professionals to publish certain information on their social media channels. I’d love to see more of the government transparency bills in the coming years. Certainly the old practice of publishing meeting notices in newspapers needs updating.
A complete list of all current bills involving social media can be seen on this stakeholder page. Note you can use the magnifying glass tool in the footer of the grid to open up a filter pane, allowing you to narrow bills down to a specific state. You can click on a column header to sort the bills, which is particularly useful for the action date column to see what has happened lately, or sort on the category column to see where different types of bills have been introduced. And you can click on the bill icon in the first column to read the complete bill text, history, and so on. Save this link to keep informed about legislation on this topic. Or consider our subscription options if you’d like to be alerted about new legislation or share these bills on your own website (or feel free to share the stakeholder page).
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