Assembly Bill 1394, which was authored by state Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and will go into effect Jan. 1, 2025, requires a court to award statutory damages between $1 million and $4 million for each act of commercial sexual exploitation that social media platforms 'knowingly facilitated, aided or abetted.' The legislation makes California the first state in the nation to enact a law that takes a two-pronged approach.
20 letter asking the governor to veto the bill, NetChoice said, 'The State does not have a free pass to regulate merely because it wants to combat some evil.' Previous attempts by the state to hold media companies accountable for harmful content have been opposed successfully by internet platforms using Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, which says that online internet platforms are immune from liability for content generated by users.