Regulon — WI-SB-758 · WI SB 758 (Social Media Minors)

WHAT THIS BILL REGULATES · 3 REQUIREMENT TYPES

How Is This Bill Enforced

Enforcement Authority

Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) may investigate violations and bring actions in the name of the state seeking injunctive relief and civil forfeitures. DOJ must create and maintain a public complaint website. Private right of action available to any person affected by a violation, or a person acting on behalf of such person.

Private Right of Action

Private right of action available to any person affected by a violation, or a person acting on behalf of such person.

Penalties

DOJ may recover civil forfeiture of up to $5,000 per violation, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees. Private plaintiffs may recover actual damages, punitive damages not to exceed $5,000, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees. Courts may also order disgorgement of money received in the course of the violation and payment to injured individuals, as well as any other relief the court deems reasonable.

Verbatim statutory text on the left; plain-language analysis and a per-section checklist on the right. Numbered markers cross-link to the matching checklist row.

Statutory Text

Analysis & Obligations

Wis. Stat. § 134.07(1)

Definitions

(1)(a) "Minor" means an individual who is under 18 years of age and who resides in this state.

(1)(b) "Social media platform" means a public or semipublic online website, service, or application that satisfies all of the following: 1. The website, service, or application is used by a minor in this state. 2. The website, service, or application allows users to construct a public or semipublic profile for the purposes of using the website, service, or application. 3. The website, service, or application allows users to create or post content that is viewable by other users, including on message boards, in chat rooms, or through a landing page or main feed that presents the user with content generated by other users. 4. The website, service, or application allows users to privately message each other as a significant part of the provision of the website, service, or application.

(1)(c) "Targeted advertising" means displaying or presenting an online advertisement to a consumer or to a device identified by a unique persistent identifier or to a group of consumers or devices identified by unique persistent identifiers if the advertisement is selected based in whole or in part on known or predicted preferences, characteristics, behavior, or interests associated with the consumer or a device identified by a unique persistent identifier. "Targeted advertising" includes displaying or presenting the advertisement and marketing measurement related to such advertisements. "Targeted advertising" does not include first-party advertising or contextual advertising.

(1)(d) "Unique persistent identifier" means a technologically created identifier to the extent that such identifier is reasonably linkable to a consumer or a device that identifies or is linked or reasonably linkable to one or more consumers, including device identifiers, Internet Protocol addresses, cookies, beacons, pixel tags, mobile advertisement identifiers or similar technology customer numbers, unique pseudonyms, user aliases, telephone numbers, or other forms of persistent or probabilistic identifiers that are linked or reasonably linkable to one or more consumers or devices. "Unique persistent identifier" does not include an identifier assigned by a controller for the sole purpose of giving effect to the exercise of affirmative consent or opt out by a consumer with respect to the collecting, processing, and transfer of personal data or otherwise limiting the collecting, processing, or transfer of personal data.

This subsection establishes the four defined terms used throughout the bill: minor (under 18 and residing in Wisconsin), social media platform (a four-part conjunctive test requiring public/semipublic profiles, user-generated content viewable by others, and private messaging as a significant feature), targeted advertising (behavioral ad targeting using persistent identifiers, excluding first-party and contextual ads), and unique persistent identifier (a broad category of tracking identifiers). The social media platform definition is notable for requiring all four elements — a site that lacks a messaging feature or profiles may fall outside the definition.

Wis. Stat. § 134.07(2)

Data privacy prohibition for minors

Deployer

(2) 1 Except as provided in sub. (4) and as necessary to comply with the requirements of this section, no social media platform may gather, use, sell, offer, or retain data relating to a minor's use of or interaction with a social media platform.

This subsection imposes a near-total prohibition on social media platforms gathering, using, selling, offering, or retaining data relating to a minor's use of or interaction with the platform. The prohibition is subject to the exceptions in subsection (4) — most critically, the narrow carve-out permitting data necessary to establish and maintain a minor's account — and to data collection necessary to comply with other requirements of the section (such as age verification). This is an unusually broad restriction that goes well beyond typical data minimization requirements, effectively banning all behavioral data collection, analytics, and monetization for minor users.

Compliance actions 1 item

Social media platforms must not gather, use, sell, offer, or retain data relating to a minor's use of or interaction with the platform, except data necessary to establish and maintain the minor's account or to comply with the section's requirements.

D-01.4

Wis. Stat. § 134.07(3)

Prohibition on data-based content recommendation for minors

Deployer

(3) 2 Except as provided in sub. (4), based on data gathered about the minor or from a device used by the minor to access the Internet, no social media platform may select, prioritize, or deprioritize for a minor, or recommend to a minor, information, content, or a feature of a social media platform.

This subsection prohibits social media platforms from using data gathered about a minor — or from a device the minor uses to access the Internet — to algorithmically select, prioritize, deprioritize, or recommend information, content, or platform features. The prohibition effectively bars personalized algorithmic feeds for minor users. Exceptions in subsection (4) allow content selection in response to an explicit minor request, direct messages, sequential content from the same creator, and search results.

Compliance actions 1 item

Social media platforms must not use data gathered about a minor or from the minor's device to algorithmically select, prioritize, deprioritize, or recommend content or platform features to that minor, except for content explicitly requested by the minor, direct messages, sequential content from the same creator, or search results.

CP-01.2

Wis. Stat. § 134.07(4)

Exceptions to data and recommendation prohibitions

(4)(a) Notwithstanding sub. (2), a social media platform may gather and retain the data necessary for a minor to establish and maintain the minor's account on the social media platform.

(4)(b) Notwithstanding sub. (3), a social media platform may select or prioritize specific content for a minor if any of the following applies: 1. The minor has clearly and expressly requested the selection or prioritization of the specific content. 2. The specific content is provided to the minor via direct message from another user on the social media platform. 3. The specific content is the next piece of content in a preexisting sequence of content from the same user of the social media platform as the immediately preceding content viewed by the minor.

(4)(c) Notwithstanding sub. (3), a social media platform may deprioritize or block certain content for a minor when reasonably based on privacy or accessibility settings selected by the minor or if the minor has clearly and expressly requested the certain content to be deprioritized or blocked.

(4)(d) Notwithstanding sub. (3), a social media platform may select, prioritize, deprioritize, or recommend specific information, content, or a feature of a social media platform in response to a specific search conducted by the minor on the social media platform.

This subsection carves out narrow exceptions to the data privacy prohibition in subsection (2) and the algorithmic recommendation prohibition in subsection (3). For data, platforms may gather and retain data necessary for account establishment and maintenance. For content recommendation, platforms may serve content when the minor explicitly requests it, when content arrives via direct message, when the content is the next piece in a preexisting sequence from the same creator, when content is deprioritized based on minor-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or in response to a specific search query. These exceptions are integral to the obligations in subsections (2) and (3) and do not independently create compliance duties.

Wis. Stat. § 134.07(5)

Age verification

Deployer

(5) 3 A social media platform shall employ a reliable, industry-accepted method approved by the department of justice that determines whether a user of the social media platform is a minor.

This subsection requires social media platforms to implement age verification using a reliable, industry-accepted method that must be approved by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The provision delegates methodology selection to DOJ, meaning platforms cannot independently choose a verification method — they must use one the department has affirmatively approved. This creates a dependency on DOJ rulemaking or guidance for compliance.

Compliance actions 1 item

Social media platforms must employ a reliable, industry-accepted age verification method approved by the Wisconsin Department of Justice to determine whether each user is a minor.

MN-01.1

Wis. Stat. § 134.07(6)

Targeted advertising prohibition for minors

Deployer

(6) 4 A social media platform shall prevent targeted advertising from being shown to a minor user of the social media platform.

This subsection requires social media platforms to prevent targeted advertising from being shown to minor users. The definition of targeted advertising in subsection (1)(c) is behavioral — ads selected based on known or predicted preferences, characteristics, behavior, or interests — and explicitly excludes first-party advertising and contextual advertising. This means platforms may still show minors ads that are contextually relevant to the page content or that are the platform's own first-party promotions.

Compliance actions 1 item

Social media platforms must prevent targeted advertising — ads selected based on known or predicted preferences, characteristics, behavior, or interests via persistent identifiers — from being shown to minor users. First-party and contextual advertising are excluded from this prohibition.

MN-01.7

Wis. Stat. § 134.07(7)

Enforcement and penalties

(7)(a) The department of justice shall create and maintain a website to receive complaints, information, or referrals from the public regarding a social media platform's alleged compliance or noncompliance with this section.

(7)(b) The department of justice may investigate violations of this section and may bring an action in the name of the state seeking injunctive relief.

(7)(c) The department of justice may bring an action in the name of the state to recover a civil forfeiture of not more than $5,000 per violation of this section, court costs, and notwithstanding s. 814.04 (1), reasonable attorney fees.

(7)(d) A person affected by a violation of this section, or a person on behalf of a person affected by a violation of this section, may bring a civil action to recover the person's actual damages, an award of punitive damages not to exceed $5,000, court costs, and notwithstanding the limitations under s. 814.04 (1), reasonable attorney fees.

(7)(e) In addition to the relief stated under pars. (b) to (d), a court may order any other relief or course of action the court deems reasonable, including an order for the disgorgement of any money that a violator received in the course of violating this section and an order that the person who violated this section pay the disgorged money to any injured individuals.

This subsection establishes the bill's enforcement regime. The Wisconsin Department of Justice must create and maintain a public complaint website. DOJ may investigate violations and bring state actions for injunctive relief, civil forfeitures of up to $5,000 per violation, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees. A private right of action is available to any person affected by a violation (or someone acting on their behalf) to recover actual damages, punitive damages up to $5,000, court costs, and attorney fees. Courts may also order disgorgement and any other relief deemed reasonable. The dual enforcement mechanism — agency plus private right of action — gives both the state and individual users enforcement standing.

Section 2

Legislative findings

(1)(a)–(h) The legislature finds all of the following: (a) Social media is a widely used tool for community and communication. (b) Some social media platforms have evolved to include addictive features, including the algorithmic delivery of content and other design features, that pose a significant risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. (c) The U.S. surgeon general has found evidence that identifies reasons for concern about social media usage by children and adolescents, including a study concluding that the risk of poor mental health outcomes doubles for children and adolescents who use social media at least 3 hours a day and research finding that social media usage is linked to a variety of negative health outcomes, including low self-esteem and disordered eating in adolescent girls. (d) Heavy usage of social media leads to less healthy sleep patterns and sleep quality, which can in turn exacerbate both physical and mental health problems. (e) Social media usage is associated with more negative mental health outcomes, including depressive symptoms and self-harm behaviors, than is associated with consumption of other forms of media such as television or video games. (f) Targeted advertisements on social media can expose children and adolescents to harmful content, including alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and extreme weight loss, and amplify their preexisting vulnerabilities to anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. (g) Both this state and the country as a whole are facing an ongoing youth mental health crisis, with rates of adolescent suicides, depressive episodes, and feelings of sadness and hopelessness on the rise in recent years. (h) For these reasons, it is essential that this state act to ensure that social media platforms prohibit addictive social media features and targeted advertising for children and adolescents.

This non-statutory section sets out the legislature's findings motivating the bill, citing U.S. Surgeon General research on youth mental health harms from social media, links between heavy social media usage and sleep disruption, negative mental health outcomes, and the role of targeted advertising in exposing minors to harmful content. The findings provide legislative purpose context but impose no independent obligations.

Section 3

Effective date

(1) This act takes effect on the first day of the 3rd month beginning after publication.

The bill takes effect on the first day of the third month beginning after publication. Because the bill has not been enacted, the specific effective date cannot yet be determined.

Minor Safety Parental consent · controls · termination workflows

2 items

MN-01.1

Social media platforms must employ a reliable, industry-accepted age verification method approved by the Wisconsin Department of Justice to determine whether each user is a minor.

MN-01.7