Honorable Ryan Guillen, Chair, House Committee on Homeland Security & Public Safety
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB3134 by Shaheen (Relating to requiring social media platform operators to identify and notify law enforcement of credible threats of violence published on their platforms; creating a criminal offense.), As Introduced
The bill would create a Class A misdemeanor offense for a social media platform operator who identifies in good faith or is notified about a credible threat of violence and fails to notify the appropriate law enforcement authority; archive, record, or otherwise preserve the relevant content; remove the offending content from being publicly accessible; and take any appropriate action against the offending user account in accordance with the social media platform's published acceptable use policy. The penalty would be increased to a state jail felony if the conduct is committed intentionally or knowingly.
Creating a new criminal offense may result in additional demands upon state and local correctional resources due to an increase in the number of individuals placed under supervision in the community or sentenced to a term of confinement.
While the impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources cannot be determined due to the lack of data necessary to identify the prevalence of conduct that would constitute an offense under the bill, it is assumed that any impact would not be significant.