{"id":38401,"date":"2025-04-09T16:18:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T22:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=38401"},"modified":"2025-04-09T16:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T22:18:16","slug":"bill-aimed-at-protecting-youth-online-narrowed-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=38401","title":{"rendered":"Bill aimed at protecting youth online narrowed, advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

A proposal meant to protect children\u2019s private information and provide parental tools to monitor their online safety was amended and advanced from select file April 9.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Carolyn Bosn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB504, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Carolyn Bosn at the request of Gov. Jim Pillen, would create the Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act. Under the bill, a covered online service would be required to \u201cexercise reasonable care\u201d in protecting user data and in the design and implementation of covered online services to prevent harms such as compulsive use, severe emotional distress, identity theft and severe psychological harm.<\/p>\n

A covered online service is defined as one that operates in Nebraska, is reasonably likely to be accessed by minors and meets certain revenue or volume thresholds. The bill would not apply to government entities.<\/p>\n

Among other provisions, the bill would require a covered online service to provide users with \u201ceasy-to-use tools\u201d that limit communications from other users, prevent the viewing of personal data, control in-game purchases and other transactions and place limits on the amount of time a user spends on the service.<\/p>\n

LB504 as introduced also would place limits on data retention and sharing and would require a covered online service to treat all users as minors unless they have knowledge that they are not. Parents would be provided with the ability to view, manage and control a child\u2019s privacy and account settings. The bill defines a \u201cchild\u201d as an individual who is 13 or younger.<\/p>\n

The state attorney general\u2019s office would enforce the bill\u2019s provisions and violations could result in a civil penalty of not more than $50,000 per violation.<\/p>\n

Bosn offered an amendment during select file debate to address a number of concerns that were raised during first-round discussions. The amendment would replace the bill and make a number of changes, including:
\n\u2022 removing reporting requirements;
\n\u2022 adding a definition of dark patterns;
\n\u2022 removing the definition of sensitive personal data;
\n\u2022 changing the definition of compulsive usage;
\n\u2022 adding a definition of a covered minor;
\n\u2022 changing the definition of covered online service;
\n\u2022 removing promulgation of rules and regulations from the state attorney general\u2019s office; and
\n\u2022 removing a section regarding the exercise of \u201creasonable care\u201d on behalf of a covered online service.<\/p>\n

Bosn said the amendment would allow online platforms to operate in Nebraska while still keeping children safe. For example, the bill as amended would apply only to \u201cknown minors,\u201d she said, and not to entities that are \u201clikely to be accessed by minors\u201d as in the previous version of the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason for the change was to accommodate those companies who were inadvertently scooped up in the previous definition,\u201d Bosn said. \u201cThink companies in the automotive industry who are not what you think of when you think of social media companies but who are accessed by young adults, perhaps looking to buy their first car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lincoln Sen. George Dungan said he appreciated the intent of the bill and the amendment, but that the changes wouldn\u2019t address all of his concerns \u2014 including that the requirements for covered entities would cross the line into restricting their content.<\/p>\n

Dungan offered an amendment to strike provisions of the bill requiring covered entities to establish default settings that he said continued to raise First Amendment concerns. He said those provisions would require social media companies to curate their content in a way that would infringe on their free speech rights.<\/p>\n

That amendment failed 10-26.<\/p>\n

An amendment offered by Omaha Sen. John Cavanaugh, adopted 39-0, would specify that all monetary penalties collected under the measure would be remitted to the state treasurer for distribution in accordance with Nebraska Constitution.<\/p>\n

Cavanaugh said such civil penalties in Nebraska ultimately are distributed to the school district in which the offense occurred and that his amendment simply would affirm that would be the case for LB504 as well.<\/p>\n

Following the 45-0 adoption of Bosn\u2019s amendment, lawmakers advanced LB504 to final reading by voice vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A proposal meant to protect children\u2019s private information and provide parental tools to monitor their online safety was amended and advanced from select file April 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[316],"class_list":["post-38401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-commerce-and-insurance","tag-sen-caroyln-bosn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/LB504BosnJCavanaugh4-8-25a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38401"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38405,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38401\/revisions\/38405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}