Overview
- Sens. John Curtis and Mark Kelly introduced the Algorithm Accountability Act to hold platforms legally responsible for harmful recommendation algorithms.
- The bill imposes a duty of care requiring platforms to exercise reasonable caution in designing and operating recommender systems to prevent bodily injury or death.
- Liability would turn on whether a reasonable person would find the harm foreseeable and attributable to the algorithm’s design or performance.
- The measure applies to for-profit social media services with more than one million users and excludes chronological feeds and user-initiated searches.
- Victims could sue for damages, with pre-dispute arbitration and joint-action waivers rendered unenforceable, as sponsors downplay free-speech risks and civil-liberties groups warn of chilling effects and over-removal.