Consumer Federation of California

Senate Bill 771 by Senator Henry Stern Would Clarify Applicability of Current Anti-Hate Crime, Intimidation, And Harassment Laws to Social Media Platforms; Impose Significant Penalties for Violations

(Sacramento, CA, March 25, 2025) — Against the backdrop of ever-increasing, record-shattering rates of violence against Jews, women, LGBTQ+ residents, and immigrants, and in response to Meta recently announcing that it will help target those very groups, California civil, consumer, LGBTQ+, women, and child rights organizations announced first-in-the-nation legislation aimed at ensuring Meta’s acts don’t cross the line into illegally participating in hate crimes, intimidation, and harassment.

The American Association of University Women, Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law, the Consumer Federation of California, Jewish Family and Children’s Services of San Francisco, Rainbow Spaces, San Diego Democrats for Equality Executive Board, and Loma LGBTQA+ Alumni and Allies are the sponsors of SB 711, authored by California State Senator Henry Stern. 

Jeff Weiner, Policy Director of Jewish Family and Children’s Services, a bill co-sponsor, observed: “According to all reports, Jews are more at risk of being the target of antisemitic intimidation, harassment, and violence than at any time in recent memory.  The very least the Legislature can and should do is ensure that our laws enacted precisely to prevent such terrorizing acts are adapted to the modern Big Tech era.”

Ryan Trabuco, President of another co-sponsor, President of San Diego Democrats for Equality, stated the following:  “In the two months since Meta announced rolling back their hate speech rules, it has empowered dangerous and horrific discrimination and harassment on social media of our LGBTQ+ community. Online hate fuels real-world violence, and we no longer have confidence that long-held protections of vulnerable communities will be upheld by social media platforms, or even our federal government. Hate crimes, discrimination, and harassment are prohibited in California, and SB 711 will hold social media companies accountable for the real-world damage their willful indifference and ignorance is causing.”

The legislation.  California law currently prohibits every person and every corporation from engaging in hate crimes, harassment, and intimidation aimed at frightening people out of exercising their legal rights. Furthermore, people and corporations are currently prohibited from aiding, abetting, conspiring, or jointly harming people in violation of these laws.¹ SB 771 would:

• Clarify the potential applicability of current law to the circumstances by which a platform participates in hate crimes or unlawful intimidation and harassment by technologically ensuring targeted populations are reliably hit by the content uploaded to intimidate and harass them. 
• If a platform is found to have violated these laws, increase the financial consequences proportional to the life-and-death stakes and to a level that will not likely be viewed by them as an easily absorbable, tiny cost of doing business.  The penalties range from amounts equal to one month’s gross California revenue to three months gross revenue, doubled if the platform knew the victim was a child. ²

Background. SB 771 is prompted by three facts:

1.  Meta policy change. Meta announced in January that is dramatically altering its Facebook and Instagram practices that previously sought to protect historically targeted groups on those platforms. Internal examples offered to Meta employees of what these new policies permit were leaked to The Intercept.³  In addition to the examples pictured, other now-embraced examples include: “Women as household objects or property,”⁴“Gays are freaks,” “Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit,” “These damn immigrants can’t be trusted, they’re all criminals,” “Japanese are all Yakuza.” “Trans people are mentally ill” and “Black people are more violent than Whites”.⁵  Again, these are from Meta’s own internal documents.

Notably, the platform has not announced any compensating effort to prevent its AI from acting as a partner in efforts to credibly threaten or intimidate targeted groups through the platform efficiently making sure those targeted are in fact barraged by such threats and intimidation. 

2.  What is distributed on social media too often results bloodshed, harassment, and intimidation.  As one expert has observed, “[t]he reason many of [Meta’s] lines were drawn where they were is because hate speech often doesn’t stay speech, it turns into real-world conduct.”⁶  As Amnesty International observed in response to Meta’s change, “Recent content policy announcements by Meta pose a grave threat to vulnerable communities globally and drastically increase the risk that the company will yet again contribute to mass violence and gross human rights abuses.”⁷ 

3.  Worst possible time for Meta to facilitate targeted hate. Meta’s change could not come at a worse time for historically targeted Californians. Violence, threats, and intimidation specifically aimed at historically vulnerable populations – Jews, LGBTQ+ community members, women, immigrants, and people of color especially – are at historic highs and rising at record-shattering rates in California. 

For example, in L.A. County’s most recent hate crime report, the County documented both double or triple digit increases in hate crimes resulting in “the largest number[s] ever recorded” against the LGBTQ+ community, Jews, Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and immigrants.⁸  

“Meta and other platforms are  far from a bulletin board passively hosting content.  They promote themselves to expand the number of posts and viewers.  Their AI actively determine who sees what, when they see it, and whether someone will be barraged or not. For these reasons and more platforms   might be liable under California’s anti-hate crime, intimidation, and harassment laws as would, for example, a  co-conspirator who delivers a ransom note in a kidnapping case,” said Ed Howard, Senior Counsel of the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law. 

“When platforms spread misinformation and essentially invite the intimidation and harassment of vulnerable people and communities, it is crucial that those platforms be held accountable — and that is precisely what SB 771 will do.” “Since Facebook and Instagram, both owned and controlled by Meta, refuse to take any responsibility for the safety of their own users, and instead eliminate content moderation, we must step in to protect consumers,” said Robert Herrell, Executive Director of Consumer Federation of California.

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Co-sponsors of the bill:

1. Sections 31 and 422.6 of the California Penal Code, sections 51.7, 51.9, 52, or 52.1 of the California Civil Code. ↩︎
2. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB771 ↩︎
3. https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/facebook-instagram-meta-hate-speech-content-moderation/ ↩︎
4. https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/07/tech/meta-hateful-conduct-policy-update-fact-check/index.html ↩︎
5. https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/facebook-instagram-meta-hate-speech-content-moderation/ ↩︎
6. https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/facebook-instagram-meta-hate-speech-content-moderation/ ↩︎
7. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/meta-new-policy-changes/ ↩︎
8. https://lacounty.gov/2024/12/11/highest-total-of-hate-crimes-ever-reported/ ↩︎