Senator John R. Curtis of Utah has introduced the Algorithm Accountability Act, a piece of legislation aimed at amending section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. The bill was introduced in the Senate on November 18, 2025, and subsequently referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
The proposed legislation seeks to limit the liability protection currently provided under section 230 for specific social media platforms. Under the act, providers of these platforms would be required to exercise reasonable care in the design, training, testing, deployment, operation, and maintenance of recommendation-based algorithms.
This duty of care is intended to prevent foreseeable bodily injury or death that is attributable to the performance or design characteristics of a recommendation-based algorithm. The bill specifies that this applies to injuries or deaths involving users of the platform or injuries inflicted by a user upon another person resulting from the operation of the algorithm.
The act includes specific exceptions for content curation that is performed chronologically or reverse chronologically, as well as content that responds to an initial user search. However, the protection does not extend to activities occurring after a user navigates beyond those initial search results.
Furthermore, the bill establishes a private right of action, allowing individuals who suffer bodily injury or death due to a violation of these design standards to bring civil actions in a U.S. district court for compensatory and punitive damages. The legislation also states that any predispute arbitration agreements or joint-action waivers would be invalid regarding disputes arising under this subsection.
The definition of a social media platform under this act includes for-profit interactive computer services with at least one million registered users, excluding certain services like email programs, private messaging services used solely by an entity, and specific teleconferencing or review-based platforms. The bill was introduced by Senator Curtis alongside Senator Kelly.
