(1) On or after
January 1, 2026, a social media platform must establish a function that either:
(a) Meets the criteria in subsection (2) of this section and be informed by the
standards established in subsection (5) of this section; or
(b) Displays a pop-up or full screen notification to a user who attests to
being under the age of eighteen when the user:
(I) Has spent one cumulative hour on the social media platform during a
twenty-four-hour period; or
(II) Is on a social media platform between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
(2) The function established pursuant to subsection (1) of this section must
provide users who are under the age of eighteen with information about their
engagement in social media that helps the user understand the impact of social
media on the developing brain and the mental and physical health of youth users.
The information must be supported by data from peer-reviewed scholarly articles or
the sources included in the mental health and technology resource bank
established in section 22-2-127.8 (1).
(3) If the social media platform establishes the function described in
subsection (1)(b) of this section, the function must repeat at least every thirty
minutes after the initial notification.
(4) (a) As used in this section, social media platform means an internet-based service, website, or application that:
(I) Has more than one hundred thousand active users in Colorado;
(II) Permits a person to become a registered user, establish an account, or
create a public or semipublic profile for the purpose of allowing users to create,
share, and view user-generated content through the account or profile;
(III) Enables one or more users to create or post content that can be viewed
by other users of the medium; and
(IV) Includes a substantial function to allow users to interact socially with
each other within the service or application. A service or application that provides
electronic mail or direct messaging services does not meet the criteria described in
this subsection (4) on the basis of that function alone.
(b) Social media platform does not include an internet-based service or
application in which the predominant or exclusive function is:
(I) Providing electronic mail;
(II) Facilitating commercial transactions, if the interaction with other users or
account holders is generally limited to:
(A) The ability to upload a post and comment on reviews or the ability to
display lists or collections of goods for sale or wish lists; and
(B) The primary function of the platform is focused on online shopping or e-commerce rather than interactions between users or account holders;
(III) Facilitating teleconferencing and video conferencing features that are
limited to certain participants in the teleconference or video conference and are not
posted publicly or for broad distribution to other users;
(IV) Facilitating crowd-sourced content for reference guides such as
encyclopedias and dictionaries;
(V) Providing cloud-based electronic services, including cloud-based
services that allow collaborative editing by invited users;
(VI) Consisting primarily of news, sports, entertainment, or other content that
is preselected by the provider and not user generated and any chat, comment, or
interactive functionality that is provided incidental to, directly related to, or
dependent upon provision of the content;
(VII) Interactive gaming, virtual gaming, or an online service that allows the
creation and uploading of content for the purpose of interactive or virtual gaming;
(VIII) Providing information concerning businesses, products, or travel
information, including user reviews or rankings of businesses or products;
(IX) Facilitating communication within a business or an enterprise among
employees or affiliates of the business or enterprise, so long as access to the
service or application is restricted to employees or affiliates of the business or
enterprise;
(X) Selling enterprise software to businesses, governments, or nonprofit
organizations;
(XI) Providing a streaming service that streams only licensed media in a
continuous flow from the service, website, or application to the end user and does
not require a user or account holder to obtain a license for the media by agreement
with a social media platform's terms of service;
(XII) Providing an online service, website, or application that is used by or
under the direction of an educational entity, including a learning management
system, a student engagement program, or a subject- or skill-specific program, for
which the majority of the content is created or posted by the provider of the online
service, website, or application and the ability to chat, comment, or interact with
other users is directly related to the provider's content;
(XIII) Providing or obtaining technical support for a platform, product, or
service;
(XIV) Providing career development opportunities, including professional
networking, job skills, learning certifications, and job posting and application
services;
(XV) Focused on facilitating academic or scholarly research; or
(XVI) Reporting or disseminating news information for a mass medium, as
defined in section 13-90-119.
(5) The chief information officer in the office of information technology, in
consultation with the director of the center for health and environmental data
division of the Colorado department of public health and environment and the
temporary stakeholder group established in section 22-2-127.8, shall establish
standards for a user tool or function that meets the requirements of subsection (1)
of this section for a social media platform. The standards must:
(a) Recommend intervals for notification frequency that are similar to those
in subsection (3) of this section;
(b) Provide sample messaging for the content of the notification;
(c) Be informed by data and research on the efficacy of notifications; and
(d) Recommend the age range of users who would most benefit from
notifications.