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How Utah could reshape social media nationwide
“It may be the most important thing we’ve done for a generation,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox said.
Governor Cox was referring to a new law that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from Utah lawmakers last month.
The Digital Choice Act is the first law in the nation that mandates a new technological architecture to alleviate social platforms' harms: It gives users the ability to own, control, and manage their social media data.
Just as a Gmail user can seamlessly email an iCloud account, and just as we can keep our phone numbers when switching telecom providers, the Digital Choice Act ushers in a future where data portability and interoperability are not only possible, but the norm.
In this week's newsletter, we explore Utah's new law and how it could fundamentally reshape the relationship between users and social media platforms across the nation.
// The Digital Choice Act
Championed by Project Liberty and other members of the Alliance, the Digital Choice Act is intended to give social media users more control over their data. The law has three main components:
Enhanced Data Portability. The Act requires platforms to allow users to download their complete data, including all content and interactions, in a transferable format.
Right to Delete. Companies must delete all personal data about someone at that person's request, ensuring that users can take their data with them or have it completely removed when they leave a platform.
Mandatory Interoperability. The Act is rooted in principles of interoperability that have defined the internet as we know it (as discussed in last week’s newsletter). It requires social media companies to allow users to communicate and share their personal data between platforms.
Referring to the “walled gardens” of social media platforms, bill sponsor Utah Representative Doug Fiefia said, “They’ve locked us into their platform, and essentially we can only call and communicate with those who are within that platform.”
Signing the Digital Choice Act. Photo credit: Xin Xue
// Ushering in a new internet
The Digital Choice Act could force social media companies to comply in ways that could change how people think about their agency, their data, and their mobility online. If successful, the Act could produce important benefits:
Greater user control over their data. Users would have much more agency to decide what happens with their personal information, content, and interactions on social media platforms. As Fiefia noted, “It allows the user to decide what happens with their data and information, versus being stuck and losing all of it once TikTok shuts down, for example.”
Increased competition that levels the playing field. The network effects and lack of interoperability online make it hard for new social media platforms to compete with today’s incumbents. But interoperability and data portability could level that playing field. Paul Allen, co-founder of Ancestry.com, made the case that the Digital Choice Act would not only level the playing field “but give small startups a fighting chance to make a dent in this world with multi-trillion-dollar corporations that have sucked up all the oxygen.”
A safer internet. In an op-ed in Utah’s Deseret News, Dr. Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, endorsed the bill, arguing that the bill would provide families with the choice they need to keep their families safe. “Social media platforms, as they currently exist, are designed in ways that drive an unacceptable number of kids into crisis,” he said.
Platforms that are accountable to users. Currently, platforms sell their users’ attention to advertisers. With greater interoperability, platforms would have to compete based on providing better, safer experiences for the users themselves. “Advertisers will still be a customer, but we also will be a customer,” Fiefia said. Social media platforms “will have to fight for our attention, and if it’s not safe for our kids (or) if we don’t love their privacy standards or terms, if we don’t love the values of this company, we can leave and take our information with us. I think that’s the control that we all yearn for as users.”
In an op-ed in TIME Magazine by Governor Cox and Project Liberty Founder Frank McCourt, they wrote: “For years, it has been common wisdom that social media is not the product—we are. Indeed, users do not pay for access to social media platforms, social media platforms sell our attention to advertisers. The Digital Choice Act flips that relationship around to put users back in control.”
// The implementation challenge
The bill takes effect in July 2026, giving companies time to determine the best ways to make their platforms more interoperable. Utah is not alone. Under the Digital Markets Act, the EU has enforced its interoperability provisions with Apple and has required Meta to ensure its WhatsApp and Messenger apps are interoperable with other messaging apps like Apple Messages, Telegram, Signal, and Google Messages.
But translating laws or design principles into action can be hard. Champions of Utah’s bill outlined what interoperability might look like:
A single, universal sign-on for all social media accounts.
Ability to seamlessly cross-post similar content across accounts.
Ability to send messages to users on other platforms with their permission.
However, updating today’s existing platforms to be interoperable will require companies to work in good faith to create a seamless experience. There’s also the question of whether greater interoperability truly levels the playing field—while it has been effective in areas like telecommunications and banking, it has not previously been tried with social media.
// Rebalancing the power, reclaiming the choice
Utah's Digital Choice Act could set a precedent that other states follow. Six other states are considering similar legislation, and House and Senate committees advanced a similar law with bipartisan sponsors at the federal level in 2021 and 2022, though it did not receive a floor vote.
Whether it’s new laws like Utah’s Digital Choice Act or consumers exiting established social media apps like X for upstarts like Bluesky, we’re witnessing a great rebalancing in the relationship between users and platforms. For many, as demonstrated by research by Project Liberty Institute on the widespread desire for control of personal data (90% of Americans support legislation that would require online companies to allow users to opt out of targeted advertising), the status quo is no longer acceptable. The Digital Choice Act is a step toward the internet people want, ensuring people have real agency over their data, no matter what platform they use.
Project Liberty is eager to support other states that are interested in enacting similar legislation. If you'd like to know more about how your state could become a part of this legislative movement, reply to this email.
Project Liberty in the news
// An article in ZDNET featured Project Liberty’s president, Tomicah Tillemann, and discussed the plan to buy TikTok and give users their data back.
Other notable headlines
// 🤔 In an interview with WIRED, Yuval Noah Harari explored how we can share the planet with superintelligent AI systems.
// 📞 An article in Vox featured “a skeptic’s guide” to quitting your smartphone. Vox’s correspondent spent a week living with the new Light Phone and concluded it wasn’t long enough.
// 😍 A future where many humans are in love with bots may not be far off. An article in The New Yorker asked, should we regard them as training grounds for healthy relationships or as nihilistic traps?
// 🎙 Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman joined the Every podcast to explore what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines.
// 🤖 Backers of AI say it will free us to be creative, but studies show that avoiding mental effort can cause your brain to atrophy. An article in the Wall Street Journal explored the implications.
// 📱 Social media victims are ready to be heard. A new Bloomberg documentary follows a team of attorneys representing families whose children have suffered devastating digital harms.
Partner news & opportunities
// Virtual Panel: Navigating layoffs in responsible tech
April 10th at 1 PM ET | Virtual
All Tech Is Human will host a conversation on career transitions after being laid off. The panel explores how responsible technologists can pivot to new roles, especially in startups. Sign up here to join.
// Tracy Chou talks online safety on The Negative Space Podcast
Tracy Chou, CEO & Founder of Block Party, joined “The Negative Space” podcast hosted by the Anthem Awards to discuss the evolving risks of social media and what it takes to create a safer digital environment. Listen here. Also, voting for the 5th Annual Anthem Awards begins April 8. Follow @theanthemawards on Instagram and LinkedIn to support changemakers like Block Party.
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/ Project Liberty builds solutions that help people take back control of their lives in the digital age by reclaiming a voice, choice, and stake in a better internet.
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