The state Senate unanimously approved a bill Thursday to protect the social media accounts of students and employees in the state, preventing schools and employers from using private social media accounts as a basis for acceptance or employment.
The bill, S. 2320, was sponsored by Senate majority leader Cynthia Creem, D-Newton, who said in a press release that she was proud to have broad bipartisan support for increasing online privacy protections.
“We would never allow employers or schools to read our diaries or journals, open our mail or rifle through our personal photo albums,” Creem said in the release. “The private communications and information we store online in our personal social media accounts deserve the same legal protections.”
Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, a co-sponser of the bill and member of the Special Senate Committee on Cyber Security Readiness, said in the press release that privacy settings allow social media users to decide who to share their thoughts with, which Lesser said is essentially no different than a private phone call.
“Technology has changed how we communicate, but those communications should still have the protections of privacy,” he said. “No school or employer should be allowed to cross that barrier between people’s public and private lives as a threshold for inclusion in school events or as a basis for employment.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 26 states have enacted similar legislation to protect employees’ social media accounts and 16 states have enacted legislation protecting students’ social media.
The legislation introduced in Massachusetts includes exceptions for legal inquiries requiring access to social media, which require due process. It also only applies to private social media accounts and not public posts or comments, which may still be viewable by a school or employer.
After going before the Senate favorably three times and adopting four amendments, the bill was passed with 36 “yea” votes and will now go to the House of Representatives.
Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said there are no major challenges or roadblocks ahead for the legislation and hasn’t heard of any opposition in the Statehouse.
“We see no possible reason that it shouldn’t advance. It doesn’t bar anyone from accessing any publicly available information; it only ensures that private social media stays private,” Crockford said. “The basic expectations about our private lives outside of work and school that have long applied before the digital age should still apply.”
M.J. Tidwell can be reached at mjtidwell@gazettenet.com.