WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Three U.S. senators, two Democrats and a Republican, introduced on Thursday a invoice to require social media firms like Fb (NASDAQ:), now often called Meta Platforms Inc, to present sure researchers entry to its knowledge.

Senators Chris Coons and Amy Klobuchar, each Democrats, introduced the invoice together with Rob Portman, a Republican. It might require the businesses to launch inside knowledge and help impartial researchers whose initiatives have been vetted by the Nationwide Science Basis, an impartial federal company.

“Researchers would then have the ability to look at the information and launch findings on the platforms’ affect to the general public,” the lawmakers’ workplaces stated in a joint assertion. All through the method, customers’ privateness can be protected.

Firms that fail to show over wished knowledge may face enforcement from the Federal Commerce Fee and will lose their immunity underneath Part 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That provision says that the platforms can’t be held liable for posting put up by customers or different third events.

There may be at present no Home of Representatives companion to the proposed invoice.

Picture-sharing app Instagram, a subsidiary of Meta, has come underneath specific scrutiny over the potential affect of its providers on the psychological well being and on-line security of younger customers. Instagram responded to the issues by suspending plans for a kids’s model of the app. It additionally tightened some guidelines simply this week.

“Growing transparency round Large Tech practices will give policymakers the high-quality, well-vetted data we have to do our job most successfully,” Portman stated in an announcement.