AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4 and Title 47, Chapter 18, relative to social media.
HB2057 creates a new part of Tennessee’s consumer protection laws governing social media platforms. It defines key terms such as “social media company,” “social media platform,” “account holder,” “user,” and “personal information,” while carving out several services that are not covered, including email, broadband internet access, cloud storage, certain ecommerce and payment services, and platforms primarily used for career development, technical support, or preselected content. The bill is aimed at platforms that allow users to create accounts and communicate with other users through posts.
The core requirement of the bill is that when an account holder deletes an account, the social media platform must delete all personal information tied to that deleted account, including information collected directly through use of the platform by the account holder or another user. If the account is not deleted but the person requests deletion of personal information, the bill directs the platform to comply with the Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA) and related deletion requirements to the extent they apply.
HB2057 also creates a private right of action for people who believe a platform violated the deletion requirement. A court may issue an injunction and award actual damages, punitive damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to the prevailing party. The bill takes effect January 1, 2027, and applies only to conduct occurring on or after that date.
The bill’s impact would be to expand Tennessee’s privacy and data-deletion obligations for social media companies, potentially requiring platforms to build account-deletion workflows that remove more user-linked data than they otherwise might. It would also expose covered platforms to civil litigation and monetary liability for noncompliance, while leaving existing TIPA obligations in place for non-deleted accounts and other covered deletion requests.
No committee discussion or votes are provided, so there is no recorded legislative debate to gauge sentiment. Based on the text alone, the bill appears consumer-privacy oriented and protective of user data, but it could be contentious for social media companies because of the broad deletion mandate, the private right of action, and the availability of punitive damages and attorney’s fees.
HB2057 would add a new social media privacy and data-deletion requirement to Tennessee Code Annotated Title 47, Chapter 18, and would interact with the Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA) by preserving its deletion rules for certain requests. Covered social media platforms would need to delete personal information associated with deleted accounts, and failure to do so could trigger injunctions, actual and punitive damages, and attorney’s fees in private lawsuits. The bill excludes several categories of online services from the definition of social media platform, limiting its reach to account-based social networking services.
No committee transcripts or vote history are available, so there is no direct evidence of legislative sentiment. The bill’s structure suggests a pro-consumer, privacy-protection approach, likely to be viewed favorably by privacy advocates and users concerned about data retention. At the same time, the enforcement mechanism and broad deletion obligations suggest likely resistance from social media companies and other affected online platforms.
The main points of contention are likely to be the scope of the deletion duty, the breadth of the definition of covered social media platforms, and the bill’s enforcement provisions. Social media companies may object to having to delete all personal information tied to a deleted account, including data collected through interactions with other users, and to the private right of action with punitive damages and attorney’s fees. Another likely issue is the bill’s many exclusions, which may prompt debate over whether similar services are being treated consistently or whether some platforms are unfairly included or exempted.