A new bill in the US is proposing a ban on autoplay videos and other 'addictive' techniques used on social media sites.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley has introduced the Social Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) bill, taking aim at features used across sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
It would ban features such as infinite scroll - meaning features that provide a fresh stream of content as users continue to scroll through a particular social media feed.
The proposed legislation would also ban autoplay features, such as cases where another video automatically plays as soon as the first is finished.
If passed, the law would mean that a user would have to give an "express, separate prompt" - such as clicking an icon - in order for another video to play.
However, there would be exceptions - including for music streaming services and autoplay advertisements.
In general, the bill would effectively require users to explicitly request more content - as opposed to the content being automatically offered, as is currently the case on many social media sites.
It also states social media companies should be required to introduce a 'user-friendly' feature allowing users to set daily or weekly usage limits.
Under the proposals, a tech company would then have to block the user's access to the site if the set period of time is exceeded.
Senator Hawley argued: "Big tech has embraced a business model of addiction.
"Too much of the ‘innovation’ in this space is designed not to create better products, but to capture more attention by using psychological tricks that make it difficult to look away."
The bill has been introduced in the US Senate, and will have to successfully pass through both houses of Congress and the president before becoming law.
