Autoplaying videos on YouTube, Facebook’s infinite newsfeed and Snapstreaks could be banned in the US under a proposed new bill.

The Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (Smart) Act takes aim at techniques and features that, according to its author, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, are created to encourage and deepen addictive behaviours.

The bill targets “practices that exploit human psychology or brain physiology to substantially impede freedom of choice” and specifically prohibits four general practices:

Infinite scroll or auto refill, such as the Facebook newsfeed or a Twitter timeline, which automatically loads in new content when the user nears the end of the existing content, without requiring any specific request from readers.

Autoplay, when a site automatically plays music or video “without an express, separate prompt by the user”, as on YouTube and Facebook. Curiously, the bill explicitly excludes autoplaying advertisements from its coverage, despite the general unpopularity of that content. It also provides exceptions for autoplaying music on music streaming services, and autoplaying from a pre-built playlist.

Badges and other awards linked to engagement with the platform. These are most notably used by Snapchat in the form of the Snapstreak badges, which mark how long two friends have exchanged daily messages. Parents have complained that the Snapstreak mechanic leads to problematic behaviour from children, who fear their friendship is at risk if the streak ends.

“Elimination of natural stopping points”, a catch-all category for any website that loads more content than a typical user scrolls through in three minutes without the user expressly requesting that additional content.

“Big Tech has embraced addiction as a business model,” Hawley said in a tweet introducing the proposal. “Their ‘innovation’ isn’t designed to create better products, but to capture attention by using psychological tricks that make it impossible to look away. Time to expect more & better from Silicon Valley.”

The bill comes as the UK parliament investigates “addictive technologies”, with an inquiry that touches on many of the same areas as Hawley’s bill.

The UK investigation is also tackling videogames, however, a sector that has avoided Hawley’s scrutiny. Last month, the makers of popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga told the inquiry that more than 9 million people played their game for at least three hours a day, while 432,000 played for six or more. Yet the developers, King, argued that there was not a problem with addiction.

“It is very difficult to know what excessive is,” Alex Dale, a senior executive at the company, told MPs.

“We have a fair number of people in their 60s, 70s and 80s playing Candy Crush,” he said. “We do want people to play more. There are going to be people that like to play our games a lot.”