What You Need to Know About the Child Online Safety Act and Its Chances of Passage
The last time Congress passed a law to protect children online was in 1998, before Facebook, before the iPhone, and long before today’s oldest teenagers were born. Now, a bill to protect children from cybercrime threats is on the way. the harm of social networksGambling sites and other online platforms appear to have enough bipartisan support to pass, although it is not yet clear whether that will actually happen.
Supporters of the bill, however, hope it will be put to a vote later this month.
Supporters of the Kids Online Safety Act include parent groups and children’s advocacy organizations, as well as companies like Microsoft, X and Snap. They say the bill is a necessary first step toward regulating tech companies and requiring them to protect children from harmful online content and take responsibility for the harm their platforms can cause.
Opponents, however, worry that KOSA would violate the First Amendment and harm vulnerable children who would be unable to access information about LGBTQ issues or reproductive rights — though the bill has been revised to address many of these concerns, and major LGBTQ groups have moved to support the proposed legislation.
Here’s what you need to know about KOSA and how likely it is to go into effect.
If passed, KOSA would create a “duty of care” — a legal term that requires companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm — for online platforms that minors are likely to use.
They should “prevent and mitigate” harm to children, including bullying and violence, promotion of suicide, eating disorders, drug addiction, sexual exploitation and advertising of illegal products such as drugs, tobacco or alcohol.
Social media platforms would also have to provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations. They would also be required to prevent other users from communicating with children and limit features that “increase, sustain, or prolong use” of the platform, such as auto-playing videos or platform rewards. In general, online platforms would have to default to the safest possible settings for accounts they determine belong to minors.
“Many of the harms that young people experience online and on social media are the result of deliberate design choices by these companies,” said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a nonprofit that works to protect children from the commercialization, marketing and harm caused by big tech.
An earlier version of the bill allowed state attorneys general to enforce KOSA’s “duty of care” provision, but that was after concerns from LGBTQ groups and others that they could use the provision to censor information about LGBTQ or reproductive issues. In the updated version, state attorneys general can still enforce other provisions, but not the “duty of care” standard.
Broader enforcement of the law would fall to the Federal Trade Commission, which would have oversight over what types of content are considered “harmful” to children.
KOSA has the support of a wide range of nonprofits, tech accountability groups, parent groups and pediatricians, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers, Common Sense Media, Fairplay, The Real Facebook Oversight Board and the NAACP. Some major tech companies, including Microsoft, X and Snap, have also signed on. Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has not expressed strong support or opposition to the bill, though it has said in the past that it supports regulating social media.
ParentSOS, a group of about 20 parents who have lost their children to social media, is also campaigning for the bill to pass. One of those parents is Julienne Anderson, whose 17-year-old daughter died in 2022 after buying tainted drugs on Instagram.
“We shouldn’t take full responsibility for our children’s safety online,” she said. “Every other industry is regulated. And I’m sure you’ve heard that all the time. From toys to movies to music to cars and everything in between. We have regulations in place to keep our children safe. And this is a product that they created and distributed and yet for all these years, since the ’90s, there’s been no legislation regulating this industry.”
The KOSA bill was introduced in 2022 by Senators Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee. It currently has 68 co-sponsors in the Senate, from across the political spectrum, which would be enough to pass if it were to come to a vote.
The ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other free speech groups worry that this violates the First Amendment. Even with the revisions that stripped state attorneys general of their duty to enforce the duty of care provision, The EFF calls it “a dangerous and unconstitutional censorship bill that would give state officials the power to target online services and content they don’t like.”
Kate Ruane, director of the Free Expression Project at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, said she remains concerned that the bill’s duty of care provision could be “misused by politically motivated actors to target marginalized communities like the LGBTQ population and just politically divisive information in general,” to try to suppress information because someone thinks it’s harmful to children’s mental health.
She added that while these concerns remain, progress has been made to alleviate them.
The bigger problem, though, she added, is that platforms don’t want to be sued for showing minors content that might be “politically divisive.” To make sure that doesn’t happen, they might remove such topics — about abortion or transgender health care or even the wars in Gaza or Ukraine.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-K.Y., also voiced opposition to the bill. He said the bill “could prevent kids from watching PGA golf or the Super Bowl on social media because of gambling and beer ads. Those kids could just turn on the television and see those exact same ads.”
He added that he had “tried to work with the sponsors to correct the many flaws in the bill. If the sponsors are not interested in a compromise, Senator (Chuck) Schumer can introduce the bill, as he could have done from the beginning.”
Golin said he was “very hopeful” that the bill would come to a vote in July.
“The reason the vote hasn’t happened yet is because it’s very difficult to pass legislation, particularly when you’re regulating one of the most powerful industries in the world, if not the most powerful,” he said. “We’re overwhelmed by the spending.”
Golin added that he thought there was a “very good chance” and remained very optimistic about its adoption.
Senate Majority Leader Schumer, D-N.Y., who has spoken in favor of KOSA, is expected to bring it to a vote.
Schumer supported the legislation but has not yet scheduled a floor to pass it. Because of objections to the legislation, it would take a week or more of procedural votes before a final vote.
He said last week that passing the bill was a “top priority” but that it had not yet been passed because of objections.
“Unfortunately, some of our colleagues continue to block these bills without offering constructive ideas on how to revise the text,” he said. “So now we have to look to the future, and all options are on the table.”
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Associated Press journalist Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
