More than 60 senators now back major legislation that would set online protections for teenagers and youth, a majority that means the bill cannot be blocked by filibuster and appears set for passage.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced Thursday that 62 senators have co-sponsored the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill she wrote with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) that would require online platforms to take steps to prevent a defined set of harms to minors, including the promotion of suicide, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and drug or alcohol use. The bill would also mandate social media companies to implement controls for young users, including options for limiting screen time, restricting addictive features, and limiting access to user profiles.
The authors made several changes to the legislation to gain support from senators. The bill is now expected to pass when presented for a floor vote.
“This overwhelming bipartisan support for the Kids Online Safety Act — 62 co-sponsors, Democrats and Republicans — reflects the powerful voices of young people and parents who want Congress to act,” Blackburn and Blumenthal said in a statement.
One of the most significant endorsements for the legislation is from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who will decide when the bill will reach a floor vote. “Children and teens have been subjected to online harassment, bullying, and other harms for far too long,” Schumer said in a statement. “The Kids Online Safety Act will require social media companies to design their products with the safety of kids and teens in mind, provide parents tools to protect their kids, and give families more options for managing and disconnecting from these platforms.”
The latest version of KOSA received several edits to make it more palatable among lawmakers. This includes amending parts of the text so that the responsibility a social media platform holds is “focused on the business model and practices of social media companies, rather than the content that is hosted on their platforms,” a representative of Blackburn’s office told the Washington Examiner. This means that a company can be held responsible for how its algorithms and recommendations promote certain forms of harmful content rather than the content itself.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The bill also strips certain enforcement powers from state attorneys general and gives the Federal Trade Commission a more central role in enforcing the protections. This change appears to have convinced at least a half-dozen LGBT groups, including GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, to rescind their opposition to KOSA. The legislative changes “significantly mitigate the risk of it being misused to suppress LGBTQ+ resources or stifle young people’s access to online communities,” the groups said in a letter released by Blumenthal.
The changes to KOSA arrived weeks after the Senate Judiciary Committee hosted a hearing to ask questions of the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord and to investigate how they handle child safety on their platforms. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and X CEO Linda Yaccarino told the committee they endorsed KOSA.
