The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will take up a slate of kids online safety and AI bills in the first week of August.
Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, told reporters Thursday that the exact agenda is “still a work in progress.”
“We are negotiating with the Democrats and trying to find the bills that have the best maximum positive impact and also the best chance of bipartisan support to passing into law.”
One bill that is likely to be part of the agenda in some form is the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, cosponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat.
Mr. Cruz and Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, both support KOSA. It would require social media companies to set minors’ accounts to the strongest safety and privacy settings by default, implement more parental controls and alter design features that drive compulsive use.
The Senate passed an early version of KOSA last Congress in a 91-3 vote, but it stalled in the House amid GOP concerns that it would violate the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
Last month, the House finally passed its own version of KOSA as part of a broader package of bills called the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act, or KIDS Act, last month in a 267-117 vote.
Parental advocates who have lost children to the online harms of social media were split over whether to back the House bill, but both sides are still pushing for any bill that becomes law to include a key provision from the Senate version called “the duty of care.”
The duty-of-care provision is a legal standard that ensures social media companies can be held liable for failing to adjust their algorithms and design features to prevent specific harms to minors. Senators argue it is what gives KOSA teeth.
Mr. Cruz told parental advocates who held a rally in May calling on the Senate to pass KOSA that his panel was planning to mark it up, along with related bills.
He said he wanted to include his Kids Off Social Media Act, a bill to prevent children under 13 from having social media accounts, and a measure to require AI companies to establish family accounts for parents to manage their children’s use of chatbots.
Mr. Cruz and Ms. Blackburn met with President Trump at the White House on Monday to discuss which kids safety and AI bills the White House would support.
Before the meeting, Ms. Blackburn had been negotiating with White House aides on a legislative package to include KOSA, the NO FAKES Act, age verification requirements and AI preemption language.
The NO FAKES Act is a bill to protect against unauthorized digital copies of a person’s voice or likeness amid a rise in AI copycats. The measure, led in the Senate by Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat, and co-sponsored by Ms. Blackburn, advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.
The other pieces of Ms. Blackburn’s package may not get as much Democratic support.
Democrats generally do not support efforts to preempt states from regulating AI, but Republicans argue some form of preemption is needed to prevent a patchwork of state laws from standing in the way of technological advancement.
Lawmakers in both parties have raised concerns that age verification requirements would require social media companies or app stores to collect too much data on minors, raising privacy concerns.
Mr. Cruz said if Ms. Blackburn introduces her package in time, he will include it in the August markup.
“And I expect that I would support it,” he said.
The Washington Times reached out to Ms. Blackburn’s office for comment.
