A bipartisan group of senators reintroduced legislation Wednesday designed to protect kids online, hoping a growing coalition of supporters will spur the House to act on the measure this Congress.
The reintroduction of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, came with a big new endorsement from Apple.
“Everyone has a part to play in keeping kids safe online, and we believe your legislation will have a meaningful impact on children’s online safety,” Timothy Powderly, Apple’s senior director of government affairs, wrote in a letter to the lead sponsors on Wednesday.
The Senate passed an earlier version of KOSA last July in a 91-3 vote, but it stalled in the House, where GOP leaders cited concerns the measure could infringe on free speech.
KOSA requires social media companies to turn off data-driven algorithms for minors and ensure their accounts default to the most stringent safety and privacy settings. It includes a “duty of care” standard that would require online companies to implement design standards to protect minors from specific harms, such as violence and harassment, and would permit the Federal Trade Commission to bring enforcement actions against companies that fail to do so.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, the lead cosponsors, worked with stakeholders, including X CEO Linda Yaccarino, to update the bill, introducing a new version in December.
The changes included provisions clarifying that nothing in the bill could be used to censor, limit or remove content from the internet or penalize users for their viewpoints.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, still declined to advance the measure at the time, saying he wanted to wait until President Trump was in office “to get the right bill into law.”
The version of KOSA that Ms. Blackburn and Mr. Blumenthal reintroduced on Wednesday is the one they unveiled in December.
Apple said the measure’s improvements to children’s privacy helped earn the company’s endorsement.
“As longtime advocates of privacy as a fundamental right, we believe these improvements are important, and hopefully the first steps towards comprehensive privacy legislation that ensures everyone’s right to privacy online,” Mr. Powderly said.
Ms. Blackburn and Mr. Blumenthal said KOSA has been endorsed by more than 250 national, state and local organizations.
They added the Senate’s top leaders, Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, as lead cosponsors when reintroducing the bill — a strong signal of support for another Senate floor vote.
“Senator Blackburn has done a tremendous amount of work to deliver a bill that takes real steps to empower families and mitigate the harm social media can do to children, and I’m grateful for her leadership on the issue,” Mr. Thune said.
Mr. Schumer said he looks forward to the bill’s swift passage.
“Keeping our kids safe from online threats should not be a partisan issue,” he said.
“KOSA is an idea whose time has come – in fact, it’s urgently overdue – and even tech companies like X and Apple are realizing that the status quo is unsustainable,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Our coalition is bigger and stronger than ever before, and we are committed to seeing this measure protecting children on the internet signed into law.”
Despite backing from Apple and X, the bill still faces resistance from other tech companies who continue to lobby against federal regulations.
“Congress must not cave to the wills and whims of Big Tech, and we must not be bullied into submission,” Ms Blackburn.
Proponents of KOSA say social media companies have proven they are ineffective at policing themselves.
“When companies like Meta enable a new AI chatbot to have sexually explicit conversations with child accounts, or when TikTok provided a platform for adults to pay teens to strip on its LIVE feature, it is clear that it is past time to hold Big Tech accountable,” said Melissa Henson, vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council.
But other advocacy groups are still worried about the bill restraining free speech.
Liberal advocacy group Fight for the Future said they view KOSA as an attempt from “rightwing actors who want to stifle young people’s voices online” and called out Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Schumer for supporting a bill that “would help silence any opposition to Trump.”
“They can say this is about accountability for Big Tech all they want, but with the likes of Elon Musk standing next to them, none of it rings true,” Fight for the Future campaigner Sarah Philips said. “Our communities are trying to survive repression and the gutting of important resources, and online spaces are a safe haven for LGBTQ youth when their resources in their schools and communities shrink.”
