House Advances New KOSA Bill to Protect Kids Online
▼ Summary
– The House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced 19 bills aimed at protecting children online, representing a major push for internet regulation.
– The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is a central bill that has been revised, removing the “duty of care” requirement from the Senate version to address free speech concerns.
– The new KOSA version requires platforms to implement reasonable policies against specific harms like physical threats, sexual exploitation, drug sales, and financial deception.
– Other significant bills in the package include COPPA 2.0 to extend privacy protections to teens and the RESET Act to prohibit social media accounts for users under 16.
– House Republican leadership, which previously blocked KOSA over constitutional issues, is now reconsidering online safety legislation, though passage is uncertain.
A significant legislative push is underway in the House of Representatives, where a collection of nineteen new bills aims to reshape how young people experience the internet. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has unveiled a comprehensive package designed to enhance child safety online, setting the stage for what could become the most impactful internet regulations in years. This move also reignites a long-standing debate over the boundaries of online speech and platform responsibility.
A key component of this package is the revised Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which will be reviewed by a subcommittee this week. The legislation has been a primary focus for advocacy groups, particularly parents who have tragically lost children to online dangers such as cyberbullying, sextortion, and drug-related incidents. However, the House version of KOSA differs markedly from the bill the Senate passed with overwhelming support last year. The most notable change is the removal of the “duty of care” provision, a clause that would have legally obligated tech companies to proactively mitigate harms like eating disorders and depression linked to their services. Critics of that original provision argued it risked censoring a wide range of legitimate online content, including supportive resources for the very issues the law seeks to address.
In its current form, the House discussion draft replaces the duty of care with a mandate for social media platforms to establish “reasonable policies, practices, and procedures” to confront four specific categories of harm. These include threats of physical violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, the distribution or sale of narcotics and other regulated substances, and financial harm resulting from deceptive practices. The required measures must be appropriate for each platform’s size and technical complexity. The new draft also broadens the scope of the bill to include nonprofit platforms under its regulations.
The legislative package extends beyond KOSA to include several other notable proposals. The App Store Accountability Act would enforce age verification at the app store level and require that age signals be shared with developers, mirroring laws already enacted in some states. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA 2.0, seeks to expand privacy protections by raising the covered age from under 13 to under 17 and prohibiting targeted advertising to minors. Another proposal, the RESET Act, is currently a discussion draft that would ban social media platforms from allowing any user under the age of 16 to maintain an account.
This development marks a pivotal shift from the previous year, when House Republican leadership declined to advance KOSA despite its strong 91-3 approval in the Senate. At that time, Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise expressed concerns about the bill’s constitutionality and potential impact on free speech, with opponents suggesting their hesitation was influenced by tech industry investments in their home state. The current action indicates that House leaders are now following through on promises to reevaluate online safety measures for children, though the proposed legislation looks substantially different from earlier versions and its ultimate passage remains uncertain.
(Source: The Verge)
