Children’s Online Safety Bill Gains Traction in Congress

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(Bloomberg) — Momentum is growing in both the US House and Senate on dueling efforts to pass children’s online safety legislation this summer, raising prospects for a breakthrough after big tech lobbying and partisan squabbles stalled the legislation for years. 

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The bills still face significant hurdles, including differences between the two chambers and unresolved questions over whether the bill will affect state-level artificial intelligence regulations. But a bipartisan House agreement announced Monday, coupled with new urgency in the Senate, could pave the way for an agreement. 

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The House agreement, announced by the leaders of a key committee, includes a provision that would require social media platforms like Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to set strong privacy and safety settings for minors by default. 

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“Through empowering parents, establishing safety as a default, strengthening privacy for children and teens, increasing transparency around data brokers, and holding Big Tech accountable, the KIDS Act delivers the 21st century protections parents have demanded and our kids deserve,” Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie and the panel’s top Democrat, Frank Pallone, said in a Monday statement.

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In the Senate, Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn is championing her own proposal that goes further than the House legislation. It  includes a “duty of care” provision, which would hold the companies liable for recommending posts fueling eating disorders, online bullying and other potentially harmful conduct.  

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She’s been negotiating with the White House on a deal to include that language in a broader package addressing state laws on AI.

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Blackburn in a statement on Monday defended imposing a duty of care on social media platforms and emphasized the White House supports her approach.

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“Without a duty of care, Big Tech companies will maintain the status quo of putting profit before the safety of our children,” Blackburn said. “We cannot leave online child safety to chance, which is why I am grateful the White House has signaled its support for the duty of care.”

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Tech companies such as Meta have long lobbied against that provision, arguing it could hamper free speech online and would be difficult to enforce without knowing users’ ages. The White House has also pushed Blackburn to tie together the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, with a bill that would require app stores to verify the ages of their users, according to one person familiar with the conversations.  

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Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who is working with Blackburn on the online safety measure, derided the House’s package as a “toothless & tepid capitulation” to big tech and warned that it is “dead in the Senate & a betrayal of families.”