Kids’ online safety bill faces dim prospects of passage this session despite progress
Kids Online Safety Act clears Senate committee but passage looks unlikely this session amid House-Senate deadlock over the duty-of-care provision.
KOSA advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee, but the chambers remain split on a duty-of-care provision requiring platforms to act with reasonable caution to prevent foreseeable harm, which House leadership opposes over First Amendment and negligence-lawsuit concerns. The Senate passed KOSA 91-3 last Congress before it died in the House, and the House passed its own version without the duty of care in June as part of a larger package, after stripping a state-law preemption provision. Observers say even Senate passage this year is a struggle given the short calendar, with a lame-duck window between November and January the more plausible path, and Majority Leader John Thune controlling whether a roll-call vote happens.
- Duty of care would require highly effective age verification, including government IDs and biometric data collection.
- Sen. Marsha Blackburn calls the House version toothless and a dealbreaker without the duty-of-care language.
- Critics including the Center for Democracy and Technology warn the bill creates incentives for censorship.
- A provision preempting state kids' online safety laws was removed from the House bill in June.
From the original article
7 min read at therecord.media
The landmark kids’ online safety legislation that has perennially struggled in Congress despite garnering strong support appears to once again be in danger of stalling due to a deep divide between the chambers and a short legislative calendar.
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