Lobbyists representing Meta and Alphabet have ramped up their efforts to garner Republicans opposition to the bill.
Tech companies have been expertly leveraging social and cultural issues in order to squash the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that passed the Senate almost unanimously in July and has since been stalled. From the Wall Street Journal last month:
For liberal lawmakers, they focus on LGBTQ expression, amplifying worries that officials could censor queer youth. With conservative lawmakers they talk about how they fear antiabortion positions could be censored.
As tech lobbyists on Capitol Hill attempt to sway pro-lifers away from KOSA, only one pro-life organization has publicly opposed the measure so far.
KOSA, which would attempt to increase parental control over what material kids view online and regulate the harmful effects social media platforms have on children, has been supported by a broad coalition of conservative lawmakers and organizations since its inception. The Heritage Foundation, for example, describes the bill as one that “aims to protect online users, ages 16 and younger, in two key ways: first, by giving platforms the power to prevent and mitigate potentially harmful content, and second, by forcing platforms to create accessible, user-friendly safeguards and parental controls.” America First Policy Institute, Institute for Family Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center, American Principles Project, Concerned Women for America LAC, and Parents Defending Education Action have supported the measure. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of Senators, including the bill’s co-sponsor Marsha Blackburn and Ted Cruz, wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise in an effort to persuade leadership to pass the measure by the end of the year.
“While the internet and digital tools have helped kids connect with others and the world around them, these benefits have come at a profound cost — our children are experiencing emotional, mental, and physical harm from their use of digital platforms,” they said in a letter. “Studies show the more time youth spend on social media, the greater the risk they will suffer from poor mental health, disordered eating, and diminished sleep quality. These risks are multiplied because social media platforms are designed to be addictive, so that kids will spend more time online.”
Another coalition of representatives (from organizations such as American Principles Project, Angel Kids AI, American Family Association, Chains Interrupted, Enough Is Enough, The Institute for Family Studies, Exodus Cry, Protect Young Eyes, Paving the Way Foundation, Shared Hope International, and National Center on Sexual Exploitation) asked House leadership to address the “urgency of online child protection and the presence, close at hand, of a legislative solution that’s the fruit of five years of bipartisan hearings, survivor testimony, consideration of internal documentation shared by whistleblowers, consultation with academic experts, and negotiation with stakeholders,” in a letter on Monday.
Lobbyists representing Meta and Alphabet ramped up their efforts to garner Republican opposition to the bill in July, the same month that an anonymous memo sent around Capitol Hill described KOSA as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing for the pro-life movement. It hands power to activists to decide what speech is allowed and weaponize it to shut down the pro-life movement by Democratic administrations.” The memo, the Journal reported, was circulated by Matt Bravo of S-3 Group, a “lobbyist who represents Meta and Alphabet and formerly worked for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.).”
Students for Life Action is the only pro-life group to denounce KOSA publicly. In July, as lobbyists began their big push on the Hill, the organization called “for a NO vote on KOSA to prevent viewpoint discrimination from becoming federal policy.”