The Senate advanced bipartisan bills on Thursday designed to protect children who use social media, putting the legislation on track for passage despite opposition from civil liberties groups who said one of the measures would lead to censorship.
Senators voted 86-1 to speed along the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act in a procedural vote. The action followed months of debate about how to catch up with the digital age and reduce harm to young people.
Final Senate passage is expected early next week, and President Biden has said he would sign the KOSA bill if it clears the House.
The U.S. surgeon general and others say social media is exacerbating a youth mental health crisis by exposing kids to mature content, worsening their self-esteem or body image and making them feel left out of social cliques.
“With the benefits of social media also come the risks,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. “Many kids experience relentless online bullying, kids’ private personal data can be collected and used nefariously, predators can exploit or target kids and, for kids who struggle with mental health, social media can magnify their anguish.”
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, co-sponsored the KOSA bill. It would force online platforms to prevent or mitigate content that promotes self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse or other subjects that pose a risk to a minor’s health.
It would impose a “duty of care” that requires platforms to be safe by design for minors, offering options that shut off automated algorithms, disable features that show addictive products and limit features that let other users talk to children.
Lawmakers in both parties say social media needs more scrutiny, but there has been little action on Capitol Hill. While tech companies such as Microsoft, X and Snap support KOSA, others haven’t taken a position.
Mr. Blumenthal said it took a “tremendous amount” of work behind the scenes to build the support needed to feel confident heading into a floor vote. Grieving parents supported the bill, including a couple who told reporters Thursday that their child died after trying a dangerous TikTok challenge.
“We had to thread a lot of needles, legal and constitutional, political needles and schedule needles,” Mr. Blumenthal told The Washington Times, describing efforts to talk to each senator alongside advocates and outside groups.
“At the end of the day, the parents and young people made a decisive difference,” he said. “It has been an enlightening and demanding experience.”
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican and staunch critic of government overreach, is the main opponent of the KOSA bill.
“I think it’s a well-intended bill that really in the end will have terrible unintended consequences and may likely be unconstitutional,” Mr. Paul said.
One of his major complaints about the bill is that it would set up a child online safety committee to regulate speech that might cause anxiety among teenagers.
Mr. Paul said teenagers have anxiety about a lot of things, which varies based on the person, and that he’s concerned about giving “unelected bureaucrats this path to determine what causes anxiety.”
“There are some really sad cases out there of kids who have committed suicide,” he said. “But most of the things I see being regulated here, I don’t think they’re committing suicide because of gambling on golf or beer ads on the Super Bowl.”
Mr. Blumenthal acknowledged First Amendment concerns but said sponsors tightened the language in the bill and spent time explaining how the content they’re trying to quell is not protected speech.
The second bill from Sens. Ed Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, and Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Republican, would prohibit online platforms from collecting certain information from users 17 or younger, up from the current threshold age of 13.
“They’re good bills,” said Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. “My team and I worked hard on multiple revisions of the bill, and I think we’re going to get them passed.”
The path in the House is uncertain. The chamber left for a summer recess until Sept. 9, pushing any action on the bills closer to the Nov. 5 election.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee had been scheduled to mark up its version of the Kids Online Safety Act in late June, along with a broader measure to establish data privacy rights and enforcement mechanisms to crack down on violations of those rights. But the panel canceled the markup because of concerns from House GOP leaders about the broader privacy bill.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Thursday she was pleased to see Senate action and her panel still plans to move forward.
“We were planning to move them as stand-alones in taking action in committee,” the Washington Republican said when asked if the bills’ fate in the House was tied to the broader privacy measure. “And I’m still having those conversations with the leadership.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.