After passing the Senate almost unanimously last week, the future of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) seems uncertain. Congress is now on a six-week recess, and reports from Punchbowl News indicates that House Republican leaders may not prioritize bringing the bill to a vote when lawmakers return.
In response to Punchbowl’s reporting, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement statement saying, “Just a week ago Speaker Johnson said he wanted to see KOSA through to the end. I hope that hasn’t changed. Leaving KOSA and [the Children and Teens’ Online Protection Act] gathering dust in the House would be a terrible mistake and a gut punch – a gut punch to these brave, wonderful parents who have worked so hard to get to this point.” The bill also aims received support from Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
But the bill has created a huge divide among the digital rights and tech responsibility community. If passed, the legislation would require online platforms to block users under 18 from accessing certain types of content the government deems harmful.
Supporters of the measure, which included the Tech Oversight Project, a nonprofit that advocates for tech industry accountability through antitrust legislation, hailed the bill as an important step toward holding tech companies accountable for the impact of their products on children.
“Too many young people, parents and families have experienced tragic consequences due to the greed of social media companies,” Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, said in a statement in June. “The accountability that KOSA will provide to these families is long overdue.”
Others, like the nonprofit digital rights group Center for Technology and Democracy, said the bill, if passed, could be used to block young users from accessing key information on topics like sexual health and LGBTQ+ issues. That meant some organizations that regularly lobbied to hold Silicon Valley accountable found themselves on the side of technology companies and their lobbyists trying to block the bill.
“KOSA is not ready for a floor vote,” Aliya Bhatia, a policy analyst at the Center for Technology and Democracy, Free Expression Project, said in a July statement. “In its current form, KOSA can still be misused to target marginalized communities and politically sensitive information.”
Evan Greer, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future, which opposed the bill, told WIRED that KOSA and similar laws “divide our coalition” while allowing tech companies to “continue to avoid criminal penalties and regulation.”
“It was never really about protecting children,” Greer says. “It was more about lawmakers wanting to say they’re protecting children, and that doesn’t actually help children.” Instead of focusing on “flawed” legislation, Greer says Congress could spend just as much time and energy on antitrust legislation like American Innovation and Online Choice and Open Application Markets Actor on America’s Privacy Rights Act.
“When our coalition is divided against itself, we will be defeated by Big Tech every time,” he says.
Meanwhile, Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, he said that he supports KOSA, as well as Digital Hate Prevention Centera tech accountability nonprofit that was sued by X last year for exposing hate speech on its platform.
While the House Republican leadership’s decision could spell the beginning of the end for KOSA itself, Gautam Hans, an assistant professor of law at Cornell University, says that “given the bipartisan interest in passing this legislation, I suspect there will be other proposals — hopefully with more robust safeguards against potential state censorship.”