Senators, parents ramp up pressure on House to pass Kids Online Safety Act

Senators and parents are ratcheting up pressure on House lawmakers this week to push forward with legislation aimed at increasing children’s digital safety and privacy as a House committee prepares to mark up the bill Wednesday.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the co-author of the Kids Safety Online Act (KOSA), kicked off these efforts Monday morning amid the roadblocks and GOP pushback the bill faces in the House.

The push from Blackburn and other senators is coupled with pressure from parents, some of whose children have died or been seriously harmed because of social media. Many are coming to Capitol Hill this week to meet with lawmakers.

While the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced late Monday it will mark up KOSA on Wednesday, getting the bill passed in its current form is likely to face challenges.

A House leadership source on Monday told The Hill that multiple Republican conference members have expressed concerns over the bill, citing its constitutionality, the “sweeping authority” it gives the Federal Trade Commission to regulate speech, and the potential for censorship of conservative views.

The committee’s markup comes just ahead of the House’s fall recess, which is expected to stretch past the November election. Advocates of the bill are hoping the bill markup will lead to KOSA being brought to the House floor for a vote by the end of the year.

A GOP member skeptical of the bill told The Hill earlier this month they are hoping for the committee to consider amendments to address some of the same issues that the Republican leadership source identified.

Blackburn set the tone of urgency Monday morning, releasing a video titled, “Why We Must Pass the Kids Online Safety Act,” during which she spoke with a Tennessee woman whose 17-year-old son, Vaughn-Thomas, took a pill laced with fentanyl that he potentially bought from Snapchat.

The Tennessee Republican described how KOSA would require social media platforms “to design for safety and to have that duty of care.” This “duty of care” provision would require platforms to design and implement features to prevent and mitigate harm to minors, such as content promoting sexual exploitation, eating disorders or suicide.

KOSA passed in the Senate in a 91-3 vote in late July, following years of advocacy over the potential risks of social media and its impact on youth mental health. The bill passed as part of a package that included the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Action Act – called COPPA 2.0 – which would add data privacy measures including the ban on targeted advertising to teens and kids online.

Blackburn, in a statement Tuesday, applauded Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris-Rogers (R-Wash.) for moving forward with Wednesday’s markup.

Earlier Tuesday, Instagram announced sweeping changes to teenagers’ accounts, aimed at boosting their safety and giving parents more control over their children’s content and privacy settings.

Blackburn questioned the motive of the announcement, given its timing.

“If anyone needed further proof that Big Tech has no interest in actually protecting our children, the timing of Instagram’s announcement on the eve of a House markup of the Kids Online Safety Act is it. Just like clockwork, the Kids Online Safety Act moves forward and industry comes out with a new set of self-enforcing guidelines,” she wrote.

The bipartisan support for KOSA is seen in the Senate; Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also called for the House to bring the legislation to the floor last week. Schumer, appeared last week with teachers, school administrators, and victims of youth sextortion in a press briefing in Syracuse.

“Put it on the House floor and let there be a vote, and I’m confident it would pass by the same overwhelming margin that we passed it in the Senate,” he said, suggesting KOSA and COPPA 2.0 “will perhaps be the most important updates to federal laws protecting kids on the interest in decades.

“There is simply no excuse to delay passage of this legislation,” he said. “We need the House to bring forward this critically important legislation immediately and without changes. Any further delay risks all the hard work these parents have done. The moment to act has arrived.”

KOSA co-author Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), meanwhile, touted a poll released last week by Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media, ParentsSOS and Fairplay.

The poll found support for KOSA was observed across party lines, with 87 percent of Republicans, 88 percent of Democrats, and 82 percent of independents in favor of it. About three-quarters of Republican voters said they are more likely to vote for a congressional candidate who supports the legislation, Blumenthal’s office pointed out.

Several advocacy groups are coming to the nation’s capital this week to emphasize the urgency of the bill, Blackburn and Blumenthal’s offices confirmed to The Hill.

Josh Golin, the executive director of nonprofit FairPlay, told The Hill the organization sent about a dozen parents to Capitol Hill to meet with House members and secure more co-sponsorships for the bill.

He argued the tech industry and some libertarian groups have succeeded in somewhat “scaring people with really convoluted hypotheticals” about the bill’s impact after the Senate’s overwhelming support for KOSA made the industry “nervous.”

“So, they [tech industry] are leaning on a lot of members, and members on the right, they’re telling them, you know, that this is going to be used to stifle conservative speech, and on the left, they’re telling them that this is going to be used to censor LGBTQ kids, both of which couldn’t be any further from the truth,” Golin said.

“These parents are there to remind members of Congress of the real harm that is occurring every single day to young people,” he added. “And to take this out of the hypothetical and to move it into the real and the tragic, because that’s what they’re living every day.”

NPU President Keri Rodrigues confirmed her organization will also be sending parents to Capitol Hill.

“We’re looking for swift action from the House of Representatives, so we are going to be visiting all of the House offices to ensure that they hear loud and clear, that parents are unequivocal in this issue, and that we expect them to match the Senate’s energy and to get this done,” she said.

The Youth People’s Alliance (YPA), a youth advocacy nonprofit, has more than a dozen meetings planned with bipartisan lawmakers and staff, including some in leadership, YPA Advocacy Director Ava Smithing told The Hill.

Smithing stressed the importance of having young representatives at the Capitol for these meetings.

All of YPA’s representatives are under the age of 24, Smithing said.

“I think it’s really easy for tech companies and people with separate interests who say, young people feel like this, or young people don’t want this, but in reality, the only people who can answer those questions and really lead the change for what they want is those young people,” she said.

Emily Brooks contributed.