The future of the Child Online Safety Act (KOSA), which passed the Senate nearly unanimously last week, is unclear. Congress is currently on a six-week recess, but Punchbowl News reports that House Republican leadership may not prioritize bringing the bill to the floor for a vote when lawmakers return.
Following the Punchbowl report, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement saying, “Speaker Johnson has said he wants to pass KOSA, and I hope that remains the case. Letting KOSA and the (Children and Teen Online Protection Act) languish in the House would be a huge mistake and a blow to the brave and incredible parents who have worked so hard to get to this stage.” The bill has also been supported by Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
But the bill has created deep divisions in the digital rights and tech responsibility communities: if passed, the bill would require online platforms to block users under the age of 18 from viewing certain types of content that the government deems harmful.
Supporters of the bill, including the Tech Oversight Project, a nonprofit that focuses on tech accountability through antitrust law, see it as a meaningful step toward holding tech companies accountable for the effects of their products on children.
“Too many young people, parents, and families have experienced the devastating consequences of social media companies’ greed,” Sasha Howarth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, said in a June statement. “The accountability that KOSA would provide these families is long overdue.”
Groups like the nonprofit digital rights group Center for Technology and Democracy have noted that if enacted, the law could be used to block young people from accessing important information, like sexual health and LGBTQ+ issues, meaning groups that regularly lobby to hold Silicon Valley accountable are siding with tech companies and their lobbyists in their efforts to kill the bill.
“KOSA has yet to reach a floor vote,” Aliya Bhatia, a policy analyst with the Free Expression Project at the Center for Technology and Democracy, said in a July statement. “As it stands, KOSA could still be misused to target marginalized communities or politically sensitive information.”
Evan Greer, president of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit advocacy group that opposed the bill, told WIRED that KOSA and bills like it “fracture our coalition” and allow tech companies to “continue to get away with criminal activity and evade regulation.”
“This was never about protecting kids,” Greer said. “Lawmakers want to say they’re protecting kids, but they’re not actually doing kids any favors.” Instead of lawmakers focusing on a “flawed” bill, Greer said Congress should have spent the same time and energy on antitrust-focused bills like the American Online Innovation and Choice Act, the Open App Markets Act, or the American Privacy Rights Act.
“If our coalition is divided and pitted against each other, we will be defeated by Big Tech every time,” she said.
Meanwhile, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a tech accountability nonprofit that was sued by X last year for exposing hate speech on the platform, also supports KOSA.
While the House Republican leadership’s decision may mark the beginning of the end of KOSA itself, Gautam Hans, an associate professor of law at Cornell University, said, “Given the bipartisan interest in this legislation, I expect other proposals will follow, hopefully with broader safeguards against potential state censorship.”
