Senate panel approves Blumenthal’s Kids Online Safety Act

At a May rally in Washington, advocates supporting the Senate’s version of a bipartisan kids online safety bill pleaded with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to once again bring it before his committee, as Congress’ schedule was filling up fast ahead of election season.

Cruz, a supporter of the bill, vowed to do so, without a firm commitment on the date. Dozens of attendees, including mothers who attribute their children’s death to social media harms, chanted, “Mark it up, mark it up!” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., one of the authors of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, joined in on those calls.

Three months later, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation took it up. At a Wednesday hearing, the panel voted to once again approve KOSA through a unanimous voice vote, sending it back to the Senate floor for consideration.

It’s another major step forward for the legislation, but it sets up a clash with the House, which recently passed its own version as part of the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act. Blumenthal and proponents of the Senate bill argue the latter is a watered-down alternative.

“I think we have enormously powerful momentum,” Blumenthal said in an interview from the U.S. Capitol following Wednesday’s committee vote. “The House passed a version which is basically toothless and a pale imitation of what we need in KOSA to protect children.”

“The parents who were at the committee meeting today are going to be once again our most important advocates,” he continued, “and their plea should not be turned aside or denied.”

The Senate’s bill, sponsored by Blumenthal and GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, has gone through a number of revisions to gain more support over the years. It’s also been marked up and passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee a few times. KOSA got closest in 2024 when it passed the Senate in an overwhelming 91-3 vote, but the House never took it up.

But because it didn’t fully make it through Congress at the time, the bill started from square one at the start of the current session. Getting out of committee is the first step in the process.

KOSA was one of five bills focused on online safety for minors, as well as some related to artificial intelligence and age verification, on the docket at Wednesday’s hearing. The committee postponed taking up a larger AI legislative framework at the markup and plans to do so after the August recess.

The Senate version of KOSA aims to put in place stricter settings by allowing children and parents to disable addictive features like infinite scroll and autoplay of videos, enable privacy settings and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. The platforms that would need to comply include social media, online video games, messaging sites and video streaming services.

The “duty of care” section, to hold platforms legally responsible for mitigating certain harms to minors, has come under scrutiny before, though it has been revised and narrowed in newer iterations of the Senate bill.

It’s one of the central tenets of KOSA that’s divided the lower and upper houses of Congress. It would require companies to “exercise reasonable care” when designing a platform to mitigate a defined list of potential harms to minors, including certain mental health disorders, substance use disorders and physical and sexual abuse.

Supporters of the Senate bill argue a duty of care is needed to hold major tech and social media companies accountable. Blackburn, a KOSA sponsor who sits on the Senate Commerce Committee, commended the work of parent advocates who have helped her and Blumenthal work on the bill for several years. “They have turned their grief into action,” she said.

During the hour-long hearing, senators on the committee applauded the work of the parents and families who have devoted time to the issue. One senator asked if they could recognize that work by having parents stand up and say the name of their child.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, had an amendment to attach his bill, which seeks to incentivize tech companies to advertise mental health resources and services for minors. But he withdrew it so the committee could pass a clean version of KOSA, with the hopes of getting his legislation into a larger online safety package.

Still, challenges lie ahead for KOSA. As online protections for children remain a priority for Congress, the House and Senate are split over how to address the issue. If KOSA clears the full Senate again, lawmakers in both chambers will need to work through the differences.

“While there are important differences between the Senate and House versions of KOSA, the bill’s success in both chambers shows that our leaders in Congress agree far more than they disagree when it comes to kids’ online safety — including that states should be able to continue to pass and enforce their own laws,” Fairplay Executive Director Josh Golin said in a statement. “We call on leaders in both chambers to work together to pass the strongest possible version of KOSA this year.”

On top of that, scheduling remains a major hurdle.

At the end of the week, the Senate will join the House in a month-long recess. Congress returns in September with only a few weeks to address priority bills, including must-pass legislation to fund the government after Sept. 30. Lawmakers will then be out again through the November midterm elections. That leaves Congress with a short lame-duck session before the holidays and the end of another session.

Critics of the Senate legislation have voiced concerns around free speech. Criticism has also stemmed from some LGBTQ+ advocates who argue it could ultimately limit access to critical services for vulnerable children and communities. (Other LGBTQ+ groups have dropped their opposition after a past revision to address concerns).

Groups such as the Center for Democracy and Technology and Electronic Frontier Foundation argue the Senate’s KOSA would incentivize age verification systems and say Congress should instead pursue legislation more focused on things like data privacy and consumer protection.

“Legislative proposals that would enact meaningful data minimization restrictions and other data privacy protections either for everyone or, at a minimum, beginning with enhancing protections for children would help to address some of the root causes animating the concerns for kids’ safety online,” the Center for Democracy and Technology wrote in a letter ahead of the hearing to Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Meanwhile, the House passed a package of online safety reforms in July that included a version of KOSA that removes the controversial duty of care provision. U.S. Rep. Jim Himes was Connecticut’s only House member to vote for the KIDS Act.

Supporters of the House bill have taken issue with the duty of care, citing potential First Amendment and censorship concerns.

But Blumenthal has been vehemently opposed to the House’s efforts, noting that KOSA is focused on design and is “content neutral.” He has previously said it would not allow enforcers like the Federal Trade Commission or state attorneys general to sue over content or speech.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is also opposed to the House version of KOSA.

After the House bill passed last month, Blumenthal and Blackburn called it “dead on arrival.”

“The Senate cannot and will not accept the version that the House passed earlier,” Blackburn said at Wednesday’s hearing. “It’s a very pale imitation of the Senate version and therefore it’s a pale imitation of Big Tech accountability. The parents have waited a long time.”

Blumenthal echoed that sentiment.

“I’m very hopeful that our conversations with leadership as well as with members of the House will be productive,” Blumenthal said. “We’re going to work as long as hard as possible to get it done as quickly as possible.”