The Senate passed two major online safety bills amid years of debate over the effects of social media on teen mental health. The Children’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children’s and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, also known as COPPA 2.0, passed the Senate by a vote of 91 to T3.
The bills will next go to the House of Representatives, although it is unclear whether there will be enough support for the measures to pass. If passed, the bills would be the most significant legislation regulating technology companies in recent years.
KOSA requires social media companies like Meta to offer controls to disable algorithmic feeds and other “addictive” features for children under 16. It also requires companies to provide parental control features and protect minors from content that promotes eating disorders, self-harm. sexual exploitation and other harmful content.
One of the most controversial provisions in the bill creates what is known as a “duty of care”. This means that platforms are required to prevent or mitigate certain harmful effects of products, such as “addictive” features or algorithms that promote dangerous content. The Federal Trade Commission will be responsible for enforcing the standard.
The bill was introduced first but it stalled amid pushback from digital rights and other advocacy groups that said the legislation would compel the platforms. on teenagers. While the ACLU, EFF and other free speech groups still oppose the bill, a revised version was introduced last year to address some of those concerns. In a statement last week, the ACLU said KOSA would encourage social media companies to “censor protected speech” and “encourage the elimination of anonymous browsing across vast areas of the internet.”
COPPA 2.0, on the other hand, has been less controversial among privacy advocates. The purpose of the Child and Adolescent Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 is to revise the nearly 30-year-old law to better reflect the modern Internet and social media landscape. If passed, the law would prohibit companies from targeting ads to children and collecting personal information about 13- to 16-year-olds without consent. It also requires companies to offer a “delete button” for personal data to remove children’s and teenagers’ personal data from the platform “whenever technologically feasible”.
The vote underscores how online safety has become a rare source of bipartisan agreement in the Senate, which has hosted multiple hearings on teen safety in recent years. CEOs of Meta, Snap, Discord, X and TikTok At one such hearing earlier this year, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham accused administrators of having “blood on their hands” for multiple security breaches.
