Congress renews fight over kids online safety with revived KOSA bill

On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). The bill had been passed in the Senate by a 91–3 vote in 2024, after which it stalled in the House due to concerns over free speech and content moderation. The reintroduction of the measure aims to address these concerns with revised language that clarifies the bill’s intent and enforcement mechanisms.

KOSA reflects a genuine bipartisan desire to address the harms children and teens face on social media, but it also encapsulates a larger cultural and political clash over free speech, privacy, and the role of the state in regulating digital life. Its repeated reintroduction, evolving language, and polarizing debates show that child online safety is no longer just a parental or tech issue, but rather it is a constitutional, ethical, and ideological battleground.

The reintroduced bill contains the same language that was approved by the Senate last year, but with changes to further make clear that KOSA would not censor, limit, or remove any content from the Internet, and does not give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or state Attorneys General the power to bring lawsuits over content or speech.

The bill requires social media platforms to provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations. Social media platforms are required to enable the strongest privacy settings for kids by default.

KOSA gives parents new controls to help protect their children and spot harmful behaviors and provides parents and educators with a dedicated channel to report harmful behavior. It also creates a duty for online platforms to prevent and mitigate specific dangers to minors, including promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and advertisements for certain illegal products like tobacco and alcohol.

The bill also ensures that parents and policymakers know whether online platforms are taking meaningful steps to address risks to kids by requiring independent audits and research into how these platforms impact the well-being of kids and teens.

This time around the bill enjoys even stronger bipartisan support in the Senate, where it will likely be passed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune voiced his support, saying, “Consumers deserve more transparency about how these platforms amplify and suppress content.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the “bipartisan legislation … provides necessary guardrails to protect our kids. Too many kids have had their personal data collected and used nefariously. Too many families have lost kids after they took their own lives because of what happened to them on social media.”

Whether KOSA becomes law in 2025 or not, it has already reshaped the conversation around platform responsibility, digital rights, and the future of internet regulation in the United States. The bill represents one of the most ambitious and contentious legislative efforts to regulate online platforms in the name of child safety.

First introduced amid growing public alarm over the effects of social media on minors, KOSA’s path through Congress has been shaped by bipartisan support, vocal opposition from civil liberties groups, and ongoing concerns about censorship, privacy, and the balance of power between government and the tech industry.

The origins of KOSA trace back to February 2022, when Blumenthal and Blackburn first introduced the bill. Its introduction followed a wave of public scrutiny directed at Facebook stemming from internal disclosures that the company’s own research showed Instagram exacerbated mental health issues among teenage girls, yet the platform did little to mitigate the harm.

After failing to advance in 2022, KOSA was reintroduced in May 2023 with amendments intended to narrow its scope and address civil liberties concerns. These revisions helped win over additional cosponsors and earned the bill unanimous support in the Senate Commerce Committee. Still, many critics remained unconvinced, arguing that the fundamental architecture of the bill still risked overreach and chilled speech, especially if platforms erred on the side of caution by blocking sensitive but important information.

The bill failed to receive a House floor vote in the 2023 session. Industry lobbying by major tech firms like Meta, TikTok, and Google played a role, as did the sustained civil liberties backlash. Lawmakers remained divided over whether the bill struck the right balance between protecting minors and preserving constitutional rights. Some also questioned whether enforcement by state attorneys general would create a fragmented patchwork of interpretations or be weaponized for political purposes.

In 2024, KOSA was revised again and reintroduced with modest changes to enforcement language and more detailed provisions around algorithmic transparency. However, the bill remained stalled amid election-year caution, as lawmakers were wary of pushing through legislation that might spark controversy before the 2024 elections. Meanwhile, public concern around children’s exposure to artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and synthetic media continued to rise, expanding the scope of online risks but also complicating legislative remedies.

In response to previous criticisms, the reintroduced version includes provisions that explicitly state it does not allow the FTC or states to initiate lawsuits over content or speech. This clarification aims to alleviate fears that the bill could be used to censor content, particularly content related to marginalized communities.

The revised bill has garnered significant support from major tech companies, including Apple, which stated that the legislation would have a meaningful impact on children’s online safety.

“Apple is pleased to offer our support for the Kids Online Safety Act,” said Apple Senior Director for Government Affairs in the U.S., Timothy Powderly. “Everyone has a part to play in keeping kids safe online, and we believe [this] legislation will have a meaningful impact on children’s online safety,”

Some civil liberties groups, however, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, continue to express concerns that the bill could lead to over-censorship and negatively impact marginalized communities.

Despite the Senate’s strong support, the bill’s future in the House remains uncertain. House Speaker Mike Johnson previously expressed reservations about the bill, citing concerns over free speech. It is unclear whether these concerns have been addressed in the revised version enough to satisfy Republican opponents in the House.

The bill remains under active debate, and its provisions are now being reevaluated in light of emerging technologies and political developments. The Trump administration has signaled a qualified interest in advancing the legislation, though reports indicate that its Department of Government Efficiency has sought to modify implementation mechanisms to enhance executive oversight of content moderation decisions.

Lawmakers are divided over whether to expand federal preemption to override state laws or retain broad enforcement powers at the state level. Meanwhile, new proposals to include protections against AI-generated child exploitation content are being weighed, raising fresh concerns about surveillance and automated censorship.

Today, KOSA sits at the intersection of child protection, digital rights, and online governance. Its path through Congress has become a reflection of a deeper societal struggle over how to regulate the Internet without compromising fundamental freedoms. Whether the bill becomes law in its current form or evolves further, it has already reshaped the national conversation on the responsibilities of tech companies, the role of government, and the rights of children and parents in an increasingly digital world.

The stakes are not just about content moderation, they are about who controls access to information, how platforms are held accountable, and what kind of Internet society is willing to tolerate in the name of safety.

Article Topics

age verification  |  children  |  digital identity  |  Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)  |  legislation  |  social media  |  U.S. Government  |  United States