US lawmakers debate slate of kids online safety legislation

A subcommittee of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee today interrogated an extensive list of proposed online safety laws intended to protect kids. Seeking “Legislative Solutions to Protect Children and Teens Online,” the hearing fielded inquiries about data minimization, the dangers of AI chatbots and targeted advertising, and what would constitute “meaningful” legal penalties for a corporation of the size of, for instance, Disney.

Two key bills in the debate are HR 6291, the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Also included are the App Store Accountability Act and the SCREEN Act. The Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) has a useful breakdown of the headlining legislation in LinkedIn.

The laws are contentious and have their opponents, who worry they’ll be leveraged to curtail privacy and persecute minorities. Those who defend them say they are necessary – and that many are failing to grasp the gravity of the problem, and how hard platforms have fought to evade responsibility.

Anxiety, depression, eating disorders, suicide, sextortion, cyberbullying, access to lethal drugs: the list grows, as social media becomes more deeply ingrained into people’s lives from an early age. HR 2657, called Sammy’s Law, is named for a boy who died after taking a fentanyl-laced pill he purchased through Snapchat. Some representatives want to loop gaming platforms into the discussion, claiming they also operate as social networks, and pose dangers such as grooming and exploitation. Others want to know why, as legislators look to protect kids from online harms, the current administration has fired the head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

KOSA without duty of care is ‘toothless’

A major concern among lawmakers and advocates is that KOSA has been “gutted” after revisions to a previous version. The central issue is the removal of a duty of care, a legal obligation imposed on platforms requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care to avoid careless acts. In other words, it makes it a legal requirement that social media companies operate in such a way that is not harmful to their users.

The previous version of KOSA had bipartisan support in the Senate, but died in the House. It was reintroduced in May. A piece in The Verge looks at how the issue could threaten the passage of the bill yet again, as Republicans continue to raise concerns related to free speech, while Democrats insist that the duty of care is essential to making the bill work. Meanwhile, parents whose kids have suffered harms as a result of social media feel as though their input has been discarded.

Digital rights groups that oppose the bills raise fears that they could introduce new dangers of surveillance and risks to privacy. Fight for the Future, for example, opposes Sammy’s law on the grounds that it could “invite increased surveillance of children online,” and the App Store Accountability Act, which it says could chill legal speech. Whether or not these concerns are warranted is likely to be settled not in a hearing, but on the ground, as the legal machinery enacting online safety measures becomes stronger and gains greater reach.

Article Topics

age verification  |  app store age verification  |  children  |  COPPA 2.0  |  digital identity  |  Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)  |  legislation  |  SCREEN Act  |  social media  |  U.S. Government