US lawmakers reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act with updates aimed at addressing potential harms, but fail to appease some activists and industry groups
a national teen mental health crisis—have been fueled by black box algorithms featuring eating disorders, bullying, suicidal thoughts, & more. Richard Blumenthal / @senblumenthal : Kids & parents want to take back control over their online lives. They are demanding safeguards, means to disconnect, & a duty of care for social media. Brandon J Pugh / @brandon_j_pugh : The Kids Online Safety Act #KOSA was reintroduced with changes from last year. While protecting kids is important, a bill to help ALL Americans with kids provisions is key. Comprehensive data privacy & security legislation is needed now more than ever. https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/ ...
CNBCLauren Feiner
Context & Ripple Effects
This reintroduction builds on the initial bipartisan KOSA proposal, which called for added safety and privacy tools for users under 16. The updated bill keeps the focus on platform responsibility and user controls while exposing a persistent divide over the right regulatory mechanism.
The measure’s uneven reception matters because child-safety policy is being debated alongside calls for broader privacy rules, rather than as a stand-alone fix for online harms.
First-order effects
Lawmakers and platform operators face a renewed, more specific proposal centered on safeguards, ways to disconnect, and a duty of care for social media.
Activists and industry groups that remain dissatisfied will continue pressing to change the bill’s scope and implementation before it can advance.
Second-order effects
The disagreement increases pressure to pair child-safety obligations with broader data privacy and security rules, as advocates argue that protections for minors alone are insufficient.
Platforms may have to weigh safety-tool and product-control changes against concerns that age-targeted compliance could require more collection or use of user data—an issue later raised as the bill moved through committee in criticism of KOSA’s data implications.
Third-order effects
If this approach gains durable support, online-safety regulation could increasingly make platforms accountable for how product design and recommendation systems affect younger users, not only for removing unlawful content.
The legislative path suggests that durable US youth-safety rules may depend on reconciling protective duties with privacy, data-minimization, and speech concerns rather than treating them as separate policy tracks.
The trend: KOSA is part of a broader shift toward regulating online services through youth-specific safety duties and user-control requirements.
Last year, @TechFreedom and more than a dozen scholars warned about the unconstitutional and harmful effects of #KOSA. The sponsors opted to confer with supporters and ignore critics. These superficial changes do *nothing* to fix the bill. My statement: https://techfreedom.org/..…
The Kids Online Safety Act will hold Big Tech accountable while also protecting children online and providing parents with tools to keep their children safe. @aishahhasnie @SenBlumenthal https://twitter.com/...
Record levels of hopelessness & despair—a national teen mental health crisis—have been fueled by black box algorithms featuring eating disorders, bullying, suicidal thoughts, & more.
I am reintroducing the Kids Online Safety Act, which provides families with a toolkit to protect their children online. @SenBlumenthal https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/ ...
The Kids Online Safety Act provides specific tools to stop Big Tech companies from driving toxic content at kids & to hold them accountable for putting profits over safety. Today Senator @MarshaBlackburn & I are reintroducing this critical legislation. https://twitter.com/...
The Kids Online Safety Act provides kids and parents with tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to protect against threats to children's health and well-being online. Congress must pass it swiftly.
.@kayleighmcenany is right; our children are suffering because of social media. They will be protected by @SenBlumenthal and my legislation, the Kids Online Safety Act. https://twitter.com/...
Kids & parents want to take back control over their online lives. They are demanding safeguards, means to disconnect, & a duty of care for social media.
Our bill has strong & increasing bipartisan momentum. It has growing support from young people who've seen Big Tech's destruction, parents who've lost children, mental health experts, & public interest advocates. It's an idea whose time has come.
The Kids Online Safety Act #KOSA was reintroduced with changes from last year. While protecting kids is important, a bill to help ALL Americans with kids provisions is key. Comprehensive data privacy & security legislation is needed now more than ever. https://www.blackburn.senat…