WASHINGTON—Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Dec. 10 said he is committed to increasing online safety for minors using the internet, while being cautious about advancing the Kids Online Safety Act to the House floor for a vote.
“I think all of us, 100 percent of us, support the principle behind it, but you’ve got to get this one right,” Johnson told reporters at his weekly press conference.
“When you’re dealing with the regulation of free speech, you can’t have it go too far and be overbroad.”
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is a set of proposed regulations requiring social media and online video game companies to put safety protocols in place for minors.
Among other rules, it requires platforms to enable, by default, the strongest privacy settings for underage users. It also requires them to limit features that would make their apps more addictive and forbids them from conducting market research on children.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), passed the Senate 91–3.
It has hit a snag in the House because of concerns over censorship. Some GOP lawmakers said the legislation was too vague and could be used to throttle conservative voices on the internet.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) also urged caution at that time, saying, “Just because a bill has a nice name, that’s great, but ultimately the policy is what matters.”
Notably, the bill is also opposed by a coalition of progressive organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Bisexual Resource Center, and LGBT Tech.
They were concerned that the bill gave the Federal Trade Commission “extraordinary powers to arbitrarily stifle access to critical information,” including “resources about reproductive healthcare, LGBTQ+ content,“ and ”content relevant to the history of marginalized groups.”
Both progressive and conservative opponents of the bill expressed concern over its “duty of care” clause, which requires platforms to “exercise reasonable care” in preventing minors from coming into contact with harmful material.
On Dec. 7, Linda Yaccarino, CEO of social media platform X, said the company worked with Blackburn and Blumenthal to iron out some of the bill’s wrinkles in an effort to push it through the House. Elon Musk, who owns X, is also a supporter of the legislation.
On Dec. 10, Blackburn and Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) were joined by parents and advocates at a Capitol Hill rally urging Congress to pass KOSA before year’s end.
“Every day we go without this, more children are being exposed to the dangers that they’re encountering in the virtual space,” Blackburn said. “It is past time to get this to the president’s desk.”
Supporters at the rally spoke next to a pile of wrapped Christmas gifts, symbolizing the children who have died as a result of harmful online interactions and will not be around to open presents this year. Parents who lost children held back tears as they spoke about the bullying, anorexia, and sexual abuse their children had experienced.
Shama Reed told the crowd a harrowing story of her daughter Shamail, who was lured away by a 27-year-old online predator disguising himself as a teenage boy.
Shamail was kidnapped for 30 days and sex trafficked until her mother was able to track her down using her Facebook account.
“It was a nightmare ... I had to become a hacker, a detective, everything to find her,” Reed told reporters.
Erin Popolo said her daughter Emily was bullied on Snapchat so severely that she killed herself.
“The torment, unfortunately, did not end with her death,” Popolo told the crowd. “During her livestreamed funeral, bullies hijacked the service, and they continued to attack her, while her whole, entire family watched in anguish.”
