Speaker Johnson Says Parts of Kids Online Safety Act ‘Very Problematic’

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 10, 2024. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says that in principle, he likes the version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) that was passed by the Senate this summer but that some specifics in the text are highly problematic, suggesting that a companion version of the bill in the House would need reworking to pass the lower chamber.

“I love the principle, but the details of that are very problematic,” Johnson told Punchbowl News in a brief interview published on Oct. 14, referring to the Senate-passed KOSA, which has faced criticism from some House Republicans for provisions that purportedly go too far in suppressing free speech.

Johnson said that the current Senate-passed version could have “unintended consequences.”

First proposed in 2022 and passed in a 91–3 vote by the Senate on July 30, the measure is designed to establish safeguards and accountability measures to protect children from the harms associated with social media and other online platforms.

Supporters of the legislation argue that it will help protect minors from various online dangers, such as sexual exploitation, substance abuse, and harmful content, by imposing stricter privacy standards and giving parents more tools to monitor and report harmful online behaviors.

Critics, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which promotes internet freedoms, have argued that the bill would restrict access to information and make government officials the arbiters of what youth can see online.

The second-most powerful Republican in the House, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), raised objections to the Senate-passed version of KOSA, called S. 2073, in late September, telling the Washington Reporter in a wide-ranging interview that the measure would be used to stifle conservative viewpoints.

“There’s some work to be done there to make sure it works properly,” Scalise told the outlet. In particular, Scalise expressed concerns that the current version of KOSA would give “more power to the Biden administration over censorship,“ which he argued would be used not to protect children online ”but to go [after] conservative organizations, like pro-life groups.”

“Just because a bill has a nice name, that’s great, but ultimately the policy is what matters,” Scalise said.

One aspect of S. 2073 that has drawn criticism from top House Republicans such as Scalise is the bill’s imposition of a legal “duty of care” on platforms. While advocates say this will be used to mitigate dangers to minors while enforcing strong privacy settings for them, some Republicans say the provision is overly broad and could lead to censorship.

After a companion version of KOSA introduced by House lawmakers in April met with some criticism, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce put forward an amended version of the measure on Sept. 18, called H.R. 7891. While the Senate version applies its “duty of care” broadly to all covered platforms, the House version limits that duty to high-impact platforms, introduces different knowledge standards based on platform size, and excludes certain mental health disorders from its list of harms.

Also, while the Senate bill mandates more comprehensive audits and public reports, the House version emphasizes aggregated data on parental tools and safeguards.

Amid discussions on possible further amendments of KOSA, the fate of the bill remains unclear in the House, with Johnson’s latest remarks making clear that Republican leadership is of the view that the current version of the bill needs further adjustments.

President Joe Biden, who supports the measure, has signaled his intention to sign it into law if it passes the House.

“Today our children are subjected to a wild west online and our current laws and regulations are insufficient to prevent this. It is past time to act,” Biden said in a statement in July, encouraging the House to pass the legislation.

“We need action by Congress to protect our kids online and hold Big Tech accountable for the national experiment they are running on our children for profit.”

What’s the Bill About?

A key provision of the bill is the establishment of a “duty of care” for covered platforms, which requires platforms to introduce features to prevent or mitigate a range of dangers to minors, including sexual exploitation of children, substance abuse, promotion of suicide, or advertisement of products such as alcohol and tobacco.

The bill also seeks to protect the personal data of minors, requiring social media platforms to enable the strongest privacy settings for children by default. Platforms also would be required to provide minors with options to protect their information and the ability to opt out of personalized recommendations.

Parents would be given new controls to spot harmful behaviors and report them by means of a dedicated channel in order to help protect children.

Platforms would also be subjected to independent audits to assess their impact on the well-being of minor users, helping parents and policymakers gauge whether they’re taking meaningful steps to address risks to children.

A parents group that supports the measure said in a letter to lawmakers this summer that it has broad bipartisan support and should be adopted to protect children.

“Children and teens are harmed every day by social media companies’ reckless design choices, which lead to cyberbullying, sextortion, eating disorders, deadly viral challenges, mental health disorders, suicide, and easy access to fentanyl-laced drugs,” the parents group wrote.

“Passing KOSA would be the first time Congress has taken action to protect kids online in 25 years, and it will save an untold number of families the pain of losing a child—a pain we know too well.”

Electronic Frontier Foundation, a critic of the measure, has said that it “isn’t safety, it’s censorship.”

The group also says that because platforms would be liable for failing to block content deemed harmful, they are likely to adopt a heavy-handed approach to filtering, putting inordinately large amounts of information beyond the reach of minors and extending their blocks to legal speech.