House overhauls KOSA in a new kids online safety package

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a package of 19 bills aimed at protecting kids on the internet, teeing Congress up for a chance at passing some of the most substantive internet regulations in recent history, alongside a fight over online speech rights.

The subcommittee on commerce will consider the bills during a hearing on Tuesday, including the contentious Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). KOSA has been the centerpiece of advocacy from parent survivors whose kids died after suffering from a range of online harms, including cyberbullying, sextortion, and drugs purchased through the internet. But the new version of the bill omits the animating feature of the Senate version that passed overwhelmingly last year: the duty of care, which would have made tech platforms legally responsible for mitigating harms stemming from their services, like eating disorders and depression. Critics warned that could sweep up a host of legal speech, including resources that seek to mitigate the very harms KOSA aims to solve. 

In a new House discussion draft, the duty of care has been replaced by a requirement that social media platforms have “reasonable policies, practices, and procedures” to deal with four discrete kinds of harm: “Threats of physical violence,” “Sexual exploitation and abuse,” “Distribution, sale, or use of narcotic drugs, tobacco products, cannabis products, gambling, or alcohol,” and “Any financial harm caused by deceptive practices.” The extent of policies and procedures a platform has to have would need to be appropriate to the scale and complexity of the platform itself, and the technical feasibility of addressing the harms. The new version also expands the definition of who’s covered by the bill to include nonprofit platforms.

The package includes several other significant bills. Among them is the App Store Accountability Act, the federal version of a bill that’s passed in several states requiring age verification at the app store level and transmitting age signals to developers. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) would raise the age of privacy protections from an earlier version of the law from under 13 to under 17, and ban targeted advertising to those covered by the bill. The Reducing Exploitative Social Media Exposure for Teens (RESET) Act, currently a discussion draft, would prohibit social media platforms from allowing any kids or teens under 16 to maintain accounts.

It’s a significant step after last year, when House Republican leadership passed on the chance to advance KOSA. Though the Senate approved it 91-3, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) worried about the bill’s constitutionality and free speech implications. Opponents accused them of cozying up to the tech industry due to investments in their state. Now, it appears that House leadership may follow through on promises to reconsider kids online safety legislation — but it already looks far different than what was proposed last year, and there’s no promise it will cross the finish line.