The House Energy and Commerce Committee has advanced two high-profile child safety bills that could transform much of the internet: the Children’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The proposed laws passed by voice vote despite discontent over last-minute changes to KOSA in particular, which were intended to silence persistent critics.
KOSA and COPPA 2.0 would give government agencies technology/352251/kosa-congress-online-child-safety-bill-explained”>More regulatory power over technology companies with users under 18. The first imposes a “duty of care” on major social media companies, potentially making them liable for harm to underage users. The second raises the enforcement age of the 1998 COPPA law and adds new rules on issues such as targeted advertising. The Senate passed versions of both bills in July. Now that they have passed a House committee, they can proceed to a floor vote, after which they may need to be reconciled with their Senate counterparts before moving to President Joe Biden’s desk, where Biden has He indicated that he will sign them.
Earlier this year, it was unclear whether KOSA would be brought to a vote in the House of Representatives. While it passed the Senate by an overwhelming majority, to Punchbowl News report House Republicans had concerns about the bill. However, the House version of KOSA differs markedly from its Senate counterpart, and numerous lawmakers expressed a desire to see changes made before it was voted on in the full House. Both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 underwent last-minute changes that were voted on in committee, leading some lawmakers to protest or withdraw their support.
The house of KOSA Amendment A list of harms that big social media companies are supposed to prevent has been amended. A duty of care to mitigate “anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders and suicidal behaviour” was removed and another was added to curb “promotion of inherently dangerous acts likely to cause serious bodily harm, serious emotional distress or death”.
The change drew significant criticism. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who said he would vote for the bill “reluctantly,” complained that the amendment could lead to regulatory agencies censoring potentially “disturbing” content. “Doesn’t all political speech induce some kind of emotional distress for those who disagree with it?” he said. (Crenshaw supports a blanket ban on social media access for younger teens.) By contrast, several lawmakers worried that removing conditions like depression would render the bill useless in addressing the purported mental health harms of social media for children.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), a KOSA co-sponsor who supported the amendment, said she was offering a “watered-down” version of the bill with the goal of passing it for a House floor vote. But neither version appears to satisfy critics who argue the bill could allow regulators to pressure companies to ban children from accessing content that a particular administration doesn’t like. Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have expressed concern that it could allow a Republican president to suppress abortion-related and LGBTQ+ content, while some Republican lawmakers are concerned A Democratic president could abolish anti-messages about abortion and other conservative speeches.
The vote on COPPA 2.0 was less contentious. But Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) questioned a House provision that would allow parents to obtain information about their teens’ social media use from site operators, even against the child’s wishes. Pallone warned that the rule could allow abusive parents to monitor a child’s Internet access. “In a bill that is supposed to offer more privacy protection to teens, Congress is creating, in my view, a back door through which their parents can spy on their teens’ every click on the Internet,” he said. “Teenagers have a right to privacy, too.”
