The Kids Online Safety Act cleared another hurdle this week with a congressional committee’s approval of the House version of the bill. But U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said more work remains to sort out the differences in the legislation and address lawmakers’ concerns in the push to pass the bill before the end of the year.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce adopted Wednesday two pieces of legislation that aim to protect minors online — the Kids Online Safety Act, referred to as KOSA, and the Children’s and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA 2.0.
A hearing in June to consider both bills, as well as broader privacy legislation, was scrapped minutes before it was supposed to start due to holdups and concerns from GOP leadership.
But this week, the committee proceeded with its hearing on the issue, dropping consideration of the American Privacy Rights Act that would have also protected adults using online platforms. Congress is moving forward with legislation focused specifically on kids and teens amid the absence of federal action on tech regulations for almost two decades.
KOSA and COPPA 2.0 have seen considerable momentum over the past several months after stalling for a couple of years. In July, the Senate passed both bills in a 91-3 vote. And now that they have cleared the committee, they could head to the House floor, though concerns remain from lawmakers in both parties as well as leadership. And time is running out in the current session of Congress, with the likelihood that any votes would happen after the November elections.
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The committee approved both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 through voice votes, meaning there was no recorded vote to see how lawmakers would have voted. But some lawmakers expressed doubts during the hearing.
There are some differences between the Senate version of the KOSA bill from Blumenthal and his co-author, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and the companion legislation in the House from lead sponsors U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla.
One of the biggest differences is on the “duty of care” section, which would require companies to make efforts to prevent harm to minors. The Senate bill specifically refers to certain mental health disorders, physical violence, online bullying, eating disorders and sexual exploitation. The one in the House removes those references and instead includes “promotion of inherently dangerous acts that are likely to cause serious bodily harm, serious emotional disturbance, or death.”
Blumenthal called the House committee vote “a positive development,” but he and Blackburn said in a joint statement that “we still have more work to do on KOSA.”
“I share a number of the concerns that were expressed during the committee meeting,” Blumenthal said in an interview, referring to “some narrowing of the duty of care.”
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“The Senate bill is a really strong and effective one, which I prefer, but we’re going to work with our House colleagues,” he added. “Our end goal is to pass this bill before the end of the session.”
In addition to the duty of care, KOSA would put in place stricter settings by allowing children and parents to disable addictive features, enable privacy settings and opt out of algorithmic recommendations.
COPPA 2.0 updates existing law from 1998 to protect children online who are under 13. The current bill would ban targeted advertising to minors and extend protections to users between ages 13 and 16.
“These bills are two important pieces to begin ushering in a new era on the internet, one that is defined by accountability and safety,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said at Wednesday’s hearing.
“All of these children are no longer with us because of dangers posed by the current state of social media and our online ecosystem. Unfortunately, these stories are not isolated incidences,” she said as she passed around folders of stories of children who have died and urged committee members to read through them.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Ranking Member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., raised additional concerns with KOSA and COPPA 2.0. On the Kids Online Safety Act, he said some of his concerns were addressed with initial drafts of the legislation, but “they have created others, unfortunately.” He said Congress should keep pursuing a broader privacy bill, which he argued was stronger than protections only for kids in COPPA.
“I long believed that adopting comprehensive privacy legislation to provide strong federal policy and data protection for all Americans is a crucial part of holding Big Tech accountable,” Pallone said.
For some lawmakers on the House committee, like U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., they wanted a duty of care section that more closely mirrors the one in the Senate bill and does not only focus on physical harm and harassment. Others shared concerns about constitutionally protected free speech and enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission.
U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said he would “reluctantly” vote for the bills because they have good provisions and intentions. But he gave warning about how the FTC would make the call on whether tech companies are protecting children and the potential legal implications of that.
“The intent here is to protect our kids. This bill gives false hope to parents. I think there’s a serious problem,” Crenshaw said, suggesting it might be better to ban minors under the age of 16 from using social media. Neither bill includes such a ban.
The lead sponsors of the House version of KOSA acknowledged the questions and concerns raised throughout the hearing but said they remain very open to further changes. Some members on the panel also raised the prospect of making changes to the legislation through a conference committee that can reconcile the differences between the two bills if it gets a vote on the House floor.
“Some people don’t like it on the right. Some people don’t like it on the left. It’s easy to vote no on a particular bill,” Bilirakis said at the hearing.
“This is a positive bill. Sure can it be improved? Absolutely,” he continued. “And we pledge to you that we will work with you to get this done.”