The US is one step closer to turning two bills designed to protect kids online into laws and creating new rules and regulations for techcos and companies trying to reach the country’s children. 

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) are wide-ranging bills that include requirements for social media companies to disable addictive product features, mitigate dangers to kids’ mental health, and ban targeted advertising to children. The bills would also give researchers insight into how techcos’ algorithms work and affect kids. 

COPPA 2.0, specifically, restricts online companies from collecting personal info about users between the ages of 13 and 16 without their consent. It bans targeted advertising and mandates the creation of a button that parents and kids can use to easily delete personal information. It also established a Youth Marketing and Privacy Division at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), focused primarily on these issues. 

KOSA establishes a “duty of care” for online platforms, requiring them to turn on the most protective settings for kids by default (instead of kids having to opt into stronger settings), and giving kids options for protecting their info and opting out of personalized algorithm recommendations. 

The US Senate voted last Thursday to limit debate on the bills, with hugely bipartisan support (86 votes in favor and one against). This sets up a final vote, likely happening this week, to move them to the House of Representatives. When they make it to the House, which seems inevitable, it must also pass the bills by a majority vote. But it might be a few months until there’s another update on progress, since the House is now in recess until September. 

KOSA and COPPA 2.0 have been slowly moving through the US government since 2022 and 2023, respectively. The bills are one of the government’s first significant moves to guarantee kids’ safety since COPPA was initially passed in 1998—before the advent of smartphones or the proliferation of social media. 

Social media companies earned US$11 billion in advertising revenue from targeting kids and teens in 2022, said US Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, and one of the bills’ supporters. She’s also concerned about the kids affected by bullying and harassment, and views the bills as ways to stop that. “This is such an important piece of legislation before us today. It can’t save the lives of people we’ve already lost. But it can help parents, and it can help all of us as a society,” she said on the Senate floor prior to the vote to limit debate. 

KOSA’s support extends beyond politicians to major techcos including Microsoft, X and Snap. 

If the House votes to pass them, the bills will then go to the president to be signed into law. This step also seems like something of a formality at this point, since the Biden administration announced its support for KOSA on Thursday. If passed, the bills would hold “Big Tech accountable to keep kids safe online”—something that US President Joe Biden has repeatedly called for, according to a statement issued by his office. “The administration applauds the bipartisan group of senators for their work to craft this important legislation and urges congress to come together to send it to the president’s desk for signature without delay.” 

But not everybody supports the bills. For example, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation—an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute based in Washington, D.C.—issued a statement pointing out what it sees as their flaws. 

“The problem with KOSA is that it requires online services to protect children from harmful content, but leaves the decision of what content qualifies as harmful to the FTC, opening the door to censorship of politically charged issues including guns, abortion, sexuality and more.

“The problem with COPPA 2.0 is that it would ban targeted ads for everyone under 17 (cutting off revenue for ad-supported online services targeted at teenagers) and impose additional rules on online services serving this market. Online services may simply stop providing services for teenagers altogether.”

Image courtesy of Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash.