Lawmakers on the House Committee on Energy& Commerce recently advanced a sweeping 19-bill online safety package, including a reworked version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the App Store Accountability Act, in a hearing aimed at protecting children and teens online. But supporters argue the revised KOSA has essentially been neutered — its core “duty of care” requirement stripped out and replaced with vague language about “reasonable policies,” while a sweeping preemption clause would invalidate state-level protections. Critics now worry the bill amounts to a shell that preserves Big Tech’s status quo, trading meaningful safeguards for what many see as legal cover.
Sources: Tech Policy, The Verge
Key Takeaways
– The retooled KOSA no longer requires platforms to prevent harm to minors — the “duty of care” provision was removed in favor of weaker, broadly worded obligations.
– The package grants federal preemption authority over state-level child-safety laws, potentially erasing more stringent protections already on the books.
– The inclusion of app-store-based measures like age verification may raise privacy and free-speech concerns without guaranteeing meaningful reductions in online harm.
In-Depth
Last week’s hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee delivered what many longtime advocates call a bitter pill: a revived version of the flagship Kids Online Safety Act — but without its teeth. The original KOSA, which passed the Senate overwhelmingly in 2024, promised to require social-media and tech platforms to assume a “duty of care” for minors, mandating design changes and content controls to shield children from suicide-related content, predatory behavior, substance abuse promotion, and other online harms. That legal accountability was central to the bill’s support among parents, mental-health experts, and several advocacy groups.
Now, the House’s newly packaged version pares that requirement down to a vague mandate that platforms maintain “reasonable policies, practices, and procedures” to address a limited set of harms — like threats of violence, sexual exploitation, and illicit substance distribution. Many view that as little more than lip service; it leaves enforcement murky, gives platforms wide latitude, and eliminates any real risk of liability.
At the same time, a sweeping preemption clause — now part of the package — would override existing or future state laws on online child protections. That raises alarm bells among state-level policymakers and advocates, worried that more aggressive protections at the local level will be swept away. Passing such a bare-bones reform, critics argue, would be worse than doing nothing at all.
The package also jacks up federal control over age verification and app-store regulation through the App Store Accountability Act. Under its proposed rules, major app stores would verify users’ ages and pass along certified age data to individual apps — potentially reducing the burden on countless smaller platforms. But it also invites privacy concerns: centralizing sensitive personal data like age verification credentials may create new surveillance risks, while also granting Big Tech more influence over who gets access to what content.
During the hearing, some lawmakers defended the revisions on constitutional grounds — arguing that stripping the “duty of care” was essential to avoid First Amendment challenges. House leadership framed the reworked package as a realistic compromise designed to “withstand legal scrutiny,” rather than risk being invalidated entirely by the courts. But parents who lost children to online harms — and the organizations that stood behind the original KOSA — insist that what Congress is offering now is effectively empty. One parent described the House version as a “poison-pill” and “non-starter,” warning that current protections may end up worse than the existing patchwork of state laws.
Underlying the disagreement is a broader philosophical split: whether to prioritize robust legal accountability for tech firms — risking tighter restrictions on content — or preserve maximum platform freedom, with more modest regulatory guardrails. At this moment in Congress, the answer appears to lean toward the latter.