Senate passes the most significant child online safety bills in decades

The bills, known as KOSA and COPPA 2.0, were drafted after a series of emotional and powerful hearings focused on the harms of social media on young people.

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a pair of children’s online safety bills — a rare sign of bipartisan cooperation in the middle of a volatile and acrimonious presidential campaign.

But the legislation won’t make it to President Joe Biden’s desk any time soon. The House has just begun its six-week summer recess and won’t return to Washington until Sept. 9. And while he supports the “purpose” of the bills, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he’s still reviewing the legislation and hasn’t scheduled a vote.

The two bills in the package — known as the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, and the Children’s and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA 2.0 — are the most significant congressional action in decades to regulate social media’s impact on children and teens.

The lopsided vote was 91-3, with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah as the only no votes.

“This is why we came here — to get things done and do it in a bipartisan way that literally will save lives,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a former state attorney general, said in an interview last week. Blumenthal teamed with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on authoring KOSA.

“What we’re doing is giving parents and kids the tools to disconnect from harmful content, bullying, eating disorders, stuff that really hurts them, and also impose a duty of care on Big Tech that for too long has said ‘trust us’ and betrayed that trust,” Blumenthal said. “And now, they’re going to have to comply with a law that imposes a duty on them to mitigate or prevent harm.”

KOSA would require social media companies to better protect users under age 17. It also would require companies to provide guardians with more control over minors’ use of a platform and prevent certain features, such as autoplay. And it would require companies to give users dedicated pages on which to report harmful content.

COPPA 2.0, written by Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., would create stronger online privacy protections for anyone under age 17. It would also bar targeted advertising to kids and teens and create an eraser button for parents and kids by requiring companies to allow users to delete information.

Biden signed legislation three months ago that would ban the video-sharing app TikTok in the U.S. after the election unless its Chinese owner sells it.

Some tech companies, like Microsoft and Snap, the company that owns Snapchat, have endorsed KOSA. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, offered suggestions about how to improve the bill, while some other social media companies have not taken formal positions.

“We support the development of age-appropriate standards for teens online, and appreciate KOSA’s attempt to create a consistent set of rules for the industry to follow,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “However, we think there’s a better way to help parents oversee their teens’ online experiences: federal legislation should require app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps.”

Opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union and other free speech and civil liberties groups, argue that the bill’s definition of harm is too broad and that it could lead to censorship of content that promotes politically polarizing issues, gender equality or abortion rights.

“I fear this bill could be used to sue services that offer privacy-enhancing technologies like encryption or anonymity features that are essential to young people’s ability to communicate securely and privately without being spied on by predators online," Wyden said, explaining why he voted no.

But in recent months, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., worked closely with Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and the bills’ sponsors — Blumenthal, Blackburn, Markey and Cassidy — to address concerns and build support.

“Today, after a lot of hard work and a lot of twists and turns, we will pass KOSA and COPPA,” Schumer said in a floor speech Tuesday before the vote. “KOSA and COPPA will be perhaps the most important updates to federal laws protecting kids on the internet in decades. And it’s a very good first step.”

He said social media has benefits but also significant risks for children’s safety. He called on the House to quickly take up the package when it returns in September.

“These bills have real bipartisan momentum, so we should seize the opportunity to send them to the president’s desk,” Schumer said.

The Republican-led House, however, is looking to put its own mark on the legislation. Before the recess, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said her full committee is “planning to move forward” with marking up both bills — a process that could include changes that would need to pass the full House and then the Senate again before they became law.

“It’s very important that Congress act,” McMorris Rodgers, who is retiring from Congress at the end of the year, said in an interview.

Meanwhile, Johnson appeared bullish about passing the bills through the House before this Congress ends in January.

“We’re looking at details of it. Obviously, I believe in the purpose of the legislation. I think it’s really important,” he said. “But there’s a couple of questions we have about the details, but I think we can work it out, and I’d like to get it done.”

KOSA was drafted after a series of emotional and powerful hearings focused on the harms of social media on young people. Parents testified about how social media had driven their children to commit suicide or led to other harm. And senators demanded that social media executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, apologize to the parents in the room as they held photos of their deceased loved ones.

Those parents made the case "that our children are not a product that can be exploited by these social media companies," Blackburn said in a joint interview with Blumenthal. "As we did hearings, they stepped forward, they told their stories. They came to us and they said, ‘Let us be a part of this. Let us help.’"

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.

CORRECTION (July 31, 2024, 11:55 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ political party. McMorris Rodgers, of Washington, is a Republican, not a Democrat.

Scott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News.

Frank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.

Julie Tsirkin is a correspondent covering Capitol Hill.

Syedah Asghar is a Capitol Hill researcher for NBC News and is based in Washington, D.C.