A controversial child safety bill may be struck down – and no one is happy

One of the biggest flashpoints in Internet regulation, the Children’s Online Safety Act, is poised for a revival — but perhaps without the central feature that has had people fighting over it for the past three years.

Since 2022, KOSA’s supporters have supported its plan to require web platforms to protect children from a variety of online harms, imposing what is known as a duty of care. This faction includes parents whose children died after being cyberbullied, being victims of sextortion, or obtaining illegal drugs online. They believe the prospect of new legal liability could prompt companies to change their policies to prevent further tragedies — even as opponents raise concerns that it will lead platforms to over-censor content, including LGBTQ resources. Cosa died in the House after overwhelmingly passing the Senate last year — and it was Reintroduced in the Senate In May, another battle begins.

Now, those parents are hearing — from congressional staff and civil society groups close to the process — that KOSA could return to the House with the duty to provide care eliminated. The rumored changes could see KOSA’s core governance go out with a whimper, even as lawmakers are rumored to be planning a package of several child safety bills soon after the government reopens from the shutdown.

Meanwhile, for some long-time COSA opponents, eliminating the duty of care could resolve a major concern they have about the bill: that it could incentivize social media companies to remove useful and potentially life-saving resources for children from marginalized communities. But a comprehensive child safety package could deliver that Pyrrhic victory, by juxtaposing the devastating COSA law with bills that would have similarly troubling consequences for online speech.

KOSA’s duty of care will not formally require platforms to remove legal speech or prevent children from searching for any type of content, but it will require services to mitigate some of the harms on their platforms, including health issues such as eating disorders and depression. This has long concerned civil liberties groups. Sarah Phillips, of Fight for the Future, says that rather than risk the possibility of a potentially harmful post slipping through the cracks into a minor’s algorithmic feed, the simplest thing the platform can do is remove that content. Fight for the Future was particularly interested in how KOSA would impact resources for LGBTQ youth, at a time when access to gender-affirming healthcare has become increasingly politicized—despite the presence of several prominent LGBTQ advocacy groups. They withdrew their opposition to Xhosa After previous reviews. “When it comes to technology policy, you have to think about how companies behave, not just what the laws say,” Phillips says.

Without a duty of care, KOSA would still introduce new standards, such as requiring children’s accounts to default to the highest level of security settings available, and restricting features intended to keep users online for as long as possible, such as infinite scrolling. Phillips says these other aspects of the bill are things that Fight for the Future will likely get behind, although all the energy surrounding the bill so far has been focused on the duty of care. For supporters and opponents alike, the other requirements alone represent a more modest change than Xhosa herders had envisioned.

Cosa’s original sponsors in the Senate insist the bill needs a duty of care. “There is no appetite for watering down the bill,” says Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in a statement. “Creating a ‘duty of care’ through the Child Online Safety Act is essential to protecting our children and giving parents peace of mind,” says Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

But House Republicans, who were behind the bill’s failure last year, could threaten to let COSA fail again unless the duty of care is repealed or significantly changed. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) did not put KOSA to a vote last year after the Senate overwhelmingly approved it. They are both concerned about possible speech problems Johnson calls it “Very problematic” and Scalise warning It “will empower dangerous people.” The message that KOSA could enable oversight “resonated with a wide range of people,” Phillips says. “And right now, I think Democrats are particularly failing to listen to those concerns, especially in this political moment where we’re seeing a lot of oversight and a lot of alignment with Big Tech with this administration.”

Supporters expect KOSA to be included in a package of potentially more than a dozen bills related to online safety, which will likely be introduced in the House Energy and Commerce Committee after the government reopens. It will likely be joined by the Children and Adolescent Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0); SAMI’s Law, a bill that would allow parents to use third-party tools on social media sites to get alerted about harmful activity; and the App Store Accountability Act, which requires app stores to verify users’ ages.

Groups like Fight for the Future say some of these bills will lead to entirely new risks of digital surveillance and erosion of privacy. For example, the App Store Accountability Act could create the same privacy concerns Other age verification rulesA chilling legal letter. Fight for the future He also warned that the law is sublime It could call for increased online monitoring of children.

Two parent advocates I spoke to Edge They say they are open to alternatives to the duty of care, if they achieve the same goal of protecting children from online harms without burdening parents. But they are hesitant about whether that will happen. They’re left bracing to see a version of KOSA that looks very different from the one they spent countless days traveling to Washington going forward, and hoping they won’t be “traumatized,” says Maureen Mulack, whose son David died by suicide after being subjected to cyberbullying and compulsive social media use.

So far, the bill’s sponsors have held the COSA text close to the chest. Parents’ opinions were “very welcome and accepted in the Senate,” but the experience was different in the House, Mulak says. In statements by L Edgethe House co-sponsors of COSA and the leadership of the Energy and Commerce Committee did not directly address what would happen with the duty of care. “No single bill can address all the threats children face, and we will consider many proposals that seek to protect children,” Daniel Kelly, a spokesman for the Republican-led committee, said in a statement.

His spokeswoman, Summer Blevins, said in a statement that KOSA remains a “top priority” for House co-sponsor Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), and he urged Democrats to reopen the government to focus on it. Democratic sponsor and Florida Rep. Kathy Castor praised the Senate’s reintroduction of the bill, which included a duty of care. “I encourage House Republican leadership to spend more time listening to families who fear House relief from COSA, and less time meeting with Big Tech CEOs who value profits over children’s best interests,” Castor said in a statement.

Phillips sees politicians’ framing of COSA as a blanket solution as a “departure” from dealing with the core issues plaguing families, such as health care and child care. “A lot of the issues that Congress should actually be addressing are not being addressed by Congress, and they are presented as a Big Tech issue and we will deal with Big Tech,” she says.

Either way, the stop-and-start movement around KOSA over the past few years has been a challenge for parents who have devoted their energy and grief to moving the bill forward. Deb Schmell, whose teenage daughter Becca died of fentanyl poisoning after purchasing the drug through a social media platform, says she put her “heart and soul” into defending Cosa, including moving to Washington for three months. “It’s not just about our children’s legacy,” she says. “It’s knowing that if we fail, and when we fail, other children will die. And that’s a huge burden to bear. And so, it’s heartbreaking, it’s frustrating, it’s crazy that we go through this process and not see anything come of it.”