House overhauls KOSA in a new kids online safety package

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a bundle of 19 bills aimed astatine protecting kids connected the internet, teeing Congress up for a accidental astatine passing immoderate of the astir substantive net regulations successful caller history, alongside a combat implicit online code rights.

The subcommittee connected commerce volition see the bills during a proceeding connected Tuesday, including the contentious Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). KOSA has been the centerpiece of advocacy from genitor survivors whose kids died aft suffering from a scope of online harms, including cyberbullying, sextortion, and drugs purchased done the internet. But the caller mentation of the measure omits the animating diagnostic of the Senate version that passed overwhelmingly past year: the work of care, which would person made tech platforms legally liable for mitigating harms stemming from their services, similar eating disorders and depression. Critics warned that could expanse up a big of ineligible speech, including resources that question to mitigate the precise harms KOSA aims to solve. 

In a caller House treatment draft, the work of attraction has been replaced by a request that societal media platforms person “reasonable policies, practices, and procedures” to woody with 4 discrete kinds of harm: “Threats of carnal violence,” “Sexual exploitation and abuse,” “Distribution, sale, oregon usage of narcotic drugs, baccy products, cannabis products, gambling, oregon alcohol,” and “Any fiscal harm caused by deceptive practices.” The grade of policies and procedures a level has to person would request to beryllium due to the standard and complexity of the level itself, and the method feasibility of addressing the harms. The caller mentation besides expands the explanation of who’s covered by the measure to see nonprofit platforms.

The bundle includes respective different important bills. Among them is the App Store Accountability Act, the national mentation of a measure that’s passed successful respective states requiring property verification astatine the app store level and transmitting property signals to developers. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) would rise the property of privateness protections from an earlier mentation of the instrumentality from nether 13 to nether 17, and prohibition targeted advertizing to those covered by the bill. The Reducing Exploitative Social Media Exposure for Teens (RESET) Act, presently a treatment draft, would prohibit societal media platforms from allowing immoderate kids oregon teens nether 16 to support accounts.

It’s a important measurement aft past year, erstwhile House Republican enactment passed connected the accidental to beforehand KOSA. Though the Senate approved it 91-3, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) disquieted astir the bill’s constitutionality and escaped code implications. Opponents accused them of cozying up to the tech manufacture owed to investments successful their state. Now, it appears that House enactment whitethorn travel done connected promises to reconsider kids online information authorities — but it already looks acold antithetic than what was projected past year, and there’s nary committedness it volition transverse the decorativeness line.