WASHINGTON — The Senate plans to vote this week on a pair of children’s online safety bills, a rare moment of bipartisan cooperation a little more than three months before a heated presidential election.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Tuesday afternoon teed up a procedural vote on the social media bills, known as the Kid’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Children’s and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), with an initial vote planned for Thursday. A final vote could come next week unless senators in both parties agree to do it sooner.
While the online safety package appears poised to pass the Senate, it would also need to pass the House. Republican leaders there have also expressed strong interest in passing online safety legislation for children this Congress, but it’s unclear how soon that could happen. Lawmakers in both chambers are set to leave Washington for the August recess in the coming days.
Some tech companies like Microsoft and Snap, the company that owns Snapchat, have endorsed KOSA. But other social media companies have not taken a formal position.
Opponents, including the ACLU and other free speech and civil liberties groups, argue that the bill’s definition of harm is too broad and could lead to censorship of content that promotes politically polarizing issues, gender equality or abortion rights.
In recent months, Schumer had tried to move the bipartisan online safety bills to the Senate floor by unanimous consent, but those efforts were blocked by senators with objections.
Since then, Schumer has worked closely with Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and the bills’ sponsors — Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Bill Cassidy, R-La. — to address concerns and build broader support. KOSA has well over 60 co-sponsors, enough to overcome a filibuster from opponents.
Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Schumer said he spent the past month meeting with parents whose children took their own lives due to their experiences using social media.
“Nothing has galvanized me and so many others of us here in the Senate more to act on kids online safety than meeting with parents who’ve lost loved ones,” Schumer said. “Some of these kids were bullied, others were targeted by predators or had their personal, private information stolen — practically all of them suffered deep mental health anguish in some way, and felt like they had nowhere to turn.”
“And in far too many cases, their suffering ended in tragedy as they took their own lives,” he added.
Congress has struggled for more than a decade to regulate Big Tech. These two online safety bills have been considered the “low-hanging fruit,” the easiest to pass through the Senate and House on a bipartisan basis. The latest push comes on the heels of President Joe Biden in April signing legislation that would ban video-sharing app TikTok in the U.S. after the election unless its Chinese owner sells it.
KOSA, authored by Blumenthal and Blackburn, requires social media companies to provide better protections for users under the age of 17. It also requires companies to provide guardians with more control over a minor’s use of a platform and prevent certain features, such as autoplay. And it requires companies to give users a dedicated page to report harmful content to the platform.
COPPA 2.0, authored by Markey and Cassidy, would create strong online privacy protections for anyone under the age of 17. It also bars targeted advertising to kids and teens and creates an eraser button for parents and kids by requiring companies to allow users to delete information.
Blackburn, speaking at a news conference Tuesday with Blumenthal, said KOSA was drafted following a series of emotional and powerful hearings focused on the harms of social media.
“As we held those hearings, we heard from people who said, ‘I want to tell you my story,’” said Blackburn, flanked by family members of children who took their lives.
Once the bills pass the Senate, what happens next in the House is less certain. Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, D-Wash., said her full committee is “planning to move forward” with marking up both bills.
“It’s very important that Congress act,” McMorris Rodgers, who is retiring from Congress at the end of the year, told NBC News Tuesday.
Still, a markup hasn’t been scheduled yet and time is running short before the November election. The House is supposed to be in session next week, but with government funding bills stalled, GOP leaders could cancel votes next week and send lawmakers off on their monthlong August recess a week early. If that happens, House members would not return to Washington until Sept. 9.
House Republican leadership will determine if and when the legislation comes to the floor.
Schumer said Tuesday that lawmakers can’t afford any more delays.
“Social media has helped hundreds of millions of people to connect in new ways over the last two decades, but there are also new and sometimes serious health risks that come along with those benefits,” Schumer said. “We cannot set these risks aside, on this issue — we desperately need to catch up.”
