Updated
Updated · CNBC · Aug 5
KOSA Clears Senate Panel With 76 Cosponsors as Duty-of-Care Fight Clouds Final Passage
Updated
Updated · CNBC · Aug 5

KOSA Clears Senate Panel With 76 Cosponsors as Duty-of-Care Fight Clouds Final Passage

3 articles · Updated · CNBC · Aug 5

Summary

  • A Senate Commerce Committee vote on Wednesday pushed the Kids Online Safety Act forward again, keeping alive a bipartisan child-safety bill that already has 76 Senate cosponsors.
  • The Senate version would impose a duty of care on platforms such as Meta, Snapchat and TikTok, require parental controls and study social media's effects on children's well-being.
  • That provision is also the main fault line with the House, which passed a broader online-safety package in June without the duty-of-care language, drawing sharp criticism from KOSA's Senate sponsors.
  • Civil-liberties groups including the ACLU and FIRE still oppose versions of the bill on privacy and censorship grounds, while the shrinking pre-election calendar and August recess leave little time to reconcile the chambers.

Insights

Will the CHATBOT Act protect children from risky AI chats, or create new privacy problems by pushing platforms to verify age more aggressively?
Can the SCREEN Act truly keep minors from explicit websites, or will VPNs and noncompliant platforms make the law easy to bypass?