“And here we are”: Senate passes first child online safety legislation in almost 30 years
The protections are long overdue and must still clear the House and critics lament how long it took to get here. But the vibe among senators is that it’s better late than never.
The Senate passed a package of child online safety protections this afternoon that, if signed into law, would establish the first meaningful guardrails for tech companies against youth exploitation in the history of the social internet.
The protections are long overdue and still must clear the House. But they represent a bipartisan triumph for the four lead sponsors of the two bills featured in the package and the advocates who lobbied lawmakers for years to take action. They’re also a political win for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) whose patience and pliability served him well in the many moments it looked as though final passage would remain elusive.
The final vote was 91–3. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opposed the legislation.
Schumer said his devotion to the issue was due not only to his role as a leader and senator but also to his role as a grandfather to two grandchildren.
“I promised them that we’d get this done. I promised them I’d bring it to the floor. And today I’ve kept my promise,” he told reporters this afternoon. “But most importantly, we are one step closer to making our teens and our children across the US safer online.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)—who co-sponsored the Kids Online Safety Act, one of the bills in the legislation, with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)—said KOSA would empower young people to reclaim control over their online lives and give parents tools to safeguard those young people.
“We are on the cusp of a new era,” he added. “It is an era of accountability for Big Tech.”
Blackburn said the parents who shared their stories of how social apps harmed their kids were critical to the bill's passage through the Senate.
“This is a safety-by-design bill, a duty-of-care bill,” she said. “A message that we are sending to Big Tech: Kids are not your product. Kids are not your profit source. And we’re going to protect them on the virtual space.”
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) was the House author of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in 1998, which took major steps toward protecting the information of kids under 13 online, co-led COPPA 2.0 with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
“We’ve come a long way,” Markey said. “Back in 1998, only a bird tweeted. A ‘gram was a measurement of weight. And so we need to update the law.”
Cassidy called the 2024 version of the bill an interval update.
“This is taking that age of protection from less than 13 up to 17,” he said. “Why? Because back then, we didn’t have all this penetrating into the person’s mind without the parents having access to what they were seeing.”
KOSA would require tech companies to enable the strongest privacy settings for kids by default. It would provide kids under 16 with options to protect their personal information, turn off addictive product features and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations.
Blumenthal and Blackburn introduced KOSA in 2022 after reporting from The Wall Street Journal revealed tech giants' repeated failures to protect kids on their social apps. The lawmakers led five Senate subcommittee hearings that explored the harms of these failures.
The bill would also provide parents with new controls to help protect their children, spot harmful behaviors and offer parents and educators a dedicated channel to report it. Additionally, KOSA would establish an obligation for companies to prevent the promotion of self-harm, eating disorders, bullying and child sexual abuse material while authorizing the federal government to create a program for the National Academy of Sciences to access data from companies so it can further study tech’s potential harm to children and teens.
Markey and Cassidy reintroduced COPPA 2.0 last year to expand protections for children online.
Specifically, the bill would ban internet companies from collecting personal information from users who are 13 to 16 years old without their consent and prohibit targeted ads to these users.
The two senators touted the “Eraser Button” that COPPA 2.0 would require tech companies to provide to parents and kids so they can eliminate personal information from a child or teen when technologically feasible. COPPA 2.0 would also establish a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Teens” and a Youth Marketing and Privacy Division at the Federal Trade Commission. The legislation would also revise COPPA’s knowledge standard to cover apps that are “reasonably likely to be used” by children and protect users who are “reasonably likely to be” children or minors.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing in February with the CEOs from Discord, Snap, TikTok, X and Meta on the child sexual exploitation crisis. As I reported at the time, the hearing represented a shift in how America views tech companies and their leaders: For almost two decades, the industry was revered for transforming how we work and live with little understanding or regard for the treacherous business models that undergird the apps we coexist with.
As monumental as today is, advocates are intensely frustrated with how long it took to get here. Researchers have been sounding the alarm for years about the harms of social apps on teens. Executives from some of the aforementioned companies sat before committee after committee filibustering against anything but the status quo.
In fact, my previous newsletter Supercreator News evolved into a politics newsletter because I was fascinated by the disconnect between federal policy and the creator economy—and the companies that enable it. These companies are, in Meta’s case, worth upwards of a trillion dollars. And you’d be within reason to wonder if and when these new protections would affect these companies’ bottom lines in a meaningful way.
Since the Senate requires a week of floor time to perform the most basic functions, Schumer tried for months to fast-track passage of the bills—but to no avail.
“We looked at every way to try and get this done. The preference was to first try to get done by [unanimous consent votes], then to put it on must-pass bills,” he said, “But I always promised that if we couldn’t do it those ways, I will put the bill on the floor. And here we are.”
However, Fight for the Future—the group behind the largest online protests in human history—claims KOSA endangers online content about LGBTQ resources, reproductive healthcare, and other lifelines for marginalized communities. FFTF called on lawmakers concerned about online safety should reject KOSA and instead pass a federal data privacy law and measures that do not threaten online communities that queer and trans youth depend on.
“I’m very proud that we did the work necessary to draft and revise and meet concerns and put together a huge bipartisan coalition,” Sen. Blumenthal told me.
The White House said in a policy memo last week that it strongly supports the bill because it would address the unprecedented mental health crisis among youth in the United States due to the rise of social media and other online platforms.
President Joe Biden called today’s Senate passage an answer to the call from the Unity Agenda in his first State of the Union address, which called for strengthening privacy protections, banning targeted advertising to children, and demanding tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children.
“The last time Congress took meaningful action to protect children and teenagers online was in 1998—before the ubiquity of social media and smartphone,” Biden said in a statement. “Our kids have been waiting too long for the safety and privacy protections they deserve and which this bill would provide. This is more important than ever with the growing use of AI.”
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The fate of the package now rests in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has indicated support for reining in Big Tech’s unfettered
But with an election less than 100 days away, control of the House up for grabs, and a looming government funding deadline just a few weeks after Congress returns from a six-week recess, it’s unclear if Johnson will invest precious floor time to advance the bill through regular order.
Schumer told reporters he would work with the House to take up the Senate version of the bill as opposed to the House companion legislation for KOSA and COPPA 2.0, which would require another Senate vote.
“The first thing we’ve done today is going to help a lot. I don’t know what the final vote was, but it was something like only two or three people [who voted against the bill],” Schumer told reporters before the final tally was announced. “So that speaks pretty loudly. But second, I will work with whoever I can in the House to persuade them to get this done.”
He also said artificial intelligence and data privacy were the next focus areas now that the child online safety bills were across the finish line.
“We have more to go and we’re going to keep working at it,” Schumer told me. “This was a good first step.”
Markey, who served in the House for more than 35 years, said his colleagues across the Capitol can’t avoid taking action in this historic moment.
“I would just urge them to deal with this issue. The Surgeon General from the CDC say we have a teenage and child mental health crisis in our country. Two years ago, one in 10 teenage girls in America attempted suicide. One in five LGBT youth attempted suicide,” the senator said. “And the Surgeon General and CDC have implicated social media is a big part of this problem. So we have to give the tools to parents and to teenagers to protect themselves.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), a senior member of the House E&C Committee, told me last week that it was past time for lawmakers to implement these protections for kids.
“And that’s the basis for the future of the internet,” she said. “I hope we can get our act together on this side of the building.”
Clarke suggested that if the bill doesn’t receive House consideration in September, it could regain traction during the lame-duck period between Election Day and the inauguration.
“Hope springs eternal,” Clarke added.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) expressed similar optimism for the online child safety legislation and the DEFIANCE Act, a Senate-passed bill led in the House by a fellow New Yorker that would guarantee federal protections for survivors of nonconsensual deepfake pornography for the first time.
“I am hopeful that we will see bipartisan legislation that emerges from the Senate taken up on the floor of the House of Representatives upon our return, including legislation that has been championed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez here in the House.”
Joint Senate committees probe Trump assassination attempt
The Senate Judiciary and Senate Homeland Security Committees received testimony this morning from acting Secret Service Ronald Rowe, Jr. and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate on the security failures that led to the assassination attempt against former President Trump.
Abbate disclosed that authorities had discovered an unconfirmed social media account they believed to belong to shooter Thomas Crooks from 2019 to 2020 that contained antisemitic and anti-immigration content.
Rowe described his visit to the scene of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa. where he positioned himself on the same roof as Crooks to understand the shooter’s vantage point.
“What I saw made me ashamed,” he said. “I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”
Rowe also placed significant blame on local law enforcement for failing to secure the building Crooks committed the shooting from.
The acting Secret Service chief further explained a critical 30-second delay between local police spotting Crooks on the roof and the onset of his shooting due to a breakdown in radio communication. The agency’s radio communications from the day of the shooting were unrecorded, a policy Rowe said he has since changed.
Rowe offered his testimony after former Secret Service Director Kim Cheattle resigned last week following a House Oversight Committee hearing, during which she received widespread criticism from members of both parties for the security lapses.
The hearing came a day after Speaker Johnson and Leader Jeffries announced the seven Republicans and six Democrats who will serve on the bipartisan House task force to investigate the attempted assassination.
“We have the utmost confidence in this bipartisan group of steady, highly qualified and capable members of Congress to move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability and help make certain such failures never happen again,” Johnson and Jeffries said in a joint statement.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) announced today’s hearing in a floor speech the day before the two committees were briefed by Secret Service and FBI officials who assured the senators they would properly coordinate with local and state authorities and address all potential vulnerabilities at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.
Meg the Stallion to headline Harris rally
Rapper Megan the Stallion will join Vice President Kamala Harris for a special performance during a major campaign rally tonight in downtown Atlanta on the campus of Georgia State University.
The Grammy Award-winning artist teased the appearance on her Instagram last night after the campaign confirmed the news. Billboard was the first to report it.
Harris is expected to speak about the vision she would pursue as the next president. The vice president will also characterize former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as extremist weirdos who want to strip women and minorities of their freedoms and radically reshape the federal government with fewer guardrails against authoritarianism.
Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Rep. Nikema Williams will be among the members of the Georgia congressional delegation in attendance. The three members traveled with Harris from DC to Atlanta on Air Force Two, a special treat for Williams as she celebrates her birthday today.
Warnock told me the excitement and energy in Georgia on the ground is palpable.
“My phone has been blowing up over the last few days from constituents who are just excited that she’s coming.”
Georgia flipped the Senate blue in 2021 when it elected Ossoff and Warnock in runoff elections months after it delivered Biden the presidency by less than 12,000 votes, enabling congressional Democrats and him to enact a historic legislative agenda. (Georgia was the only state in the Deep South Biden carried in 2020). The state helped Democrats defy expectations and hold the Senate during the 2022 midterms when it re-elected Warnock to a full six-year term.
It was the only state in the Deep South he carried in 2020 and is expected to play a decisive role in the outcome of the general election in November.
“Kamala Harris is coming back because she knows that the road to the White House goes through Georgia,” Warnock said.
As for the senator’s thoughts on Megan the Stallion stumping for the veep?
“We need all hands on deck.”
Harris campaign launches first ad in $50M pre-DNC blitz
The rally comes after the Harris campaign launched a new ad this morning featuring footage from her first rally as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in Milwaukee last week.
“This campaign is about who we fight for. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not to just get by, but to get ahead. Where every senior can retire with dignity,” she says in the ad. “But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward, to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and end the Affordable Care Act. But we are not going back.”
The ad’s strategy is two-fold: (1) Introduce Harris as an indomitable prosecutor who took and won against big banks before doing the same to Big Pharma as vice president and (2) outline the contours of a Harris administration’s agenda at a time when Republicans are resurfacing previous policy positions from her 2020 primary campaign to characterize her as an out-of-touch San Francisco liberal.
The 60-second spot is part of a $50-million paid media blitz across battleground states ahead of the DNC next month. It will run on local and national broadcast, cable programming, streaming, and social channels during high-audience events like the Olympic Games, as well as programs like The Bachelorette, Big Brother, The Daily Show, Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta and The Simpsons. Shorter fifteen-second and six-second versions of the ads will also reach voters on smart TV, audio and social platforms.