The US Senate passes a bill requiring companies to take measures to protect children online
The US Senate has passed a bill that imposes a duty of care on platforms used by minors and requires them to take 'reasonable steps' to mitigate the risks of online bullying, sexual exploitation, drug advertising, etc. Proponents of this bill supported its passage from the viewpoint that 'while there are laws that protect children from alcohol and tobacco, there are no similar protections on the Internet.'
Senate passes the Kids Online Safety Act - The Verge
Senate passes bill to protect kids online and make tech companies accountable for harmful content | AP News
https://apnews.com/article/senate-child-online-safety-vote-f27c329679feb2d74787fc3887aa710f
US Senate passes first major child online safety bills in years
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-senate-major-child-online-safety.html
The bill that the Senate passed by a vote of 91 to 3 includes amendments to the Children's Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children's and Teen Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) .
KOSA imposes a duty of care on online platforms used by minors, ordering them to take 'reasonable steps' to mitigate certain harms, such as online bullying, sexual exploitation, drug advertising, eating disorders, etc. It also requires them to prevent unknown adults from communicating with children or viewing their personal information, restrict the ability to share a minor's location, and opt out of personalized recommendations for child accounts or at least limit the categories of recommendations.
The law also requires platforms to set children's privacy settings to the strictest defaults and implement parental control tools that allow parents to delete personal information, view their children's privacy settings to restrict purchases, and limit screen time.
COPPA 2.0 is based on the 1998 Children's Privacy Act of the same name, and the proposed amendments will raise the protected age from under 13 to under 17. Targeted advertising to children covered by the bill will also be prohibited.
Organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have expressed concerns that if this bill is passed, it will reduce the information that children can access and deprive them of their freedom of expression.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, commented, 'This law is about improving product design and safety, not about blocking or censoring content.' Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican who also sponsored the bill, said, 'We have laws that protect kids from buying alcohol, tobacco, and pornography, but the Internet lacks the same protections. As you can see on social media, there are no guardrails,' emphasizing that the law is necessary to protect children's safety.
On the other hand, the three senators who voted against the bill, Senators Ron Wyden (Democrat), Rand Paul (Republican), and Mike Lee (Republican), said they were concerned that KOSA could be used to censor information. Wyden commented, 'While this legislation makes it less likely that Trump supporters will incite teenagers, it opens the door to lawsuits against encrypted messaging services that kids use to stay safe.'
There was also discussion about 'children seeing information about LGBTQ+' in relation to this bill, with both supporters and opponents expressing concerns about 'children not being able to see information' and 'children seeing information.'
The House of Representatives is in summer recess until September, so deliberations will be put on hold for a while. According to the Associated Press, President Joe Biden encouraged the House of Representatives to send the bill to the president without delay. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told technology media The Verge, 'I look forward to reviewing the details of the bill.'
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