The new legislation significantly updates a decades-old law to safeguard children’s safety on the internet.
The Senate has cleared procedural hurdles for two bills that protect children’s safety and privacy online, readying them for a floor vote with a guaranteed passage next Tuesday.
The new legislation significantly updates a decades-old law to safeguard children’s safety on the internet. The rules for the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) became effective in 2000, four years before Facebook was created.
“Today, the Senate takes a groundbreaking step towards ensuring our kids’ online safety, a.k.a. social media,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been instrumental in pushing the bills to a floor vote before the summer recess.
“The bills will provide the appropriate guardrails necessary to protect kids against online threats. It’s not an exaggeration to say these bills will be the most important updates in decades to federal laws that protect kids on the Internet. And it’s a very good first step,” he added.
One of the bills, COPPA 2.0, expands the age limit for protected minors from 13 to 16. It also requires social media platforms to obtain consent from users 13 to 16 before collecting their personal information and bans advertising targeting children and teens.
The other bill, known as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), requires social media companies to take measures to prevent the spread of harmful content related to suicide, eating disorders, bullying, and drugs.
Specifically, KOSA addresses tech companies’ algorithms for keeping users consuming content. It requires tech companies to allow minors to limit the category of recommendations or opt out of personalized recommendation systems that facilitate infinite scrolling.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-K.Y.), the only one who voted “no” to advance the bills, objected to KOSA, citing that the bill was too broad and that it would create a Kids Online Safety Council that he considered as “speech police.” He said KOSA would cause “fear of liability, fear of lawsuits” and lead to self-censorship by social media platforms, which in turn, would stifle freedom of speech.
By Terri Wu
