The Kids Online Safety Act: Implications and Consequences
Background
The Kids Online Safety Act or KOSA as it is called is a bill that was introduced on February 22, 2022, and was updated by the Senate on May 14, 2025 with the co-sponsors of this bill being Martha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat[1]. The goal for this bill is to protect children from excessive Internet use for the sake of their mental health[2]. Senator Blackburn argues that by passing this bill it will prevent children from encountering harmful content. What this bill is especially proposing is the prevention of harm to children who are suffering from eating disorders, substance use, suicidal behavior, depression, and anxiety. This also includes children who are victims of physical violence, online harassment, sexual exploitation, and abuse.
The bill if passed will prevent harm to children by placing safeguards on online sites. These online safeguards which must be enacted include limiting the ability of users communicating with a minor, viewing and sharing a minor’s personal data and finally limiting design features that increase activity on online sites such as infinite scrolling, autoplay, notifications, and other design features that encourage compulsive usage.
This bill had bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats with former president Joe Biden writing a statement in 2024 saying, “There is undeniable evidence that social media and other online platforms contribute to our youth mental health crisis”[3].
Some big tech companies such as Microsoft, X, and Apple have supported this bill in a hearing in 2024 with X spokesperson Joe Benarroch stating, “We support the Kids Online Safety and will work to preserve freedom of speech for all groups”[4].
These supporters see the bill as the protection needed to prevent children coming into contact from harmful internet content. However, there have been critics who have raised alarm bells about the implications and consequences of this bill if passed and have actively tried to stall it. They believe it could violate first amendment rights and affect marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ community. Thus, the question is, how do we protect children without causing more harm for the sake of good?
The bill was introduced in February and had a 91-3 bipartisan vote in July that was passed by the Senate. The House of Energy and Commerce Committee in September passed a weak version of the bill but it was struck down by House Speaker Mike Johnson who was preoccupied with governmental shutdown[5]. While the bill was going through redrafting, Meta made PAC donations to not only Republican candidates but also lobbying groups while suing states who tried to implement age-verification laws.
This bill while struck down by Congress in 2024 could still be revived with enough support and could have massive ramifications for the Internet and users online. With support and critics of the KOSA bill still fighting over it, it is important to understand why the controversy is still being debated in 2025.
Arguments For KOSA: Safety of Children
The bill has support from big tech companies such as X, Apple, and Microsoft. Apple released a statement written by Senior Director Timothy Powderly saying, “In this spirit, Apple is pleased to offer our support for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Everyone has a part to play in keeping kids safe online, and we believe your legislation will have a meaningful impact on children’s online safety”[6].
Big tech, according to Senator Blackburn, has not been doing anything to make their platforms safer. She states this in her website saying, “We would never allow our children to be exposed to pornography, sexual exploitation, drugs, alcohol, and traffickers in the physical space, but these platforms are allowing this every single day in the virtual space. Congress must not cave to the wills and whims of Big Tech, and we must not be bullied into submission. Now it is the time to stand up and protect future generations from harm by passing KOSA”[7].
Senator Blumenthal has stated in Blackburn’s website that “There’s an undeniable awareness of the destructive harms caused by Big Tech’s exploitive, addictive algorithms, and inescapable momentum for reform”. With Blumenthal, South Dakota Democrat Majority Leader John Thune and New York Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have supported this bill with them citing reports and sources showing the harm that it has caused to children.
A recent report by the Wall Street Journal has shown evidence that the company Meta had A.I. chatbots discussing sexually explicit “romantic role-play” to underage users.[8] This has lead Blackburn and Blumenthal to write a letter to Mark Zuckerberg about this report. Another report on Instagram stated that child groomers connected with minors on their app according to Bloomberg[9]. This has led to many Republican and Democratic senators arguing that these sites are harming children in the digital space.
KOSA has been endorsed by 250 national, state and local governments for this bill with endorsements such as Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr, Kellyanne Conway, Harmeet Dhillon, Richard Grenell, and Sebestian Gorka.
However, the bill has its critics with many of them arguing for digital rights, first amendment rights, and protection for marginalized youth groups.
Arguments Against KOSA: Freedom of Speech
The bill if passed according to the critics could have major implications for freedom of speech laws and consequences for Internet users especially those who are queer, trans identifying, or vulnerable youth. This bill even with bipartisan support has been stalled in Congress as House Speaker Mike Johnson cautioned Republicans with passing this bill worrying that it could violate free speech laws. Amy Bos, Netchoice director of state and federal affairs which Meta is a member of, has argued that this bill was threatening freedom of speech saying, “Stripping American parents and guardians of their authority and choice, replacing them with a council of bureaucrats to parent their kids online, and compelling them to surrender personal information for themselves and their children to exercise free speech is a perilous path and a breach of protect rights”[10].
The American Civil Liberties Union have argued in a letter that this bill could have wider effects towards potential first amendment violations. It states in the letter saying, “While this bill’s purported goal of addressing child safety online is laudable, it means-singling out particular topics for censorship by social media companies -will silence important conversations, limit minors’ access to potentially vital resources, and violate the First Amendment by imposing a government-mandated content moderation rule. KOSA’s purported intent to regulate certain harms would disfavor content related to ‘anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors’ and could chill any speech tied to youth stress-from discussions about how conversion therapy has harmed LGBTQ+ youth to young people’s worries about climate change to concerns about school shootings”[11].
Jenna Leventoff, Senior Policy Counsel at ACLU has argued that this bill if passed could lead to governmental censorship saying, “As state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families. The House must block this dangerous bill before it’s too late”[12]. Organizations that are arguing for first amendment rights are supported by LGBTQ+ rights organizations as well.
The Coalition Letter from the Center for Democracy & Technology argues that this bill will according to the text, “…undermine those goals for all people, but especially children, by effectively forcing providers to use invasive filtering and monitoring tools; jeopardizing private, secure communications; incentivizing increased data collection on children and adults; and undermining the delivery of critical services to minors by public agencies like schools”[13].
They state in their letter that the bill would have several consequences that would enable governmental filtering for young people. The letter states, “KOSA would require online services to ‘prevent’ a set of harms to minors, which is effectively an instruction to employ broad content filtering to limit minor’s access to certain online content.” This content filtering according to the CDT would be imprecise as the Children’s Internet Protection ACT, a statute passed in 2000 in which libraries and schools filtered information could curtailed important information that would have been helpful to vulnerable youth such as sexual education and LGBTQ+ resources. By allowing KOSA to pass it would be cutting off another avenue of information for young people.
Not only will this be affecting vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth but youth who are experiencing domestic violence or parental abuse at the risk of digital surveillance that would prevent them from seeking help or support and could according to the letter, “jeopardize young people’s access to end-to-end encrypted technologies, which they depend on to access resources related to mental health and to keep their data safe from bad actors”.
This bill has critics from notable organizations that have warned of the bill’s intent but have argued that it would have caused more censorship, more surveillance, and more harm to marginalized groups. So, the question remains what are the alternatives?
Conclusion and Moving Forward
While the bill is still in Congress and has been reintroduced since the vote in 2024, it still has support from its proponents such as Donald Trump Jr. who on X quoted that “We can protect free speech and our kids at the same time from Big Tech. It’s time for House Republicans to pass the Kids Online Safety Act ASAP”[14]. However, KOSA has been updated to inform the public that the bill would not be censoring, limiting, or removing any content from the Internet and does not give the Federal Trade Commission or State Attorney General the power to bring lawsuits over content or speech.
This bill has been updated with the intent to prevent any first amendment violations and over-moderation. But this bill is still sitting and waiting in Congress to be passed. It has been reintroduced as stated above on May 14, 2025, meaning that this bill can still have support if enough senators and co-sponsors work together to pass this bill through Congress, House, and Senate. Regardless, the proponents and opponents have one thing in common and that is the protection of children from digital harm.
Supporters argue for more guardrails to protect children while at the same time enacting protocols that according to critics would lead to censorship, control over digital information, and governmental surveillance that would impact marginalized groups. Even with the updated redrafted version of KOSA, it would according to opponents be a violation of first amendment rights, digital rights, and digital information. The proponents of KOSA, however, see the bill as something essential to keeping the internet safer for children by putting tech companies accountable and responsible for their lack of any guardrails or safety nets that could prevent further harm to children.
The issue with KOSA is a complex one that questions the politics of cyberspace while at the same time bringing up topics of digital ethics, questions of government control, and digital safety. The answer is not simple and there might not be an easy solution to this. Both sides have compelling arguments, but each has their pros and cons. Both sides have the same goal, but different methods to reach that goal with both sides disagreeing on what is the best course of action. One thing that is clear though is that this bill won’t be going away and will reappear again on the news feed someday or any other day. KOSA is a reminder of what is at stake. There aren’t winners and losers, only debaters. What remains is the search for an answer to a problem that cannot be solved through only just debate. For centuries parents have been concerned on what children are watching and seeing, from saying “TV will rot your brain”, to infinitely scroll on TikTok videos. It is a constant reminder that the ethical conundrum of safety and protection towards children is not a new phenomenon, but the digital age creates and ambiguity that further complicates questions on safety, protection, and freedom.
[1] Congress.gov. “S.1748 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Kids Online Safety Act.” May 14, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1748.
[2] Rebecca Schneid, “Kids Online Safety Act-What to Know as Kosa Is Reintroduced,” Time, May 25, 2025, https://time.com/7288539/kids-online-safety-act-status-what-to-know/.
[3] Joe Biden, “Statement from President Joe Biden on Senate Passage of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act | The White House,” National Archives and Records Administration, July 30, 2024, https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/30/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-senate-passage-of-the-kids-online-safety-and-privacy-act/.
[4] Taylor Hatmaker, “Microsoft, x Throw Their Weight behind Kosa, the Controversial Kids Online Safety Bill,” TechCrunch, January 31, 2024, https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/31/x-microsoft-kosa-kids-online-safety-bill/.
[5] Ruth Reader and Erin Schumaker, “Meta Wins,” POLITCO, December 19, 2024, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2024/12/19/meta-wins-00195283.
[6] Timothy Powderly to Marsha Blackburn & Richard Blumenthal, “KOSA Letter” (Washington D.C., Washington D.C.: Washington D.C., May 14, 2025).
[7] Marsha Blackburn, “Blackburn, Blumenthal, Thune, and Schumer Introduce the Kids Online Safety Act,” U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, May 20, 2025, https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2025/5/technology/blackburn-blumenthal-thune-and-schumer-introduce-the-kids-online-safety-act.
[8] Jeff Horwitz, “Meta’s ‘Digital Companions’ Will Talk Sex With Users—Even Children,” Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf.
[9] Riley Griffin and Kurt Wagner, “Meta Antitrust Trial: FTC Says Instagram Urged ‘Groomers’ to Connect with Minors - Bloomberg,” Instagram Suggested ‘Groomers’ Connect With Minors, FTC Says, May 6, 2025, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-06/instagram-urged-groomers-to-connect-with-minors-ftc-says.
[10] Ruth Reader, “Politico pro: Mark Zuckerberg and Meta Got a Big Win. They Have the House GOP to Thank.,” subscriber.politicopro.com, December 25, 2024, https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2024/12/mark-zuckerberg-meta-congress-bill-00195958.
[11] Cody Venzke to Maria Cantwell & Ted Cruz, “Letter to Senate Leaders on KOSA’s Potential Violation of the First Amendment” (Washington D.C., Washington D.C.: Washington D.C., July 27, 2023).
[12] Jenna Leventoff, “ACLU Slams Senate Passage Of Kids Online Safety Act, Urges House to Protect Free Speech,” American Civil Liberties Union, July 30, 2024, https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-slams-senate-passage-of-kids-online-safety-act-urges-house-to-protect-free-speech.
[13] Emma Llanso to Chuck Schumer, Maria Cantwell, Roger Wicker, “Coalition Letter On Privacy and Free Expression Threats in Kids Online Safety Act” (Washington D.C., Washington D.C.: Washington D.C., November 28, 2022).
[14] Trump, Donald Jr. [@DonaldJTrumpJr] (2024, December 8) We can protect free speech and our kids at the same time from Big Tech. It’s time for House Republicans to pass the Kids Online Safety Act ASAP. [Post] X. https://x.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1865735932328161497
