Senate to take up legislation hiking online privacy for minors, Schumer says

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Senate will vote this week on legislation aimed at holding tech companies accountable for the information children are exposed to on their services, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday.

Speaking on the Senate floor, the New York Democrat signaled that there was enough support among his colleagues to take up the Kids Online Safety Act, sponsored by Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn.

“Unlike decades past, ensuring our kids’ safety today means ensuring their online safety,” said Schumer.

If made law, the proposed legislation, abbreviated as KOSA, would require social media platforms to use the highest possible privacy settings for minor users as a default. Companies would also be legally required to give minors options for protecting their information and allow them to opt out of algorithms that track their usage to recommend content.

The measure would further create a “duty of care” for social media companies, holding them liable for information on their services that could prove harmful to minors such as sexual exploitation material or promotion of suicide and eating disorders.

Social media has provided some benefits, Schumer told his colleagues on the floor Tuesday, but has posed risks and challenges in equal measure.

“We cannot set these risks aside,” he said. “On this issue, we desperately need to catch up.”

A tranche of online privacy bills geared towards minors, including the proposed measure and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin’s STOP CSAM Act, have enjoyed bipartisan support in recent months as Congress seeks to hold Big Tech accountable for potentially dangerous content hosted on their platforms.

Schumer applauded that collaboration, pointing out that nothing has galvanized lawmakers to act more than meeting with the families of children who were victims of online exploitation.

“This has been a long and bumpy road,” he said, “but one thing I’ve always known for sure: it will be worth it.”

Lawmakers have already taken aim at tech companies over how they’ve handled the safety of minors using their platforms. During a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill back in January, the Senate Judiciary Committee raked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other tech executives over the coals, arguing they had turned a blind eye to their platforms’ harmful effects on children.

“You have blood on your hands,” South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told the group, which also included X CEO Linda Yaccarino and Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel. “You have a product that’s killing people.”

The tech executives, some of whom were lukewarm on the act and other proposed privacy legislation, tried to reassure members of Congress that they were taking independent steps to shield children from dangerous content.

Zuckerberg, for instance, pointed out that his company had implemented features on photo-sharing app Instagram that would allow parents to set limits on app use and restrict who can engage with their kids’ content on the service.

The January hearing also saw the Facebook co-founder apologize directly to the families of online exploitation victims.

Lawmakers have remained largely unconvinced by Big Tech’s promises to clamp down on the promulgation of harmful material on their platforms.

“I think these parents will tell you that stuff hasn’t worked,” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar told Zuckerberg in January. “It gives parents control, but they don’t know what to do.”

In a statement Tuesday, Blumenthal and Blackburn celebrated the forward progress on their legislation.

“We thank Senator Schumer for taking this essential procedural step forward and for standing with us, the parents, and young people,” the senators wrote. “With overwhelming support in the Senate, we look forward to taking one step closer to seeing this bill signed into law.”

Opponents of the act, meanwhile, argue that the bill still has some major flaws that need to be ironed out before it can get a floor vote.

Aliya Bhatia, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement that the legislation as written would give the government too much authority over what information is suitable for children and teens.  She pointed out that that content could include information related to sexual and reproductive health, racial justice and LGBTQ issues.

“That content isn’t just constitutionally protected,” Bhatia said, “it can be critically important to many young people’s safety and security. In its current form, KOSA can still be misused to target marginalized communities and politically sensitive information.”

Schumer told his colleagues Tuesday that the Senate would vote to limit debate and move to final passage on the measure as soon as Thursday.

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