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On Tuesday, the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act was passed by the U.S. Senate in a 91-3 vote. The bill still has to be approved by the House before it can make it to President Biden’s desk.
Both of Alabama’s senators, Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville, voted in favor of the legislation. Britt has been a vocal supporter of restrictions on underage social media access since she was elected.
In June, Britt used the support of U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy for warning labels on social media to argue for passing the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act she had cosponsored.
Alongside Senators Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, Britt introduced the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act in 2023. The bill would require social media sites to verify users’ age, prevent children below 13 years old from using social media, and require parental consent for all underage social media use.
The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act doesn’t have the same minimum age restrictions as the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, but, if signed into law, it will still have significant effects on how kids can use social media.
The bill will severely restrict how social media websites can share and use children’s private data, and let parents change their children’s privacy settings, set time limits, and delete cached data. It will also establish a “duty of care” standard requiring companies to take “reasonable” measures to protect children on social media.
While these restrictions received almost universal support in the Senate, several advocacy organizations are much more skeptical.
Joe Mullin, a senior policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the self-described “leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world,” harshly criticized the bill. He claims its provisions could restrict access to news and history, sex education, and information about the LGBTQ+ community.
American Civil Liberties Union senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff said in a statement that “the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families.”
The three senators who voted against the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (Rand Paul, R-Kentucky; Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Ron Wyden, D-Oregon) all cited the possibility the bill would enable government censorship of the internet. This criticism is hardly baseless: Defending an earlier version of the bill, Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, said the bill was meant to “[protect] minor children from the transgender in this culture.”
Wyden said he was worried that “a future MAGA administration could still use this bill to pressure companies to censor gay, trans and reproductive health information.” Most senators were far less concerned about these possibilities.
“Senators Blackburn, Blumenthal, Cassidy, and Markey should be applauded for their diligent leadership in getting this legislation through the Senate,” Britt said. “There is still much to do, but the Senate’s passage of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act is a significant step in the right direction.”
Britt also used the passage of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act to attack Democratic leadership in the Senate. In part of her statement that she highlighted on X, formerly Twitter, the senator said “Senator Schumer should start prioritizing commonsense bipartisan legislation like this rather than monopolizing Senate floor time with partisan nominees and electoral show votes.”
In the past, Senator Britt has repeatedly criticized Senate Majority Leader Schumer for seeking to hold votes on bills protecting IVF and contraception, calling these pushes part of a “Summer of Scare Tactics.”
In the other chamber, House Majority Leader Mike Johnson has said he is uncertain about whether he’ll bring the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act up for a vote. In June, several key members of the House Republican leadership scuttled one attempt to pass protections for children on social media over a provision that would allow parents to sue social media companies for damages.
But if the bill does pass the House, President Biden has already promised to sign it. In a statement released after the Senate passed the bill, Biden said “our kids have been waiting too long for the safety and privacy protections they deserve and which this bill would provide.”
“I encourage the House to send this bill to my desk for signature without delay,” the president stated.
