Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), along with Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reintroduced the The Kids Online Safety Act on May 15, 2025. Blumenthal and Blackburn ran a similar bill two years ago (2023), but it did not make much progress, and there’s reason to believe that this attempt may also end as just a Bill-on-Capital Hill.
The bill seeks to impose a “duty of care” on “online platforms” likely to be used by minors, requiring them to prevent and mitigate harms such as bullying, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and exposure to age-inappropriate advertising. It also mandates that platforms provide robust parental controls, default to the highest privacy settings for minors, and allow both parents and minors to report harmful content.
The definition of “harmful material,” however, remains a moving target in this bill. The harmful material, as judged by a “reasonable and prudent person,” includes “compulsive usage,” “eating disorders,” “suicidal behaviors,” and “depressive disorders […] related to compulsive usage.” However, most of these terms, while well-meaning, don’t have clear-cut legal definitions. And what’s a “reasonable and prudent person” these days?
Which brings us to concerns about enforcement and unintended consequences.
KOSA would also grant authority to both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general to oversee compliance. Platforms that fail to provide protections could be prosecuted for unfair or deceptive acts or practices. The FTC could impose substantial civil penalties and require corrective actions. State attorneys general could bring civil actions on behalf of residents.
These consequences are real—and so are the unintended rabbit holes they expose. Could a large tech platform use the threat of legal action to drown an upstart competitor? Could the “reasonable person” standard get unwieldy when comparing New York City to Pickens County, Georgia? How granularly would the platforms be expected to surveil content and conversation? We don’t know.
Lots of work remains ahead for the law, but clearly the concerns giving rise to the Anxious Generation (that we overprotect our children in real life, and fail to protect online) have made it to the Hill. And that, as the song notes, is victory in itself.
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