US Senate advances two child online safety bills

By Moira Warburton and Jody Godoy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate on a broad bipartisan basis on Thursday advanced two online safety bills that would force social media companies to take responsibility for how their platforms affect children and teens, a step parents and advocates have demanded for years.

The bills cleared a critical procedural hurdle 86-1, setting the stage for a final vote next week.

"Big Tech, we no longer trust you to make decisions for us," said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the bills' sponsors. "Car manufacturers are required to install seatbelts and airbags. The same has to be true of social media companies."

The bills' future is unclear in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which has recessed until September.

The Kids Online Safety Act makes explicit a "duty of care" that social media companies have when it comes to minors using their products, focusing on design of the platforms and regulation of the companies.

It would require social media platforms to enable options for minors to protect their information and disable addictive product features by default, preventing and mitigating dangers to minors including suicide and disordered eating.

The Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act would ban targeted advertising to minors and data collection without their consent, and give parents and kids the option to delete their information from social media platforms.

The bills, nicknamed KOSA and COPPA 2.0, respectively, are the first major move to ensure children's safety online since COPPA was initially passed in 1998, before the advent of smartphones.

The bills would also allow researchers greater insight into companies' algorithms and how they impact children online, said Kris Perry, executive director of Children and Screens, a research nonprofit focused on the impact of digital media on minors.

"We've been in a decade-long experiment with children's well-being and platforms, and it's overdue to make the products safer and allow us to move to a new stage of deeper understanding of children's digital lives," Perry said.

Some tech companies have publicly backed congressional efforts to protect children online, with major players including Microsoft Corp and Snap Inc expressing support.

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms spokesperson Stephanie Otaway said that while the company supports standards for kids and teens online, federal law should instead require app stores to seek parental approval for downloads by users under age 16.

The Biden administration on Thursday backed the bills it said "would finally advance bold actions to hold Big Tech accountable," urging lawmakers to send it to Biden to sign into law "without delay."

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington and Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Scott Malone, Sam Holmes and Daniel Wallis)