Bills that aim to lessen the harms kids and teens face online are getting further along in Congress than ever before. For years, these efforts have been stymied by divisions on the Hill and heavy lobbying by the tech industry.
But times may be changing.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on a package of nearly 20 bills earlier this month and then quickly approved them during a subcommittee markup.
A full panel session will likely happen in early 2026. It’s expected to go better than a similar markup last year on just one bill that, because of concerns by House Republican leadership, signalled the end rather than the beginning of that year’s kids protection efforts.
But there are major hurdles that lawmakers will need to leap over, or sneak around, if they want to get bills enacted.
The foremost, of course, involve significant inter-party, inter-chamber tensions over the Kids Online Safety Act — the social media design regulation that’s supposed to be the centerpiece of any kids-digital package.
Here’s what else Congress will need to sort out:
App Store bills. KOSA may be the subject of the most fireworks, but we wanted to start with these bills because they could end up changing the most in the coming weeks and months.
Currently, the House panel is considering two approaches to protect young smartphone users. One bill would verify ages using government IDs or other methods. The other would let parents control more of their kids’ app usage, including tailoring it to their kids’ stage of life.
But Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) told us he’s on board with the idea of combining the bills.
“We’re going to work to” get to a unified approach, Guthrie said, “The bottom line, parents need to control what they’re children are seeing.”
To do so will involve an interesting lobbying fight.
The age verification bill is Republican-only, for instance. Parent groups came up with it, but Meta, a longtime Apple antagonist, has given the idea a boost. Opponents now cite Meta as a reason to oppose the measure. Apple CEO Tim Cook came to the Hill last week to tell lawmakers his low opinion of the approach, too.
Meanwhile, the age-categories bill is bipartisan but needs to overcome (some) parent groups’ worries that it represents a Big Tech spoiler effort.
And over in the Senate, there hasn’t been quite the appetite for smartphone age verification.
KOSA. We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the political dynamics of this bill. The Senate supports design regulations (like limiting infinite scroll) that aim to rein in a wide range of harms while also placing a legal “duty of care” on social media platforms like Instagram. House Democrats love it.
But House Republicans have followed their leadership in focusing on a narrower range of harms and on obligations for platforms to have a plan to tackle those worries. The latter is in lieu of the legal duty, which House Republicans argue would be struck down in the courts.
Rep. Kathy Castor (Fla.), who was the Democratic co-lead on KOSA when it was a bipartisan bill last Congress, said she’s still working with Republicans.
“I’ve learned in this process, you keep pressing,” Castor said. We’ll note her list of priorities is a firm no-go for the GOP.
Of course, House Republicans may well be able to pass KOSA without Democratic votes.
That could start the process in the Senate, where support is veto-proof, but the next procedural steps aren’t clear. Staff for Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have told us he’ll take up the bill once the House has sorted out its differences.
Chatbots, COPPA, etc. We’ll flag a few other items to follow. Concern about chatbots’ effects on kids is a fast-moving issue. That doesn’t mean there’s one central approach.
The push to extend existing kids-digital privacy rules to teens has also run into issues similar to KOSA. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who led on both the kids and teens issues for years with bipartisan bills, slammed the House’s Republican-only version as “unacceptable.”
Kids advocates have also argued that, like the new House KOSA bill, the teen-privacy effort goes too far to overrule states that might have similar policies.
