Lawmakers Are Preparing to Reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act

Lawmakers are aiming to reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act, a landmark social media regulation bill, before Memorial Day, Sen. Richard Blumenthal told NOTUS.

The bipartisan bill died in the House last year. But its backers are hoping it will be better received now than in the past thanks to their efforts to assuage concerns over online censorship from Republicans and social media leaders.

“We’re working on it, and I’m working with leadership,” Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a Republican who previously sponsored the bill in the House, told NOTUS. “We’re getting on the same page, it’s going to move.”

KOSA, first introduced by Blumenthal and Sen. Marsha Blackburn in 2022, would regulate how minors engage with social media platforms and force providers to mitigate the risks minors face while using their platforms.

Last year, language from the bill was included within a broader bill called the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act. It passed the Senate 91-3 but eventually died in the House after Republican leaders cited concerns about the bill being used to censor conservative viewpoints.

Republican fears of online censorship have been abated somewhat after Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders rolled back content moderation policies and took other steps to cozy up to President Donald Trump and his political movement.

Additionally, both Congress and the White House have shown an appetite for bills addressing online privacy. On Monday, the House passed the Take It Down Act, a bill requiring online services to remove nonconsensual sexual imagery from their platforms. The White House celebrated the bill as a top priority for first lady Melania Trump, and the president said he will sign the bill into law.

Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said they are confident they can reach a version of the bill that Speaker Mike Johnson could support before the end of the year.

“House Leadership should be for it and hopefully will be,” Blumenthal told NOTUS.

Johnson’s office did not comment on the bill’s prospects.

Bilirakis told NOTUS that KOSA will be reintroduced in the House as a standalone bill sometime this year, and that backers are currently working to resolve some differences in the bill’s language to gain broader support within GOP leadership.

Blumenthal and Blackburn worked with advisers from X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, last year to update the bill’s text to appease Republican leadership concerns.

“We are going to push [KOSA] through in the Senate again, and give our friends over in the House an opportunity to join us so we can get this to President Trump’s desk,” Blackburn said on Thursday during a radio interview.

—
Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.