Kids Online Safety Act
- Sponsor
- Rep. Bilirakis, Gus M. [R-FL-12]
- Committees
- Energy and Commerce Committee (primary)
- Last action
- Dec 11, 2025
Bottom line
The Kids Online Safety Act aims to enhance online safety for individuals under 17 by imposing new obligations on social media platforms to protect minors and empower parents with greater control over their children's digital interactions.
What it actually does
This bill mandates that covered online platforms establish policies and procedures to prevent specific harms to minors, including physical violence, sexual exploitation, drug distribution, and financial harm. It requires platforms to provide minors with safeguards to limit communication and compulsive usage, and offers parents tools to manage their children's online experience, including time limits and privacy settings. The bill also mandates annual independent audits of platforms' compliance and establishes a Kids Online Safety Council to advise Congress on online safety for minors.
Proponents argue
Supporters argue that this bill is crucial for protecting children and teenagers from the documented harms prevalent on social media platforms, such as cyberbullying, exposure to illicit substances, and content promoting self-harm. They contend it empowers parents with necessary tools to safeguard their children's mental health and privacy online, while holding platforms accountable for their design choices and content moderation practices that contribute to compulsive usage and other risks.
Opponents contend
Critics raise concerns that the bill's broad language could lead to over-censorship of legitimate content, infringe on minors' free speech rights, and necessitate extensive age verification measures that could undermine privacy for all users. They also argue that the compliance burden on platforms, particularly smaller ones, could be significant, potentially stifling innovation and leading to platforms restricting access for minors rather than implementing complex safeguards.
The bill is moderately complex due to its definitions and enforcement mechanisms, requiring a careful read to understand its full implications beyond the stated intent.
Section 3
Preventing Harm to Minors
This section requires covered online platforms to establish, implement, maintain, and enforce reasonable policies, practices, and procedures to address specific harms to minors. These harms include threats of physical violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, distribution or sale of narcotic drugs, tobacco, cannabis, gambling, or alcohol, and financial harm from deceptive practices. The policies must be appropriate to the platform's size, complexity, and technological feasibility.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that this provision is essential to create a safer online environment for minors by directly addressing the most egregious harms they face. They contend it places a necessary responsibility on platforms to proactively protect their youngest users.
Critics contend
Critics express concern that the broad definition of 'harm' and the requirement to 'prevent' it could lead to over-censorship and stifle legitimate speech. They also worry about the technical feasibility and potential for platforms to err on the side of caution, restricting access to information for minors.
Tradeoffs
This provision balances the desire to protect minors from harm with concerns about free speech, platform autonomy, and the practical challenges of content moderation at scale.
Section 4(a)
Safeguards for Minors
This section mandates that covered platforms provide minors with readily accessible and easy-to-use safeguards. These safeguards must allow minors to limit communications from other users and limit design features that promote compulsive usage (e.g., infinite scrolling, autoplay, notifications). Additionally, platforms must offer an option for minors to limit the amount of time they spend on the platform. Default settings for these safeguards must be the most protective level available.
Section 4(b)
Parental Tools
Covered platforms must provide parents with readily accessible and easy-to-use tools to support their minor children's use of the platform. These tools include the ability to manage a minor's privacy and account settings (including safeguards from subsection (a)), restrict purchases and financial transactions, and view/restrict the minor's total time spent on the platform. For children under 13, these tools must be enabled by default, unless a parent previously opted out.
Section 4(c)
Reporting Mechanism
Covered platforms are required to provide an easy-to-use reporting mechanism for users and visitors to submit reports of harm to minors. This includes an electronic point of contact for minor-related harms. Platforms must confirm receipt of reports and provide a substantive response within 10 days, or more promptly if an imminent threat to a minor's safety is reported.
Section 6
Annual Independent Audit and Report
This section mandates that covered platforms undergo an annual independent, third-party audit of their compliance with the Act's requirements. The audit must assess the platform's measures, safeguards, and parental tools, considering best practices for identifying and mitigating harms to minors. It must also include an accounting of minor users, time spent, policies, safeguard/tool exercise rates, and reporting mechanism effectiveness. Platforms must cooperate with auditors and submit the audit results to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Section 7
Enforcement by FTC and States
This section grants enforcement authority for violations of the Act to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and State Attorneys General. Violations are treated as unfair or deceptive acts under the Federal Trade Commission Act, allowing the FTC to use its full range of powers. State Attorneys General can bring civil actions on behalf of their residents to enjoin violations, enforce compliance, obtain damages, or seek other relief, with a notice requirement to the FTC and limitations if a federal action is already pending.
Section 8
Kids Online Safety Council
This section establishes a Kids Online Safety Council within the Department of Commerce. The Council's duties include submitting reports to Congress with recommendations and advice on online safety for minors, identifying risks and benefits, suggesting methods for assessment and mitigation of harms, and proposing best practices for audits. The Council will include academic experts, researchers, parents, minors, educators, platform representatives, constitutional law experts, and State Attorneys General.
Defines 'covered platform' with specific criteria, including being publicly available, enabling searchable usernames, facilitating user-generated content sharing, using design features to promote engagement, and using personal information for advertising/recommendations.
Section 2(4)
Why it matters:Standard legislative practice to define terms upfront, but the specific criteria here are crucial for determining which entities are subject to the bill.
Case for: Supporters argue that a precise definition ensures the bill targets platforms most relevant to the harms identified, particularly social media and content-sharing sites that leverage engagement algorithms and user data.
Case against: Critics might argue that the definition is still too broad or too narrow, potentially capturing unintended platforms or allowing others to escape regulation by slightly altering their features.
Estimated impact: Significantly impacts a wide range of social media, video sharing, and interactive content platforms, potentially excluding messaging apps or purely informational sites.
Defines 'design feature' as any feature encouraging or increasing user frequency, time spent, or activity, explicitly including infinite scrolling, autoplay, rewards/incentives, notifications, badges, and appearance-altering filters.
Section 2(5)
Why it matters:Standard legislative practice for defining terms, but the detailed list of features highlights specific targets of the bill's regulatory intent.
Case for: Proponents argue that explicitly listing these features ensures platforms cannot evade the spirit of the law by making minor cosmetic changes. These are known mechanisms for driving engagement and potential compulsive use.
Case against: Opponents might argue that this list is overly prescriptive and could stifle innovation in user interface design, or that some features (like notifications) are essential for platform functionality.
Estimated impact: Directly targets common design elements used by virtually all social media and content platforms, requiring potential redesigns or default limitations for minors.
Defines 'know' or 'knows' to mean 'to have actual knowledge or to have acted in willful disregard.'
Section 2(6)
Why it matters:Standard legal drafting for establishing a scienter (knowledge) standard, but its placement can obscure its significance.
Case for: Supporters argue this standard is appropriate for holding platforms accountable without imposing an impossible burden of knowing every single piece of content or interaction. 'Willful disregard' captures situations where platforms ignore obvious problems.
Case against: Critics might argue that 'willful disregard' is still too vague and could lead to platforms being held liable for harms they could not reasonably foresee or prevent, or that it encourages platforms to avoid looking for problems.
Estimated impact: Directly impacts the legal standard for platform liability under the Act, influencing how platforms investigate and respond to potential harms.
States that no State or political subdivision may prescribe, maintain, or enforce any law, rule, regulation, requirement, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law, if such provision relates to the provisions of this Act.
Section 10
Why it matters:Standard legislative practice for preemption clauses, but its impact on state-level innovation in online safety is substantial.
Case for: Proponents of preemption argue it creates a uniform national standard for online safety, preventing a confusing patchwork of state laws that could be difficult for platforms to comply with and potentially lead to inconsistent protections for minors across states.
Case against: Critics argue that this preemption clause stifles state-level innovation and experimentation in online safety, preventing states from enacting stronger protections tailored to local needs or from responding more quickly to emerging threats than the federal government.
Estimated impact: Significantly limits the ability of individual states to enact their own online safety legislation for minors, consolidating regulatory authority at the federal level.