In a landslide bipartisan and historic feat, the Senate today voted to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Child and Teen Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) which were stitched together to move out of the Senate in one bill: KOSPA (Kids Online Safety & Privacy Act). The vote was 91-3. This is the first comprehensive bill passed in an effort to protect kids online since the very first COPPA law went into effect in 1998. (Yes, before your kids were born.) Legislation on the House of Representatives side has been introduced and will likely be pushed hard in the September, but we are TAKING GROUND!
Make no mistake, parents made this happen. With some help from Gen Z.
Parents stood up—not just parents in Congress, but from every walk of life all over the country. They wrote emails, signed petitions, placed calls, shared information online, tagged senators in social media posts, and visited offices in D.C. to say enough is enough! The dozens of survivor-parents who showed up for the Big Tech hearing in January played a huge part in this victory as they advocated for their children who lost their lives as a result of the dangers of social media.
And we have to recognize the vital role Gen Z played in getting this legislation over the finish line. Organizations like the Wired Human Youth Coalition, Design it For Us, the Young People's Alliance, Log Off Movement, and more, have given voice to their first-hand accounts of surviving the shark-infested oceans of algorithmic predation by social media companies. Parents complained, but no one believed us until Gen Z got into the ring. We can't thank you all enough.
What does this mean?
Obviously legislation will not magically make technology 100% safe. But these regulations will put pressure on social media and technology companies to create safer features that are designed differently when used by minors.
Notable provisions that KOSPA would create:
Accountability and the requirement of transparency for technology companies. Yearly audits will require them to document and mitigate harm on their platforms.
A duty of care—requiring platforms to design features with kids safety in mind
Safeguards—requiring the most stringent privacy settings by default for minors
Consumer protection for minors from manipulative design features
Extended privacy protections for teenagers, minimizing data collection on minors and banning targeted advertising to minors
An opt-out pathway for minors to be free from algorithms on social media
Further reporting features for parents and minors of harmful content
The ability for parents and teens to retroactively "erase" their personal content/posts/data from social media
More to come!
We will update this page with more information about the implications and developing stories, especially as it pertains to advocating for passage in the House of Representatives so we can get KOSPA signed into law. For now, it's a great day to celebrate!