Senate to vote on bipartisan child online safety bills

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced two online protection bills for children to the floor on Tuesday for a vote later this week. Both the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA 2.0, stalled earlier this year despite support from both sides of the aisle.

What do the bills do? Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., co-sponsored KOSA, which would require social media platforms to take reasonable measures to protect users from harms like online bullying or sexual exploitation. Platforms must also provide parents with tools to supervise their child’s activity. The legislation would also require that platforms inform users when it employs a personalized algorithm and allow users to opt out of the potentially addictive feature.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Sen. Bill Cassidy’s, R-La., COPPA 2.0 would update current online privacy laws and bar companies from collecting data on users under the age of 17. The measure would also ban companies from using targeted online advertising to underage users.

Dig deeper: Read my report with Mary Jackson on states suing social media platforms for harming users.