The Senate on Tuesday voted 91-3 to pass a package consisting of two kids online safety bills over the objections of the tech industry, privacy advocates and digital rights groups, who are hoping to block the measure when the House returns in September.
The bills, meant to mitigate social media practices aimed at keeping children online and promoting addictive behavior, are the first seeking to curb social media platforms to pass in either chamber in more than two decades.
Congress last enacted major legislation to address the collection of personal information on children by online platforms in 1998. Efforts to enact a federal data privacy law have stalled in Congress.
The kids’ online safety bills gained momentum after whistleblowers from Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms Inc., testified before Congress that the company had ignored internal warnings about the dangers children face online. Parents whose kids were harmed by online content pushed lawmakers to enact legislation drawing boundaries on tech platforms.
Teeing up the two bills for a vote as a package, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said, “By passing these bills we are one step closer to the most important update in decades to federal laws to protecting kids on the internet.”
One measure, sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and co-sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., would require tech companies to design online platforms in such a way as to prevent or mitigate harms to users, including sexual exploitation and online bullying.
The other bill, sponsored by Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and co-sponsored by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., would prohibit online platforms from disseminating children’s personal information without obtaining a verifiable parental consent, effectively ending ads targeted at kids and teens. That bill would raise the age of children protected to up to 17, from up to 12 under current law.
The substitute amendment from Schumer that combined the bills makes some changes to the versions the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved.
The Blumenthal-Blackburn measure’s provisions on tech companies’ duty of care were narrowed to focus on product design features, with the Federal Trade Commission having the sole authority to enforce the provisions. The measure also includes a preemption provision that would override state laws on children’s online safety, a provision that is generally favored by tech companies because it absolves them of having to comply with a patchwork of laws.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of three lawmakers who voted against the measures, said in an interview that although the authors of the bills and Schumer made changes to protect the interests of the LGBTQ communities, those were “still not sufficient.” Wyden said he was “concerned that this bill in terms of its present language still leaves LGBTQ kids vulnerable to predators.”
The Markey-Cassidy measure was modified to give the FTC the authority to let educational institutions allow minors and children to access online content without requiring parental consent. And the measure now would allow tech companies to use identifying information solely for internal operations’ purposes.
Speaking after the vote, Markey said that the measure would give “an erase button” to parents and their children to remove any information they have gathered about that child.
It’s not clear whether the House will take up the bills when lawmakers return from a summer recess.
Blumenthal predicted that House lawmakers would return to Washington having heard from parents of children affected by harmful content online.
“I believe that in these next four weeks those parents and young people are going to be as effective with the House members as they were with senators,” Blumenthal said. House lawmakers “will come back to Washington as kids go back to school with the pleas of those young people and parents ringing in their ears.”
After the vote, Schumer said that the overwhelming Senate vote “is going to help a lot” with House members. “I will work with whoever I can to persuade them to get this done.”
The companion House measure to the Blumenthal-Blackburn bill is sponsored by Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce. The companion to the Markey-Cassidy bill is sponsored by Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich.
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