KOSA Companion Bill Introduced in U.S. House of Representatives

WASHINGTON—A bipartisan coalition of U.S. House of Representatives members has introduced a companion bill to the highly controversial Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which is still before the Senate. Led by Florida's U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis, a Republican, and Kathy Castor, a Democrat, the House version of KOSA slightly differs from the controversial bill proposed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that would place extensive restrictions on internet platforms that could violate the First Amendment and privacy rights of millions of consumers of all ages. Reps. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., and Kim Schrier, D-Wash., are also key backers of the bill. The House version of KOSA has 70 sponsors.  "The online, digital world is not designed with children and teens in mind, and action is needed to counter the unscrupulous ways tech platforms addict children and steal their attention," said Rep. Castor in a press statement. Upon review of the bill text, the House version of KOSA generally reflects the same provisions as the Senate version. However, a clear change that makes the bill potentially more palatable for some critics is how the House dismantles the duty of care provision. The Senate version of the bill has received criticism for its duty of care because it would require all internet platforms with users under a certain age to design the platform to ensure minors are protected. Age-appropriate design codes are already considered unconstitutional by the courts.  The most noteworthy example is the California age-appropriate design code being blocked by a federal court due to concerns brought by stakeholders, like the American Civil Liberties Union, that found the code to violate the First Amendment rights of not only platforms but users. With this in mind, the sponsors of the House version of KOSA would implement a tiered regulatory approach that is similar to the Digital Services Act rules in the European Union. Like the European Union's regulatory scrutiny levels for companies of a certain size, the House version of KOSA would classify platforms as "high-impact online companies" (HIOCs) if they generate $2.5 billion in annual revenue or have more than 150 million monthly active users globally. HIOCs would be subject to the most obligations under the bill. The HIOCs classification would cover social media platforms, messaging apps and online video games. A second tier covers platforms with $200 million in revenue or 200,000 users; a third is for smaller platforms nowhere near the user and revenue thresholds of the higher two tiers. But concerns remain that the House version of KOSA will be used to target forms of otherwise protected speech that are under political scrutiny—especially content for LGBTQ+ minors, reproductive justice and health, and consensual adult entertainment content. "While we believe that recent changes are a step in the right direction, the bill still has not had its fundamental flaw addressed: it threatens content that is currently under political attack, like resources concerning gender-affirming healthcare and abortion," said Lia Holland, campaigns and communications director for Fight for the Future. "This threat would be neutralized if KOSA were made explicitly content-neutral, as [we] continually pushed for." Free Speech Coalition executive director Alison Boden told AVN that "KOSA still requires sites to de-anonymize their users, and hands power to determine what can or can't be made available online to the federal government."