The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, along with the Kids Online Safety Act (H.R. 7891), directly addresses the harmful social media business model by placing the health and wellbeing of our children over advertising revenue. Among its major provisions:

• KOSA requires the platforms to affirmatively mitigate key harms — such as specific mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and suicidal behaviors, addiction, bullying, sexual exploitation, and the sale of illicit drugs to minors — through their design and operations

• KOSA gives minors tools to restrict the collection and public visibility of their private information

• KOSA disables addictive product features

• KOSA allows minors to opt out of manipulative algorithmic recommendations

• KOSA enables the strongest safety settings by default

• KOSA holds online platforms accountable through annual, independent auditing 

74% of all Americans agree social media products should be safer by design and default — key principles of KOSA. (Source: Center for Countering Digital Hate)

In a time of partisan division, KOSA is a strongly bipartisan proposal. In the Senate, the bill was introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and was advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously in July 2023. Nearly a year later, in late July 2024, the U.S. Senate passed the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act in a historic and bipartisan vote. The bill, which combines two pieces of bipartisan legislation — Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) KOSA and Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA) Children’s and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Additionally, in April 2024, KOSA was introduced in the House by Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Kathy Castor (D-FL), Erin Houchin (R-IN), and Kim Schrier (D-WA). It currently has 64 co-sponsors.