Kids Online Safety Act Clears Senate Commerce Committee With Unanimous Support

The Kids Online Safety Act advanced out of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Wednesday, clearing a key hurdle in its long-running push toward becoming federal law.

The legislation, known as KOSA, cleared the panel unanimously and now heads toward a potential full Senate floor vote. The bill has 76 cosponsors in the Senate, reflecting the broad bipartisan backing it has accumulated since being introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., with support from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

The measure is designed to establish protections for children's online safety by creating parental controls and directing study of social media's impact on the well-being of minors. Central to the Senate version is a "duty of care" provision, which would require platforms such as Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok to exercise reasonable care when designing and implementing features that could harm young users.

"Children and teens face real risk of harm online, and we've lost too many. Congress needs to do more," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the committee, ahead of Wednesday's vote. "It imposes a duty of care on social media platforms so that these companies have to take reasonable care to make sure they are not creating harm and implementing products that harm kids," Cantwell continued.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who chairs the Senate commerce panel, expressed confidence the bill would advance further. "We've now passed KOSA again unanimously out of this committee. I'm confident we'll pass it on the Senate floor, and then we'll continue the hard work and negotiations with the House to get it over the finish line into the president's desk," Cruz said.

The Senate action comes more than a month after the House passed a similar bill in June as part of a broader digital safety package, but the two chambers' versions differ significantly. The House version does not include the duty of care provision — an omission that drew immediate criticism from the bill's Senate sponsors.

"Instead of passing a federal standard that will protect America's children from Big Tech's greed, the House of Representatives just passed legislation that is a pale imitation of Big Tech accountability," Blackburn and Blumenthal said in a joint statement following House passage. "The House's decision to strip out the Duty of Care will only maintain the status quo in which Big Tech uses our kids as profit centers and leaves parents to pick up the pieces."

The Senate committee advanced KOSA alongside a series of related measures, including a bill that would require artificial intelligence companies to implement privacy safeguards in their online chatbots.

Multiple versions of KOSA have circulated in Congress in recent years. The Senate passed one version in 2024, but disagreements between the two chambers have so far blocked the legislation from reaching the president's desk.

The bill also faces opposition from civil liberties organizations. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression have argued that various versions of the legislation could jeopardize user privacy and contribute to government censorship.

The timing adds further uncertainty. The committee advanced the bill one day before members were scheduled to depart for the August recess, leaving limited legislative calendar days between now and November's midterm elections. Lawmakers will also face competing priorities, including government funding deadlines, that could crowd out further action on KOSA.

The gap between the Senate and House versions on the duty of care question represents the central obstacle to reconciliation, and how negotiators resolve that disagreement will determine whether the legislation can ultimately clear both chambers and advance to the White House.