U.S. Senate Poised to Vote on Kids Online Safety Act, COPPA 2.0; PTC Calls for Passage

LOS ANGELES (July 23, 2024) – The Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) urged the U.S. Senate to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act 2.0, given reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will begin the process to pass these and other bills to protect children from online harms.

“Our children face an online world that is primarily designed for adults, with little to no protections for them. They are up against powerful algorithms that feed harmful content to them. They can interact with adults who may turn out to be predators and fall victim to sextortion schemes. They can access sexually explicit and graphically violent content with a click of a button. Congress must hold the tech industry accountable for protecting our children and should pass the Kids Online Safety Act and Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act to provide much-needed accountability,” said Melissa Henson, vice president, Parents Television and Media Council.

“As we witnessed during the January 31 Senate hearing with tech CEOs, social media platforms have caused extreme harm to children and have not prioritized child safety. Many knowingly facilitated harm. Children have effectively been seen as an audience for tech platforms to profit from instead of protecting them from known harms like predators, sexual exploitation, sexually explicit and other harmful content. Congress, it is time to loosen the chokehold tech has on our kids.”

The Kids Online Safety Act is designed to hold social media companies accountable and establish a duty of care for protecting children online. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) expands privacy protections to teens and for children under age 13.