The Kids Online Safety Act is heading for a dramatic showdown as House Republicans threaten to strip out the bill's central "duty of care" provision that would hold social media platforms liable for protecting children from online harms. After passing the Senate with overwhelming support, KOSA now faces potential gutting in the House, leaving grieving parents and civil liberties groups in an unexpected standoff over what was supposed to be landmark child protection legislation.
The Kids Online Safety Act is heading into what could be its most consequential battle yet. After three years of legislative ping-pong, the bill that was supposed to revolutionize how social media platforms protect children is now facing the possibility of losing its teeth entirely.
House Republicans are signaling they won't support KOSA unless its core "duty of care" provision gets stripped out, according to congressional staff and advocacy groups close to the process. That provision would require platforms like Meta, TikTok, and YouTube to actively mitigate harms to minors - everything from cyberbullying to eating disorder content to illegal drug sales.
The standoff puts grieving parents in an impossible position. Maurine Molak, whose son David died by suicide after experiencing cyberbullying, told The Verge she's steeling herself not to be "blindsided" by a gutted version of the legislation she's spent years fighting for. "If we fail, and when we fail, other children die," says Deb Schmill, whose daughter Becca died from fentanyl poisoning after buying drugs through social media. "And that's a lot of weight to carry."
The irony isn't lost on anyone watching this unfold. KOSA sailed through the Senate last year with overwhelming bipartisan approval, only to die when House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise refused to bring it to a floor vote. Johnson called the bill "very problematic," while Scalise warned it would "empower dangerous people" - both citing concerns about potential censorship of legal speech.
Now those same concerns are driving talks about a compromise that would fundamentally reshape what KOSA actually does. Without the duty of care, the bill would still require kid-friendly default settings and limit addictive features like infinite scroll. But it would lose the legal liability mechanism that supporters believe is the only thing powerful enough to actually change how platforms operate.
"When it comes to tech policy, you have to think about how the companies will act, not just what the laws say," Sarah Philips from Fight for the Future tells The Verge. Her group has been one of KOSA's fiercest opponents, arguing that platforms would rather over-censor content than risk liability - potentially removing LGBTQ resources and other vital information for marginalized youth.
