S 1748
Kids Online Safety Act
TL;DR
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which forces social media platforms and online services to actively prevent harm to minors from features like algorithmic recommendations, addictive design, and content promoting suicide, eating disorders, or substance abuse. Platforms would owe minors a legal 'duty of care' and must give kids and parents tools to disable addictive features and limit data collection. It sits in the Senate Commerce Committee after passing the Senate 91-3 in the previous Congress.
How This Might Impact Your Business
Social media platforms, gaming companies, and online services 'likely to be used by minors' face a new legal duty of care to prevent harms including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and compulsive usage patterns.
Companies must offer minors (and their parents) settings to disable algorithmic recommendations, limit addictive design features like autoplay and infinite scroll, restrict who can contact them, and delete accounts and data.
Platforms must default the strongest privacy and safety settings to 'on' for known minor users, which will affect ad targeting revenue and engagement metrics for companies like Meta, TikTok, Snap, Roblox, and Discord.
Covered platforms with over 10 million US monthly users must undergo annual independent audits of risks to minors and publish public transparency reports.
Enforcement runs through the FTC (as unfair/deceptive practices) and state attorneys general, with potential penalties up to $51,744 per violation under FTC Act authority.
Exemptions apply to small businesses, common carriers, email, wireless messaging, VPNs, educational institutions, libraries, and news outlets not primarily aimed at kids.
Ad-tech firms, influencer platforms, and marketers targeting teen audiences should expect reduced access to behavioral data on users under 17.
What Should You Do
If your product could reasonably be accessed by users under 17, task your product and legal teams with mapping current design features (recommendation algorithms, notifications, autoplay, direct messaging) against KOSA's duty of care categories.
Ask your data team to quantify revenue exposure from turning off personalized ads and recommendations for minor accounts by default.
Have compliance review your age assurance approach now; KOSA does not mandate age verification but courts and the FTC will scrutinize whether you 'knew or should have known' a user was a minor.
Monitor Senate Commerce Committee action and House companion progress; the prior version passed the Senate 91-3, so movement can happen fast once scheduled.
Budget for annual third-party audits and public transparency reporting if your US monthly active users exceed 10 million.
Who It Affects
Sponsors
Status Timeline
committee
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. (Sponsor introductory remarks on measure: CR S2929-2930)
May 14, 2025