Four key children’s online safety bills — including the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act — advanced out of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation during a Wednesday morning markup session and now head to the Senate floor for a vote. 

The other bills approved include the Youth AI Privacy Act; the Children’s Health, Advancement, Trust, Boundaries, and Oversight in Technology Act; and the Children’s Artificial Intelligence Toy Safety Act. A final related bill, the Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net Act, failed to make it out of committee. 

Committee passage of the four bills comes as Congress has debated for years how to best protect youth online, particularly pertaining to social media and artificial intelligence. Pressure has mounted as both concerns and litigation snowball over the mental health risks to children and teens. 

Still, opposition arose from some quarters before the markup. Some of the bills “fall short of their intended goals” and “raise significant constitutional concerns,” said the Center for Democracy and Technology in a Tuesday letter to the Senate committee leadership. That’s especially the case for KOSA and the CHATBOT Act, said CDT, a civil rights nonprofit focused on technology. 

As the discussion over legislating children’s online safety heats up, here’s a breakdown of the five bills discussed during the markup. 

Kids Online Safety Act

KOSA enjoys widespread popularity in the Senate. It cleared the committee by voice vote on Wednesday and had 76 Senate cosponsors as of that day. The full Senate previously passed the bill in 2024 with overwhelming bipartisan support on a 91-3 vote. 

The bill would require online platforms, including social media, to implement tools and safeguards for users younger than 17. Additionally, it would implement a “duty of care” provision requiring platforms to “exercise reasonable care” in their design features to prevent and mitigate harms to children and teens. Those harms include eating disorders, substance use disorders, suicidal behaviors, anxiety and depressive disorders, sexual exploitation, physical violence and online harassment. 

The House passed a similar bill, the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act, in late June. However, some senators have criticized that legislation for leaving out a duty of care provision. 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who introduced KOSA, said during the markup that the Senate “cannot and will not accept” the House’s version.

“It is toothless, and it is a very pale imitation of the Senate version,” Blackburn said. “And therefore, it is a pale imitation of big tech accountability, and the parents have waited a long time.”

It's time to pass KOSA, Blackburn said, and it will be enacted “in spite of all the money” tech companies have spent to oppose the legislation. 

The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in the markup that KOSA would require social media companies to set default settings protecting children and teens from design features that encourage spending more time on the apps. 

“We need more responsibility from social media companies, and KOSA gives parents the tools that help make them accountable when they prioritize engagement over keeping our kids safe,” Cantwell said.

But CDT, in its letter to the committee, said that KOSA’s duty of care provision is “likely unconstitutional” and that the bill incentivizes age verification that would risk everyone’s privacy and free expression. CDT further said KOSA would disproportionately harm LGBTQ+ youth, those with disabilities or others from marginalized groups due to censorship that the bill encourages. 

Blackburn, however, countered general criticism of KOSA during the markup. Regarding the bill’s online guardrails, she said, “if the pushback is ‘we can’t do it’ or ‘it’s too complicated’ … quite honestly, we don’t believe you.” 

AI safeguards move forward

The remaining three bills approved during the markup involve protections for children and teens when using artificial intelligence tools.

• CHATBOT Act. The CHATBOT Act would “put parents in charge of how children use AI chatbots,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, committee chairman and sponsor of the bill. 
  
  The measure would require AI companies to create family accounts that allow parents to oversee their child’s activity and to obtain parental consent before a teen aged 13 to 17 could create an account.
   
• Youth AI Privacy Act. The Youth AI Privacy Act, introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., would mandate that AI chatbots available to children and teens have built-in safety design features, including a disclosure that it is not a human. 
  
  During the markup, the committee added an amendment that would allow parents to opt out of a requirement capping an AI tool’s memory retention at 30 days when interacting with children and teens. 
   
• Children’s Artificial Intelligence Toy Safety Act. The final bill approved during Wednesday's markup was the Children’s Artificial Intelligence Toy Safety Act. That measure would require the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to provide Congress with a plan for addressing AI-enabled toys. 
  
  The legislation would also mandate a comprehensive federal study on AI toys, including potential risks to children’s mental and physical well-being. 

SCREEN Act

The committee did not advance the SCREEN Act, as Democratic senators said the bill wasn't ready for a vote yet. The legislation, which seeks to prevent harm to children and teens from accessing pornographic content, would require age verification technology to ensure users are 18 or older before accessing these sites.