Kids’ Safety Package Wins House Approval

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation Monday night designed to provide greater protections to children online — a bipartisan vote that came despite deep divisions between the House and Senate and rebukes from kids’ safety advocates.

The vote was 267-117, enough to pass the legislation, known as the KIDS Act H.R. 7757 (119), under a fast-track procedure requiring a two-thirds majority.

With August recess just weeks away, the window for Congress to pass kids’ safety legislation this year is narrowing. Prospects of the package clearing both chambers are dim, as the House and Senate remain at an impasse over which of the competing child safety efforts lawmakers should coalesce around — and if such a proposal should block or replace some state artificial intelligence laws.

How to verify a user’s age online, First Amendment concerns and a critical provision called the “duty of care,” which compels online companies to design social media platforms with children’s safety in mind, will be at the center of a high-stakes standoff any kids’ safety package will face in the Senate.

Congress has been deadlocked for years over how to regulate the internet to better protect children. But a bipartisan deal for the KIDS Act emerged in the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, which would create baseline federal standards for kids’ online safety while allowing states to adopt more aggressive protections. It also omits language preempting state artificial intelligence laws — a major Silicon Valley priority Senate Republicans are expected to take up.

The compromise, blessed by committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), replaces an earlier version that cleared the panel along party lines in March.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) told POLITICO the bill was "a good first step," saying it establishes federal preemption as a floor rather than a ceiling. "It's not how I would write the bill. But we're not in the majority," Lieu said.

Key Democratic House members have come out in support of the package, including Lori Trahan of Massachusetts and Sam Liccardo of California, who have urged their caucus not to let perfection trump what they describe as a strong compromise.

However, one of the bills included in the House package, known as the Kids Online Safety Act, omits the “duty of care” provision, which is central to a Senate bill with the same name. The absence of that provision has drawn criticism from child safety advocates and a bipartisan group of senators, including KOSA sponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who isworking with the White House on her own kids’ safety package that could ultimately block or replace some state AI laws.

Key Democratic senators urged House lawmakers on Friday to reject the KIDS Act. Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell of Washington state and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, KOSA’s Democratic co-sponsor, expressed concern that the tech industry will exploit misunderstandings around two differing bills that share the same name.

“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said. The Senate KOSA bill passed 91-3 in 2024 but has not progressed this Congress despite being introduced last June.

The KIDS’ Act would additionally restrict minors’ use of disappearing messages, require AI chatbots to disclose that they are not human and require platforms to implement age verification technology for users accessing pornographic material, among other measures.

Privacy advocates are concerned about language they believe incentivizes age verification measures to access all online services.

“All users, including kids, deserve strong privacy protections, not mandates to hand over more and more personal details whenever they go online," the Center for Democracy and Technology's Free Expression Project Director Kate Ruane said in a statement.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky who lost his bid for reelection, characterized the package as a “dangerous” anti-privacy bill in a post on X just hours ahead of the Monday evening vote.

Owen Dahlkamp and Alfred Ng contributed to this report.