A bipartisan group of 45 attorneys general from 42 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, and the US Virgin Islands have asked Congress to pass the Senate’s Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) censorship law, and make sure the bill’s duty of care provision is included.
The letter, sent on November 3 and announced by Hawaii on November 4, was signed by the attorneys general of these 45 US jurisdictions, led by Hawaii’s Anne Lopez, Ohio’s Andy Wilson, Tennessee’s Jonathan Skrmetti, and Connecticut’s William Tong.
The same group, although smaller by five at the time, sent a similar letter to Congress in February, when 40 attorneys general urged Congress to pass the Senate version of KOSA, again, with its duty of care in place.
We have been tracking the progress of KOSA, and explained that the duty of care makes social media platforms responsible for shielding minors from content that a regulator decides is harmful, which in reality pressures sites to censor lawful speech to avoid legal action.
As for the House version, it makes everyone, regardless of age, prove it to social media companies.
The letter now makes the case for the bill, S. 1748, as a way to protect children from online harm by imposing “minimum safety standards on all social media and gaming platforms.”
In addition, the attorneys general are promoting KOSA as a way to future-proof these standards, as they say the bill’s duty of care provision would “establish a lasting standard that extends beyond the term of the settlement and adapts as technologies and design features evolve.”
The letter also reveals that the attorneys general view the bill as a way to cement the impact of a huge settlement reached with Meta earlier this year.
The Meta settlement, worth $17 billion, was reached in August, and the attorneys general now say that the protections it provides should not be seen as a standalone solution, but rather as a stepping stone towards more regulation. The deal imposes on Meta a number of restrictions, such as daily time limits, “productive pauses,” and “nighttime blocks” between midnight and 6 a.m., as well as limits on push notifications during school hours.
However, the settlement also makes Meta age-check every Facebook and Instagram user in the states that signed on to the deal, either by ID verification or facial age estimation, and both sides waived any right to argue its terms are unconstitutional.
The attorneys general’s letter doesn’t go into these details, instead using the settlement to build a case for KOSA, by suggesting that the protections the deal provides are not enough.
“A settlement with one company cannot establish consistent protections for children across the entire technology industry,” the letter says, adding that the safeguards “should not be viewed as a conclusion but rather as evidence that further action is necessary.”
The attorneys general also want to make sure that KOSA doesn’t preempt their own powers, and that they are able to continue enforcing their own laws.
“KOSA preserves the ability of states to innovate through legislation and enforcement,” the letter says.
In February, the attorneys general rejected the House companion to KOSA, H.R. 6484, because it contained “expansive preemption language” that would “expressly limit the states’ ability to address evolving online harms in the future.”
They also didn’t like the bill’s “reasonable policies, practices, and procedures” – the alternative to the duty of care – saying it “will not deliver meaningful change.”
The House has since incorporated KOSA into the KIDS Act, which passed that chamber on June 29 with a 267-117 vote, and is now in the Senate.
Lopez, who is leading the group, said that “children deserve meaningful protections regardless of which social media platform they use” and that Congress should “act now to establish lasting protections that put the safety and well-being of children first.”
The letter mentions “the nascent deluge of AI products inundating our kids” as another reason for Congress to act.
What the attorneys general are asking for is to have it both ways: a federal liability standard that will be the same everywhere – and their own powers to add to that standard in any way they see fit. Either way, the end result will be platforms checking everyone’s age, and removing lawful speech to avoid liability – and the Meta settlement, which they hold up as a model, already shows that this is exactly where this is all going: an ID check for every adult.
