Sherrod Brown

07/30/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/30/2024 16:35

Brown Joins Colleagues to Pass Bipartisan Bill to Protect Children Online

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined a bipartisan group of colleagues to pass legislation to protect children online and hold Big Tech accountable. The Kids Online Safety Act, which Brown cosponsored,will provide parents and young people with the tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to better protect against online social harms and data collection, such as the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance misuse, sexual exploitation, and targeted advertisements for products that are illegal for children, like tobacco and alcohol.

"Parents shouldn't have to constantly worry about their children's safety online," said Brown. "We know the damage that social media algorithms and other harmful online content can do to our kids and their mental health. Our legislation respects free speech while cracking down on Big Tech companies to put our children's privacy, safety, and well-being first."

The Kids Online Safety Act:

  • Requires that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Platforms would be required to enable the strongest settings by default.
  • Gives parents and guardians new controls to help support their children and identify harmful behaviors, and provides parents and children with a dedicated channel to report harms to kids to the platform.
  • Creates a responsibility for social media platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, such as promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance misuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol).
  • Requires social media platforms to perform an annual independent audit that assesses the risks to minors, their compliance with this legislation, and whether the platform is taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms.
  • Provides academic and public interest organizations with access to critical datasets from social media platforms to foster research regarding harms to the safety and well-being of minors.

The legislation also includes language from the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which will ban online companies from targeting ads at children and teens, prohibit them from collecting personal information from teens between 13-16 years of age without their consent, and give families more tools to help erase their personal information from the internet.

The Kids Online Safety Act is sponsored by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and co-sponsored by Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Steve Daines (R-MT), Gary Peters (D-MI), Marco Rubio (R-FL), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Todd Young (R-IN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mark Warner (D-VA), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Peter Welch (D-VT), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jim Risch (R-ID), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Katie Britt (R-AL), Bob Casey (D-PA), Rick Scott (R-FL), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Joe Manchin (I-WV), John Cornyn (R-TX), Tom Carper (D-DE), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Ben Cardin (D-MD), James Lankford (R-OK), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), John Thune (R-SD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Josh Hawley (R-MO), with U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), J.D. Vance (R-OH), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Angus King (I-ME), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jack Reed (D-RI), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and John Kennedy (R-LA).

A one-pager on the bill can be found HERE.

Full bill-text can be found HERE.

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