Technology House panel advances slate of kids online safety bills along party lines by Miranda Nazzaro - 03/05/26 4:49 PM ET by Miranda Nazzaro - 03/05/26 4:49 PM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email NOW PLAYING A GOP-led package of kids’ online safety bills, including the landmark Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), advanced out of a House committee Thursday amid heavy pushback from Democrats and technology safety advocates. In a lengthy bill markup Thursday, House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and his Republican colleagues faced repeated criticism from Democrats over the House’s changes to KOSA, a long-debated measure that looks to hold technology companies accountable for alleged harm to teenagers and children. To some tech safety groups’ surprise, Guthrie opted to include KOSA in a new 12-bill package, dubbed the Kids Internet and Digital Act, alongside several other less controversial bills. The bill was advanced out of committee in a 28-24 vote. GOP committee staff unveiled the package late Tuesday night, giving lawmakers, technology safety groups and parent advocates the standard 36 hours to review the package before Thursday morning’s markup. Lawmakers spent more than four hours on Thursday debating the changes to KOSA, as well as the choice to package it with other bills that received bipartisan support earlier this week. Guthrie kicked off the hearing stating Republicans spent nearly 40 hours negotiating with Democrats in recent months to reach a bipartisan deal. GOP committee staff said Democrats “walked away” from these negotiations late last week over disagreements on parental access tools, which would give parents more ways to monitor their kids’ online activity. “I’m disappointed that we were not able to come to a bipartisan agreement on the bills before us today. Unfortunately, committee Republicans have chosen to move forward with a set of partisan bills that simply do not meet the mark for kids safety and if they become law, we leave kids and their parents worse off than they are today in my opinion,” committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said in opening remarks. Democrats were largely expected to vote against the package, given the language changes to KOSA. Those changes included the “duty of care” provision, which would have legally required platforms to “exercise reasonable care” to prevent harms to minors. Harms include eating disorders, suicide, substance use disorders, and sexual exploitation. The House’s proposal would narrow this list of covered harms and only require companies to establish and maintain “reasonable policies” regarding harms to minors. Democrats argued technology platforms cannot be legally accountable under the narrowed language. The current House bill also includes language to preempt state laws related to KOSA provisions, which Democrats contend would stifle efforts at the state level. Pallone said Republicans are “handing Big Tech a gift” by eliminating the preemption standards previously included in the bills Technology safety groups, many of which helped shape earlier versions of KOSA, have largely come out against this version of the bill, stating it is “not what KOSA was meant to be.” “Nor would we have ever voiced support for the Kids Online Safety Act had we known what the House would do,” one letter with more than 500 parents stated Wednesday. Parents of the coalition Parents for Safe Online Spaces have similar concerns but also acknowledged certain “upgrades” the House committee made on KOSA in recent weeks. Nearly a dozen parents traveled to D.C. with ParentsSOS for the markup. The organization hosted a projection Wednesday night, during which photos of children they say lost their lives to social media were spotlighted onto the walls of Meta’s Washington headquarters and near the Capitol. Maurine Molak, who lost her son David to suicide after he was cyberbullied, told The Hill this week marked her nearly 16th visit to D.C. to get KOSA passed. She noted the Senate version had broad bipartisan support in 2024, passing in a 91-3 vote, but parents are just “not satisfied” with what the House has offered on KOSA. “They know where we stand, this is not anything new to them,” she said. The App Store Accountability Act, Rep. John James (R-Mich.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), was also advanced Thursday in a narrow 26-23 vote. The legislation would put the onus on app stores instead of the apps themselves to verify user ages and has backing from some Big Tech companies. Several industry groups have aggressively pushed back on the bill, arguing it presents new privacy risks for kids and adults. The committee was supposed to consider the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), but Guthrie said bipartisan staff is planning to wo