On July 30, the U.S. Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) 91–3, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) saying in a speech ahead of the vote that “the Senate keeps its promise to every parent who has lost a child because of the risks of social media.” Supporters of the bill—which was cosponsored in the Senate by Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)—argue that it will help protect children from the potential harms of social media platforms and other online services, partly by establishing a “duty of care” provision that would require those platforms and services to take steps to ensure the well-being of young users.

However, critics of the bill, including multiple civil rights, digital rights, and free speech groups, argue that if the legislation passes the House and becomes law, it will inevitably lead to online censorship—potentially including politicized censorship by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general who would enforce the bill. Notably, cosponsor Sen. Blackburn has made statements in recent years describing “progressive indoctrination of children” calling critical race theory “dangerous for our kids,” and she cosponsored the Saving American History Act, which aimed to prohibit the use of the 1619 Project as curriculum in K–12 schools.

“In this country, we don’t want politicians, attorneys general, or the FTC making the rules about what we can read and watch online; that’s a terrible mistake,” Joe Mullin, a senior policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said during a press conference hosted by digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future (FFTF) on July 30. “We do not know who the next administration is going to be. We don’t know who’s going to run the FTC.” And, Mullin added, the attorneys general from different states would likely have different ideas about what types of content are harmful to minors. In New York or California, for example, content about guns might be considered harmful, while several LGBTQIA+ groups have expressed concern that the legislation would be broadly leveraged against them in states led by Republicans. “I’ve literally had legislators tell me to my face that they would love to see our website taken off the internet,” Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio, said during the press conference.

In addition, even on topics where there would be agreement—such as prohibiting the promotion of drugs and alcohol to minors—“neither the software filters that will be used nor actual humans are really that good at differentiating between a conversation that’s promoting drug use or alcohol use, and a conversation where people are concerned about drug and alcohol use that they see around them,” Mullin said. “The same thing is true for the other ills that are listed out in this bill.”

KOSA “purports to be about addressing the design flaws and privacy violations of big tech social media giants, but in fact, unfortunately, it is effectively a blank check for censorship of any piece of content that an administration can claim is harmful to kids,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of FFTF.  “KOSA creates a ‘duty of care’ that covers the recommendation of content and gives the authority to the FTC to enforce that. What that means in practice is that, for example, a [potential second] Trump administration FTC would get to dictate what types of content platforms can recommend or even show to younger users.”

On July 25, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought a delegation of more than 300 high school students who were part of ACLU’s National Advocacy Institute to Capitol Hill to lobby against the passage of KOSA. As Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel for ACLU, explained, KOSA will “not just lead to the censorship of content that many consider objectionable, it can also lead to the censorship of information that is important or even life-saving. If enacted, KOSA could lead to information about healthcare, gender identity, politics, and more being removed from social media, and kids know this censorship will make them less and not more safe.” In addition, Leventoff predicted that many social media platforms and websites “might choose to censor or restrict certain types of content for all users—not just for minors” in order to ensure compliance with the law.

Of the three Senators who voted against the bill, one echoed those same concerns.

“Imposing a ‘duty of care’ on online platforms to mitigate harms associated with mental health can only lead to one outcome: The silencing of constitutionally protected speech,” Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) wrote in an op-ed explaining his opposition to the legislation. He later added “KOSA opens the door to nearly limitless content regulation because platforms will censor users rather than risk liability. Financial concerns may cause online forums to eliminate anxiety-inducing content for all users, regardless of age, if the expense of policing teenage users is prohibitive.”