The bill would have required social media companies to create stronger controls to protect the data of minors, default to the highest privacy settings for their accounts and give parents new controls to protect their kids online.
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When lawmakers wrapped up the 118th Congress to head home for the holidays, they left a lot undone. One of the biggest issues that didn’t get checked off the to-do list was legislation to protect kids from the harmful effects of social media, despite a last minute press to get it through.
The Kids Online Safety Act passed the Senate this summer, 91-3. By mid-December, after some tweaks to the language, it even had conservative heavyweights like Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. urging Speaker Mike Johnson to give it a vote in the House.
