• by Wendy Davis , 2 hours ago

The House Energy and Commerce committee on Thursday voted to advance a package of bills that would impose new restrictions on social platforms and app stores.

One of the measures, the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (H.R. 7757), which passed by a 28-24 vote, incorporates a weakened version of the Kids Online Safety Act -- a bill initially introduced in 2022, and aimed at protecting teens from harms allegedly associated with social media.

The current House bill would require social platforms to establish "reasonable" policies addressing specific harms to minors -- including threats of violence, sex abuse, drug use and financial loss caused by fraud.

Other provisions in that current bill would prohibit platforms from facilitating ads for drugs, tobacco, gambling or alcohol to users known to be minors. Additionally, the measure would require platforms to provide known minors with tools that limit others' ability to communicate with them, and provide parents of known minors with tools to change their privacy settings.

A prior iteration of the Kids Online Safety Act -- as well as a version passed last year by the Senate -- would have required platforms to use “reasonable care" to implement design features in a way that would "prevent and mitigate" numerous harms to minors -- including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders and suicidal behaviors.

The current version drew opposition from parents' and children's advocacy groups that sought the Senate bill's tougher restrictions.

The House bill "eliminates the duty of care and guts the harms it was supposed to address," Parents Rise, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and dozens of other organizations argue in a letter sent to lawmakers Thursday.

The House bill also faced opposition by some civil liberties organizations. For instance, the Center for Democracy & Technology said in a letter to the committee that the bill could result in suppression of lawful speech.

"The pared down House version requires covered services to make speculative judgments about what content should be covered by its policies, often based upon imperfect information and potentially no information regarding the original speaker’s intent or other circumstances surrounding the speech that could make the difference between whether the speech is protected or illegal," the group wrote.

"Covered services acting rationally likely will err on the side of censorship, preventing legal speech from being recommended to young users," the organization added.

The House committee also voted 26-23 in favor of the App Store Accountability Act (HR 3149), which would require app stores like Google and Apple to block minors under 18 from downloading apps or making in-app purchases, without parental consent.

That bill is similar to a nearly identical Texas law that was blocked in court on the grounds that it likely violates the First Amendment. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman in Austin described that measure as "akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book."