THE KIDS ONLINE SAFETY ACT IS A DANGEROUS BAIT AND SWITCH

Congress is considering the Kids Online Safety Act, a bipartisan effort born out of a growing and undeniable crisis. Across the country, parents, educators, and physicians are confronting the same reality: rising rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and exploitation among young people, alongside platforms engineered to capture and hold their attention.

There is no serious debate about whether something is wrong. The only question is whether lawmakers will respond in a way that protects children, or one that protects the companies that created these systems.

Recent reports suggest that some technology companies are pushing to reshape KOSA to include provisions that would limit or shield them from lawsuits brought by harmed children and their families. If that happens, Congress will have turned a child safety bill into something else entirely.

A law intended to protect children should not be used to shield corporations from accountability.

For years, families who sought justice were turned away. Social media companies argued that they could not be held responsible because any harm stemmed from user-generated content. Courts often accepted that argument. But that explanation never told the whole story.

The cases that are now moving forward are not simply about content. They are about design. Features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, algorithmic recommendations, and constant notifications are not incidental. They are deliberate choices: studied, tested, and refined to increase engagement, especially among younger users.

Courts are beginning to recognize this distinction, allowing claims based on product design rather than content moderation to proceed. That shift has opened the courthouse doors to families likes ours, who had been locked out for years. And with access has come something the public rarely sees: the truth.

Through testimony and discovery, internal documents have begun to emerge that show what companies knew about the risks their products posed to children and how they chose to respond. That kind of transparency does not happen voluntarily. It happens only when there is real accountability.

History shows why that matters. Safer cars, clearer consumer warnings, and stronger public health protections did not emerge because industries changed on their own. They came after sustained pressure from families, regulators, and courts willing to act or demand answers. The same dynamic is now at work in the technology sector.

If Congress allows KOSA to preempt state law claims or weaken ongoing litigation, it will remove one of the strongest incentives for companies to prioritize child safety over engagement and profit. It would close one of the few avenues that families have to uncover the truth and seek justice. That would be a profound mistake.

The risks facing children online are still evolving. Recommendation systems are becoming more sophisticated. Platforms are more immersive than ever. And the gap between technological innovation and public policy continues to widen. In that environment, the ability of families and states to hold companies accountable is not a technicality. It is an essential safeguard. This is not a partisan issue. Regardless of political affiliation, there should be agreement on one principle: no company should receive immunity when its products harm children.

Congress has an opportunity to get this right. It can establish meaningful standards, require transparency, and impose a clear duty of care on platforms that profit from young users’ attention. But it should not pair those protections with provisions that make it harder, if not impossible, for families to seek justice. That is not reform. It is retreat.

KIDS ONLINE SAFETY ACT IS NOT UK-STYLE OVERREACH

Parents who have lost children understand the cost of inaction. I am one of those parents. I lost my son, Sammy (forever 16), to social media harm, a loss that reshaped every part of my life. Today, I serve as an accidental activist, working to ensure that other families have a voice, have tools to protect their children online, and that the companies that failed our children are held accountable.

Congress should remember who this bill is meant to protect and ensure it does not become a shield for those who need to be held responsible.

Sam Chapman is CEO of Parent Collective Inc. a nonprofit creating education, advocacy and prevention of online harms. He works on Sammy’s law, a bill in the house and senate, which will require any social media or gaming platform with children as users to allow for third-party safety software integration. He is also a plaintiff in a case against Snap Inc entitled Neville et al v Snap Inc.