Senate to consider bills that aim to protect children and teenagers online

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate will consider legislation this week that aims to protect children from dangerous online content, moving forward with what could become the first sweeping new regulation of the tech industry in decades.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday that he will bring the bipartisan bill up in the Senate, with hopes of passing it before the chamber leaves for its August recess. The legislation had stalled for months even as more than two-thirds of the Senate signed on to support it and families of children who have suffered online bullying and harm advocated for its passage.

Schumer said on the Senate floor that the bill is “personal” for him after meeting in recent months with parents of children who died by suicide after they were harassed online, targeted by predators or had their information stolen. The parent advocates say social media and other tech companies need to do more to try to help prevent trauma endured by children and teenagers who inevitably spend a lot of their time online.

“Social media has helped hundreds of millions of people connect in new ways over the last two decades,” Schumer said. “But there are also new and sometimes serious health risks that come along with those benefits. We cannot set these risks aside. On this issue, we desperately need to catch up.”

The online safety bill, which the Senate will consider along with a separate bill to update child online privacy laws, would be the first major tech regulation package to move in years. While there has long been bipartisan support for the idea that the biggest technology companies should face more government scrutiny, there has been little consensus on how it should be done. Congress passed legislation earlier this year that would force Chinese-owned social media company TikTok to sell or face a ban, but that law only targets one company.

The bill’s prospects in the House are so far unclear. But if it passes the Senate with an overwhelming bipartisan vote — as it is expected to — advocates hope it will put pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to bring it up before the November election or the end of the session in January.

“I think a strong vote in the Senate helps to move it quickly in the House,” said Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican who wrote the bill with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

The child safety bill came together as Blumenthal and Blackburn have worked together and with advocacy groups for several years on compromise legislation that is designed to hold companies more responsible for what children see online while also ensuring that Congress does not go too far in regulating what individuals post.

The legislation would create what is called a “duty of care” — a legal term that requires companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm on online platforms minors will likely use. The companies would be required to mitigate and even prevent harms to children, including bullying and violence, the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation and advertisements for illegal products such as narcotics, tobacco or alcohol.

To achieve that goal, social media platforms would have to provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations. They would also be required to limit other users from communicating with children and limit features that “increase, sustain, or extend the use” of the platform — such as autoplay for videos or platform rewards.

In general, online platforms would have to default to the safest settings possible for accounts they believe belong to minors. The idea, Blumenthal and Blackburn have said, is for the platforms to be “safe by design.”

The senators have worked closely with the parents of children who have died by suicide after cyberbullying or otherwise been harmed by social media, including dangerous social media challenges, extortion attempts, eating disorders and drug deals. Schumer appeared with some of them Tuesday at a tearful news conference, choking up a bit himself as some of the mothers held up photos of their children.

Maurine Molak, the mother of a 16-year-old who died by suicide after “months of relentless and threatening cyberbullying,” said at the news conference that she believes the bill can save lives. She urged every senator to vote for it.

“Anyone who believes that children’s well-being and safety should come before big tech’s greed ought to put their mark on this historic legislation,” Molak said.

Some tech companies, like Microsoft, X and Snap, are supporting the bill. Opponents, however, fear it would violate the First Amendment and harm vulnerable kids who wouldn’t be able to access information on LGBTQ issues or reproductive rights — although the bill has been revised to address many of those concerns, and major LGBTQ groups have decided to support the proposed legislation.

With 70 senators already backing the legislation, it is almost certain to pass overwhelmingly. Still, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who strongly opposes government regulation of any kind, has pushed back against the bill, making it harder for Schumer to pass it quickly through the Senate. Without agreement to speed up the process from all 100 senators, the bill may not come up for a final vote until next week.

Along with the online safety bill, the Senate will also consider bipartisan online privacy legislation by Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Bill Cassidy, R-La. That bill would update current law that prohibits online companies from collecting personal information from users under 13 by raising the age to 17.

The bill would also ban targeted advertising to users under 17 and allow teens or guardians to delete a minor’s personal information.

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AP technology writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed to this report.