The House voted 267-117 Monday to advance a sweeping package of children's online safety measures, propelling legislation aimed at reining in tech platforms but drawing fierce backlash from digital rights groups and free speech advocates who warn it could chill anonymous speech and expand government control over the internet.
The Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act, or KIDS Act, would impose new restrictions on how platforms collect and use data from minors, mandate age verification for pornography sites, require enhanced parental controls, and establish guardrails for AI chatbots and online games. Supporters framed the measure as essential accountability for Big Tech.
"This is a major step toward a safer online world for kids, making safety the default, giving parents more tools to protect their children and teens, and holding Big Tech accountable," the House Energy and Commerce Committee said in announcing the victory.
But the package emerged notably narrower than the Senate version that passed earlier. House lawmakers stripped out a contested "duty of care" requirement that would have subjected platforms to more aggressive regulatory oversight. The scaling back signals deep disagreement between chambers over how far to push tech regulation.
Privacy advocates sounded alarms over the maze of age-verification schemes embedded throughout the bills. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that different services would implement different age-gating standards, creating legal complexity and incentivizing companies to deploy intrusive identification checks across entire platforms.
"Faced with that, many companies will conclude that the safest option is restrictive age-checking practices across their entire platforms," wrote Joe Mullin, the Foundation's senior policy analyst, flagging concerns that systems relying on government-issued ID or biometric scanning could discourage users from posting sensitive information anonymously.
NetChoice, which represents tech companies' interests, called both bills catastrophic for digital freedom. "All of these bills degrade privacy and security, materially diminish the First Amendment protections that young people and adults have a full right to as Americans, and bring the United States more in line with a global effort to undermine the free and open internet," Zach Lilly, the group's director of government affairs, said on social media.
The Senate is expected to push back. Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington criticized the House package for stripping the duty-of-care language, saying it gutted key protections and amounted to studied inaction on a crisis that demands real solutions.
Tech lawyer Preston Byrne offered a blunt assessment of the impasse. "One way to look at the KIDS Act is as a censorship bill, which it is. Another way to look at it is as a middle finger to the Senate and its even worse bill, KOSA. I'm not sure any of this gets worked out in conference between the two chambers," he wrote.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The House found a middle ground that nobody likes, which means conference committee negotiations are about to get brutal."
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