The Senate Commerce Committee just voted unanimously to advance the Kids Online Safety Act, sending it back to the full Senate floor. This bill would finally require social media platforms, video games, and streaming services to let parents and kids switch off manipulative design features — like endless scroll and never-ending autoplay — tighten privacy defaults, and opt out of algorithms built to keep young people hooked.

At its core is a "duty of care" requirement: tech companies would have to take real, deliberate steps to protect minors from the harms the bill names directly — mental health and substance use disorders, plus physical and sexual abuse minors could face because of how these platforms are designed. This isn't a new idea. The Senate already passed KOSA once, in 2024, by a lopsided 91-3 vote. But the House let it die without ever holding a vote.

Now the House has passed its own bill, the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, and stripped the duty of care protections out entirely. Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of KOSA's lead sponsors, called the House version "basically toothless and a pale imitation of what we need in KOSA to protect children," according to CT Mirror. A bill that lets tech companies off the hook for how they design their platforms isn't protecting anyone.

Congress is almost out of time. The Senate leaves for a month-long recess right after this vote, then breaks again for the midterms, leaving only a narrow window before the end of the year to reconcile two very different bills. Every week that passes is a week platforms keep operating exactly as they do now.

Mothers who believe their children died because of social media's harms have been among the parents fighting for this bill for years. Congress shouldn't trade away real protections for a watered-down compromise. Sign the petition demanding Congress pass the full Kids Online Safety Act — with duty of care intact — before this session runs out of time.