Editor’s note: This commentary discusses the topic of suicide. If you or someone you know if contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
Lost in the furor over whether Congress could agree on a stopgap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown was another rift over the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which even has some powerful Republicans at odds with one another.
The bill purports to hold social media companies accountable for cyberbullying over their platforms, and its supporters include parents whose children have taken their own lives or were harmed as a result of social media harassment.
The KOSA proposal, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., easily cleared the chamber in a 91-3 vote in late July. Yet it has not advanced to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, and its proponents have turned up the pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as of late to advance the bill before year’s end. Republicans who’ve rallied behind the bill and urged its passage include Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabeee Sanders.
Yet Johnson has remained steadfast in his decision not to rush the act through in its current form. Pressed by reporters in the Capitol hallways in recent days, the speaker insists he still stands behind the spirit of the proposal. He was asked a week ago if KOSA would be approved before year’s end.
“I don’t see that as being likely at this point,” Johnson said.
The speaker has frequently spoken favorably about the need to address children’s safety online, spokeswoman Athina Lawson told the Illuminator in an interview Wednesday. The KOSA bill has been referred to a House committee and will continue to move through the legislative process, she added.
Blackburn believes more than parliamentary procedure is holding up her bill, however. In a joint statement with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Issued Tuesday, she was very blunt in her criticism of House leadership.
“To be clear: the blockade against safeguards and accountability was about padding Big Tech’s financial bottom line, not principle,” the senators said.
Blackburn and Blumenthal also referenced the suicide of 15-year-old Jesse Harrington in October. He took his own life “after becoming addicted to Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, while the House sat on its hands at the behest of Mark Zuckerberg,” they wrote.
“The House’s active obstruction of the Kids Online Safety Act will tragically result in the deaths of even more children like Jesse,” their statement said.
Johnson’s specific concerns within the bill include its potential to impinge on First Amendment free speech rights and a “duty of care” provision that defines what social media companies can be held accountable if young users are harmed through their content.
Lawson noted that Johnson has held more than 20 meetings with KOSA advocates and is committed to working on a consensus solution to the issues he has with the bill.
Maureen Molak is among the KOSA supporters who’s met with the speaker and his staff multiple times. Her 16-year-old son David took his life in 2016 after he was the target of bullying on Instagram. Molak said the company did nothing to curtail the abuse even after his friends reported it online.
In an interview this week with the Illuminator, Molak said she personally met Johnson in April during an invitation-only Republican fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, in San Antonio.
“I asked him if he would commit to advancing KOSA, passing KOSA this year,” she said. “ … And he said, ‘Oh, yes, you know, we’re going to advance KOSA. It is so needed. Thank you so much for your advocacy. Keep it up, because what kids are experiencing online is terrible, and we’ve got to do something about it.’”
Molak said the Senate’s overwhelming bipartisan support left her feeling confident the measure would become law. But as months went by with no action in the House, she met with Johnson’s staff and others on Capitol Hill to get an explanation. Molak said she considered the hangups mentioned in those meetings fairly minor.
“There’s just a lot of powerful people who are in support of this bill,” she said, “and if you have an issue with something, you don’t just dig your heels in and not come out with a solution.”
Molak said she was aware that Meta has proposed a $10 billion artificial intelligence data center in Louisiana, but she stopped short of saying it has anything to do with Johnson’s stance on KOSA.
Lawson, the speaker’s spokeswoman, also dismissed any connection between the project and the legislation’s current status.
Other members of the House Republican Conference have KOSA concerns similar to Johnson’s, given its potential to squelch conservative viewpoints on social media.
Their opposition to KOSA is mirrored on the other end of the political spectrum.
Voices from the LGBTQ community fear the guidelines could limit their expression online, and the American Civil Liberties Union feels the legislation would control what people can access online and censor protected speech
Molak said there was hope that the KOSA provisions would find their way onto the stopgap spending bill lawmakers need to approve in order to prevent a government shutdown this weekend. But Johnson’s stance and the precarious status of the continuing resolution needed to keep the federal government afloat make that scenario extremely unlikely.
President-elect Donald Trump has been noticeably silent on the matter, something that Molak said she has noticed.
“If Trump was able to weigh in on this right now, and we were able to get it passed this year, it sure would make him a hero,” she said, “because it would be one less thing the Republicans would have to worry about next year.”
(Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.)