The bill ensures that:

No. This legislation does not impose age verification requirements or require platforms to collect any new data on users, including government IDs.

Platforms already possess significant amounts of data about their users, including pictures they post, channels they follow, or simply the date of birth they require upon signup. Social media companies would be required to use this existing information to determine if a child is on their platform, and if they have knowledge that a user is a child than take appropriate actions under the bill. But if the social media platform does not have actual knowledge of the age of a user, then it does not face obligations under the bill. 

This is the same standard present in the Kids Online Safety Act and COPPA 2.0, creating a uniform standard for companies to comply with.

No, there is no parental consent provision in this legislation.

 No. The bill does not allow parents to surveil teen use of social media.

It means social media platforms will no longer be able to use machine learning to follow exactly how long children watch posts and what they click on to learn what makes each individual child stay on the platform the longest, and then repeatedly forcing that content in front of children to maximize profits. 

Currently, the social media time online for dollars model means these companies are feeding children the kind of hateful, depressing, and problematic content that has likely fueled the teen mental health crisis. Under our legislation, children would still be able to affirmatively search for content and choose what channels they want to watch or follow without companies pushing this problematic content on children.

Yes. As, for example, First Amendment expert Neil Richards explains, “[i]nstead of censoring the protected expression present on these platforms, the act takes aim at the procedures and permissions that determine the time, place and manner of speech for underage consumers.” The Supreme Court has long held that the government has the right to regulate products to protect children, including by, for instance, restricting the sale of obscene content to minors. As Richards explains: “[i]n the same way a crowded bar or nightclub is no place for a child on their own”—or in the way every state in the country requires parental consent if it allows a minor to get a tattoo—“this rule would set a reasonable minimum age and maturity limitation for social media customers.” 

While we expect legal challenges to any bill aimed at regulating social media companies, we are confident that this content-neutral bill will pass constitutional muster given the government interests at play.

This bill does not prevent LGBTQ+ youth from accessing relevant resources online and we have worked closely with LGBTQ+ groups while crafting this legislation to ensure that this bill will not negatively impact that community.

No, YouTube Kids does not fit the definition of social media under the bill.

The bill tracks existing requirements in the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) that requires schools to block or filter internet access to obscene content on school networks and takes the same approach to require schools to block or filter internet access to social media platforms.

Schools that do not already have a filter in place for social media platforms have a two-year ramp-in, the same as the original version of CIPA, to adopt an internet filter.

Under CIPA, enforcement is only triggered by a “knowing” failure. Meaning for a school to be at risk for CIPA enforcement, it must either knowingly fail to submit its annual certification as a part of its E-Rate application or knowingly fail to have a filter in place. Enforcement is run by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), which tests for CIPA compliance during its annual random audit process. At that time, the school would have to provide evidence that it has a social media filter in place.

CIPA enforcement provisions were designed explicitly for situations of ambiguity around what would constitute obscene content, and this enforcement framework is equally forgiving in this context. Enforcement would focus on whether a school knowingly failed to have a filter in place rather than policing a specific list of sites that were or were not blocked on school networks.

CIPA allows schools to come back into compliance by submitting their certification or evidence that they are complying with the policy. In other words, once they adopt their social media filter, they would be back in compliance.

It simply requires schools to adopt a screen time policy, nothing more.

No.

No. Senator Schatz is a cosponsor of both bills, and they take important steps to protect kids online. Working with Commerce Committee staff, this bill was crafted to compliment both KOSA and COPPA 2.0. Our bill aims to layer additional protections for social media on top of their protections for kids online due to the outsized negative impacts that social media is having on children and teens.