WASHINGTON—Republican lawmakers who control both chambers of the U.S. Congress cannot agree on the approach they should take in adopting age verification legislation at the federal level. This proves true as the U.S. House of Representatives advanced the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act to the Senate on Monday in a show of bipartisanship.
The KIDS Act is an omnibus measure that has several bills baked into its language. A key component of the amended omnibus is that it includes an amended version of the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, which was initially proposed by Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican of Illinois, and GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.
A version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was also built into the omnibus measure, adding to the age verification pressure for Republican leadership in both chambers.
Note that KOSA was originally proposed several years ago by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee. AVN has covered KOSA and similar legislation, like the SCREEN Act, extensively, despite the failure of Congress and both political parties to adopt a federal age verification provision.
"Supporters of KOSA have said the bill doesn’t require age verification," observed Joe Mullin, a senior policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a blog post reacting to the omnibus bill. "And technically, the KOSA section of the bill does say that KOSA shouldn’t be read to require age verification."
With the current KOSA variation built into the KIDS Act, lawmakers in the House agreed to eliminate the so-called "duty of care" requirements that would penalize tech platforms that fail to "prevent and mitigate" mental harms like depression, eating disorders and sexual exploitation.
"The revised KOSA requires covered platforms to 'establish, implement, maintain, and enforce' policies and procedures addressing several categories of content and conduct," Mullin said in his analysis. Meanwhile, before the Senate, the Kids Online Safety Act is still being shaped to include duty-of-care requirements, creating obstacles for the House bill.
Influential Democrats in the Senate are urging their colleagues to kill the KIDS Act. Of note, the Senate Commerce Committee's top Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, called the passage of the KIDS Act through the House "bad legislation with a good title." She echoed Blumenthal, who urged that KOSA's duty-of-care rules remain.
This leaves the House and the Senate at an impasse, leaving federal legislative debates about national age verification requirements codified in the law up in the air.
At this point, the only consistent authority within the three branches of the federal government that is even attempting to take on age verification against adult entertainment websites is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As AVN reported, the FTC has explicitly pushed for national age verification rules and endorsed legislation granting it those powers.
While nothing is set in stone at this point due to the legislative process, the adoption of the KIDS Act is a noteworthy development for the adult industry and adjacent stakeholders.
Alison Boden, the executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, told AVN that the KIDS Act passing the House of Representatives is the "worst of all worlds."
Boden explained, "If it were to pass the Senate, not only would users in states that rejected ineffective age verification laws now be forced to verify, but the patchwork of laws that govern the rest of the states would be left in place."
Luckily, the KIDS Act is likely to fall short in the Senate given the current state of affairs described here.
