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Why did the US let a child safety bill for social media die?

The Kids Online Safety act passed the Senate 91-to-3 but died in the House. Advocates on both sides say they won’t give up

“With Kosa, we saw a really well-intentioned but ultimately vague bill requiring online services to take unspecified action to keep kids safe, which was going to lead to several bad outcomes for children, and all marginalized users,” said Aliya Bhatia, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which opposed the legislation and which receives money from tech donors including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Following these changes, a number of organizations including Glaad, the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project withdrew opposition, stating that the revisions “significantly mitigate the risk of [Kosa] being misused to suppress LGBTQ+ resources or stifle young people’s access to online communities”. But other civil rights groups maintained their opposition, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the ACLU and Fight for the Future, calling Kosa a “censorship bill” that would harm vulnerable users and freedom of speech at large.

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