‘Pathetic Fart’ of a Bill That Bans Kids from Social Media Moves Forward

A bipartisan bill that would ban anyone under the age of 13 from using social media and punish schools that fail to block social media platforms cleared an initial hurdle on Wednesday.

The Senate Commerce Committee approved the Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA), which has been championed by senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), despite widespread opposition from all ends of the political spectrum and powerful tech lobbying groups.

Fight for the Future, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression online, described the bill as a “pathetic fart.”

“Schatz’s KOSMA hearing comes at a time when youth-led organizing and access to information is at its most essential, particularly for queer youth, immigrant youth, and youth of color whose communities are being targeted amid Trump’s unprecedented power grab,” Lia Holland, campaigns and communications director at Fight for the Future said in a statement. “Yet instead of organizing his party to stand up for youth, Senator Schatz has decided to push forward a hearing on his vanity bill that would be terrible for human rights online.”

KOSMA would require social media companies to delete the accounts of anyone under the age of 13 and prohibit them from creating new accounts. It would also ban platforms from using personalized recommendation algorithms to deliver content to anyone under the age of 17 and it would withhold critical technology funding from schools unless they block social media platforms on school-issued devices and networks.

The bill is the latest in a wave of legislation aimed at restricting what children and teens can see online. Other federal bills, like the Kids Online Safety Act, have repeatedly failed thanks to lobbying from the tech industry and from civil liberties groups who argue that they would chill speech protected by the First Amendment and lead to the widespread use of invasive age verification technology.

KOSMA contains a provision saying that the law does not require platforms to use age or identity verification tools, but it’s unclear how a platform could reliably determine users’ ages without doing so. Most social media companies already ask users how old they are during the signup process and prohibit or place restrictions on accounts for children under the age of 13.

A number of states have successfully passed laws requiring age verification for social media, but NetChoice, a group representing large tech companies, has sued to block the laws and courts have issued injunctions preventing them from taking effect.

While groups representing pediatricians, child psychiatrists, and teachers have come out in support of the bill, many civil liberties advocacy groups and several conservative organizations remain opposed.

“If your son likes hockey and it gives him more hockey information, I don’t know that that would bother me,” said Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice during a Fox News appearance on Wednesday. “I just don’t know that I want the government making those decisions for my family.”

A coalition including the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology, and other groups issued an open letter on Tuesday warning that KOSMA would not only threaten the free speech and privacy of teens but lead to more invasive forms of surveillance—such as age and identity verification—of all social media users.