Summary#
This bill is titled the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (KIDS Act). It sets rules for many online services that let people post content, create accounts, or interact with others. Major provisions include:
- Shielding minors from certain sexual material by requiring "covered platforms" with lots of harmful sexual content to use technology to verify a user is not a minor before showing that content.
- Requiring platforms that promote user content and use personalized recommendations to adopt safeguards for minors, offer easy parental tools, provide reporting channels, and run yearly independent audits with public summaries.
- Banning ephemeral messaging for users the platform knows are minors and banning direct messaging for children under 13. For teens (13–16), platforms must offer parental direct messaging controls that parents can activate with verifiable consent.
- Limiting market or product-focused research on users the platform knows are minors, except to improve safety, privacy, or to comply with law.
- Requiring online game providers to give parents default, strong safeguards to limit communications and purchases for known child accounts.
- Requiring chatbot providers to disclose they are AI, give crisis hotline resources, avoid claiming to be a licensed professional when they are not, and encourage breaks after long continuous interactions with minors.
- Ordering several studies and reports (including on social media use by minors, fentanyl access via social media, chatbot mental health impacts) and creating a Kids Internet Safety Partnership to publish best practices.
The Federal Trade Commission would enforce the Act. Many sections include data security and limits on data retention, and several provisions preserve encryption and existing child privacy rules.
What it means for you#
If you are a parent: platforms would have tools to view and change a child’s settings, limit messages, restrict purchases, and see time spent. Platforms must default to the most protective settings for children and offer clear notices about those tools.
If you run or develop a platform, game, chatbot, or app that meets the bill’s definitions of a covered service, you would need to implement safeguards, parental controls, notices, reporting mechanisms, audits, and certain disclosures. Some platforms must use age-verification technology to block minors from sexual material deemed harmful to minors.
If you are a young person, the bill requires more default protections on accounts platforms know belong to minors. It also restricts some messaging features for younger users and sets limits on marketing research directed at minors.
Expenses#
No publicly available information on the bill's estimated costs or budgetary effects. The bill requires audits, studies, and new FTC and agency activities, but it does not include a public cost estimate in the provided text.
Proponents' View#
The bill's stated purpose is to protect children and teens online, empower parents, and strengthen families. It directs agencies and industry to create safeguards, parental tools, disclosure rules, audits, and research aimed at reducing harms to minors online.
Opponents' View#
No publicly available information.