OAN Staff Avril Elfi
Monday, September 16, 2024 4:33 p.m.
Senator Marsha Blackburn released a video urging the House to pass the Child Online Safety Act (KOSA), which aims to improve digital safety and privacy for children.
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After the KOSA bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support, Sen. Blackburn (R-Tenn.) “Why We Must Pass the Child Online Safety Act”
In the video, she tells the story of a 17-year-old boy who died after taking fentanyl-laced pills he bought from someone on the social media platform Snapchat.
Thomas died from fentanyl poisoning after taking what his mother called “counterfeit Xanax.”
“We found Vaughn Thomas when he didn't wake up to his alarm,” his mother, Cathy, told Blackburn. “He took what he thought was a Xanax, but it was fake Xanax. [laced with fentanyl].”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a co-author of KOSA with Blackburn, said the bill would require social media platforms to protect minors from potentially harmful content, including by limiting addictive features.
“We're finding that a lot of kids are meeting drug dealers online, and precursor drugs are being brought into Mexico from China and then into the country by the drug cartels,” Blackburn said. “More than 100,000 Americans are dying a year.”
In July, KOSA, along with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, passed the Senate by a vote of 91-3.
The three senators who voted against the bill — Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — argued that the bill violates the First Amendment and gives the executive branch too much power to censor content.
Big tech companies are expected to lobby against the bill, having blocked a bipartisan data privacy bill and blocked antitrust legislation in the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month.
A group of parents led by the advocacy group ParentsTogether recently petitioned members of Congress in support of KOSA, garnering more than 100,000 signatures and delivering boxes of messages from parents about online safety to lawmakers.
The Hill House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, reportedly voiced support for the bill, despite warnings from House Republican leaders last month that the bill could lead to censorship of speech and give new powers to the Federal Trade Commission.
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