In 2024, New York took a historic step to protect children online by passing the SAFE for Kids Act, first-in-the-nation legislation to restrict platforms from serving addictive algorithmic feeds to minors without parental consent. The premise was simple: Parents alone cannot be expected to outwit platforms built by some of the world’s most sophisticated companies to capture their children\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
That progress is now in jeopardy. Just as New York begins implementing the SAFE for Kids Act, Congress is advancing legislation that could dismantle much of what the state \u00a0has achieved.<\/p>\n
The Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act pulls a sinister two-step, threatening New York\u2019s ability to protect children online while leaving children with weaker federal protections.<\/p>\n
First, the KIDS Act could give platforms a ready-made argument against laws like the SAFE for Kids Act. The bill expressly limits state regulation, allowing platforms to claim that federal law overrides stronger protections passed by states.<\/p>\n
It also leaves out a state-protective clause from the Senate\u2019s Kids Online Safety Act, the stronger online safety bill the Senate passed 91-3 in 2024. That clause would have preserved laws going further than the federal standard. Without it, platforms could argue that New York\u2019s protections must yield to the weaker federal standard.<\/p>\n
Even if the state ultimately wins, the fight could delay enforcement and force New York to defend its own law for years. If that argument succeeded, New York\u2019s law would fall and be replaced by the KIDS Act.<\/p>\n
And make no mistake: The KIDS Act is a poor substitute. The bill leaves the basic model of addictive platform design intact. While the federal Kids Online Safety Act would have required platforms to exercise reasonable care in designing their products, including by addressing risks of compulsive use, the KIDS Act strips out that duty entirely. Instead, it falls back on the same weak tools that have failed for years, like platform settings, limited safeguards and parental controls. That would leave platforms free to continue engineering products to hold children in thrall, then point to after-the-fact safeguards as proof that they had done enough. It is precisely the failed framework that made federal action necessary in the first place.<\/p>\n
Last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James joined with 44 other attorneys general, Republicans and Democrats, in urging Congress to reject the KIDS Act and pass the Kids Online Safety Act instead. They warned that the bill could preempt state laws covering social media sites, gaming platforms and AI chatbots. Rarely do attorneys general from California, Oklahoma, Alabama and Maryland unite around a warning this blunt.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers should pay attention. Our state leads the nation in child safety online because its leaders acted in the face of a massive lobbying campaign by Big Tech. New York should be able to act when powerful technology companies design products that affect the health, privacy and development of our children.<\/p>\n
Congress should not replace that progress with a weaker standard. If Washington acts, it should create a national baseline that leaves states free to go further, just as the attorneys general have urged.<\/p>\n
New York has begun to build a serious framework for child safety online. Congress should not stop that work just as it is getting\u00a0started.<\/p>\n
Harry Seavey of New York City is a third-year student at Yale Law School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2024, New York took a historic step to protect children online by passing the SAFE for Kids…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":907331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,11890,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,324907,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-907330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-commentary","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-opiniontu","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}