Duty of Care Fight Stalls US Kids' Online Safety Bill

The Global Wave Is Already Here

The global push to keep kids off social media isn't theoretical anymore — it's law in multiple places.

Australia became the first country last year to ban social media for children under 16. Indonesia followed with its own nationwide restriction. The United Kingdom, Norway, and Spain have all announced plans for similar bans.

Back in the US, a recent Pew Research Center survey found nearly six in ten American adults also support prohibiting social media for kids under 16. But Congress hasn't crossed the line.

What the US Has Tried Instead

Instead of an outright ban, Congress has spent years trying to regulate the platforms themselves — not the age of their users.

In 2024, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). The bill stalled in the House. Last month, House lawmakers passed a broader online safety package — the KIDS Act — that includes parts of KOSA. But it looks meaningfully different from the Senate version.

• 🇦🇺 Australia — nationwide under-16 ban, in force since December 2025.

• 🇮🇩 Indonesia — passed its own restriction shortly after.

• 🇬🇧 UK / 🇳🇴 Norway / 🇪🇸 Spain — plans announced for similar bans.

• 🇺🇸 US — Senate KOSA (2024) stalled in House; House passed a different bill in June 2026.

The House–Senate Split on "Duty of Care"

The single biggest difference between the two bills is a missing clause: the "duty of care" provision.

If my colleagues are serious, they're going to reject laws that eliminate the duty of care. When Big Tech makes products that addict and kill young people, they should be liable under a duty of care. — Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), KOSA co-author, June 2026 press conference

The Senate's KOSA would require platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent harms — suicide, sexual exploitation, substance abuse. The House's KIDS Act drops that requirement. Senate KOSA co-authors, including Blumenthal, have called the removal a nonstarter.

That puts the bill in legislative limbo: the House measure now heads to the Senate, where its path is unclear.

Why Enforcement Is the Hard Part Anyway

Even if Congress lands on a compromise, attorney Leeza Garber points out a second problem — making any rule actually work.

It's actually extremely difficult to have age verification work properly. There are other workarounds like VPNs. So there's multiple challenges facing the community when it comes to outright social media bans. — Leeza Garber, attorney and cybersecurity expert

Three structural problems keep cropping up in every country that has tried age-based rules:

1. Age verification at scale is hard to do reliably — fake IDs, parental consent loopholes, and inconsistent ID standards.

2. VPNs let minors route around geography-based blocks almost as fast as the blocks go up.

3. First Amendment challenges are already working their way through state-level bans in the US, with mixed results.

That last point is the catch-22: the rules that would be easiest to enforce are also the most legally vulnerable.

Where This Leaves Kids Right Now

The US isn't alone in debating this — it's just late. While other countries pass age bans and the Senate and House argue over what "duty of care" should mean, a generation of kids is still waiting for a clear answer from Washington.

Platforms that build safety in from the start — InfoTik's fact-checked feed and built-in screen-time tools — are one attempt to close that gap without waiting on Congress.

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