Republicans Face Last Chance Before Midterms to Protect Kids from Online Threats
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., will soon introduce a bill encompassing her deal with the White House to pass kids’ safety legislation in exchange for preempting state AI laws.
This could be Republicans’ last chance before the midterm elections to pass legislation to protect kids online and defend their claim of the pro-family party.
“This is the last shot of this White House to pick up part of the populist AI revolt protectors against Big Tech,” said a conservative leader who has reservations about the impact of possible preemption compromises.
The package will include the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety Act, App Store Accountability Act, the No Fakes Act, and narrow preemption of state laws, two sources familiar with the matter tell the Daily Signal. Blackburn has worked hand in hand with the White House on developing the bill, sources said.
Before the child online safety package is officially introduced, pro-family groups are fighting for members to include additional child safety measures, such as the SCREEN Act, which requires age verification for pornography websites, and the GUARD Act, which protects minors from chatbots.
Many conservatives support Indiana Republican Sen. Jim Banks’s SAFE for Kids Act, which would require pornography websites to implement age-verification measures before users can access sexually explicit content. The House version of SCREEN was watered down by preemption language and a requirement that 30% of a website’s content be pornographic to trigger age verification, so child safety groups think Banks’ bill is the stronger option.
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Sources familiar with the matter expected the president to weigh in on the package early this week, but the White House has not yet given a public position.
The Senate has passed the Kids Online Safety Act, which establishes a duty of care for online platforms and requires them to activate the strictest protections for kids by default. The Senate version of the bill puts the duty of care to protect kids online on social media companies, rather than parents.
This time, however, Blackburn will have to overcome the challenge of getting skeptics of preemption on board to pass her package of bills.
Blackburn has said her package limits preemption of state laws to matters related to the child online safety bills, but it’s unclear if these limitations will be enough for staunch opponents of preemption to support it. Some child safety advocates are holding their endorsements of her efforts until they see the language.
“What’s going to make or break the deal is the language of preemption,” said Daniel Cochrane, technology scholar at Institute for Family Studies. Cochrane said some people in the White House are pushing for broad preemption, which he and his colleagues would oppose.
“We know there are still people in the White House that are very much wanting a maximalist approach to preemption, and we’ve said over and over again for over a year that when you do that,” he told the Daily Signal, “we’re going to oppose your bill because you’re going to preempt far more than what you protect, and so the preemption has to always be scoped to what whatever federal protections are provided by the legislation.”
Another advocate who has worked on the Kids Online Safety Act is very concerned the package will preempt state kids’ safety laws. Meta reportedly dropped its opposition to the package due to the preemption provision and its support for the App Store Accountability Act, which would potentially change some liability for kids’ safety from Meta to Google and Apple.
“If there is a world in which Meta drops their opposition to KOSA,” the advocate said, “then that makes me very concerned that it’s a KOSA that I wouldn’t want.”
Getting Blackburn’s package through the House will pose another challenge, as both parties in the chamber are split on tech regulation.
Adding the SCREEN Act could make it easier to get members on board with the package, a source familiar with the matter said.
Pornography age verification is popular with 81% of Americans, and 83% support app store age verification, according to a Cygnal poll commissioned by American Principles Project. As a result, Democrats would risk taking an unpopular position if they opposed a package with the SCREEN Act included, the expert said.
Child safety groups largely trust that Blackburn will procure a package that protects kids online, sources said.
The White House held a meeting last week with child safety advocacy groups, including American Principles Project, Ethics and Public Policy Center, National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, to brief them on the package.
Ryan Baasch, national economic council deputy director; Michael Kratsios, office of science and technology policy director; Walker Barrett, adviser to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles; and Sarah Geseriech, the first lady’s policy director, presented the safety advocates with five points about the package, sources familiar with the meeting told The Daily Signal.
The meeting between conservative kids safety advocates and White House staff was a preliminary meeting to gather feedback from stakeholders, and no agreement was reached, a White House official told the Daily Signal.
The first point was about the Kids Online Safety Act; the second and third points were about preempting state AI laws; and the fourth and fifth points pertained to app store accountability and app developers, sources familiar with the meeting said.
The points about state AI laws included preemption for laws conflicting with the Kids Online Safety Act and the App Store Accountability Act, but also included broader preemption of kids’ safety laws, including all state social media protections, like age verification and parental consent, and state GUARD Acts, sources said. The White House does not have a position on the proposals discussed, the White House official said.
Because only narrow preemption can pass Congress, some conservatives fear Republicans could face a bloodbath in the midterms if they let Democrats lead on protecting families from Big Tech.
“It will set up the Democrats as ‘pro-family’ for the midterms and then we will get trans and woke House policies coming back in 2027,” said the conservative leader who is skeptical of preemption.
The White House is waking up to the bad politics of letting Democrats become the populist protectors against Big Tech, the leader said.
A parent who lost her child to suicide due to social media use said it was “devastating” that the White House hasn’t included survivor parents in conversations about kids’ online safety.
“Whatever party, whether it’s the Democrats or Republicans, that get behind this and pass a strong bill, and not strap the hands of the states, this is going to be a winning issue for the midterm elections,” she said.
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