The Senate Commerce Committee holds its markup on kids online safety Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET. Five bills are on the table, including the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require platforms to exercise a legally enforceable "duty of care" to prevent documented harms to minors — eating disorders, self-harm, substance abuse, compulsive use, depression, and anxiety. Also on the docket: the CHATBOT Act, which would require AI companies to offer family accounts letting parents control what chatbots their kids can access. The Senate is going its own way after the House passed a separate, weaker omnibus last June that dropped KOSA's duty-of-care requirement entirely. The two chambers are now heading for a direct showdown over how far the law should go.

1. Platforms Are the Problem (Blackburn, Blumenthal, Haidt)

Platforms designed addictive features that hurt teens, and voluntary commitments haven't changed anything.

The duty of care is the whole point. Senate KOSA co-sponsors Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have been unequivocal: without it, there's no accountability. When the House passed its version without the duty of care, Blumenthal called it "a blank check to Mark Zuckerberg to exploit children." Blackburn was equally direct: "Without a duty of care, Big Tech companies will maintain the status quo of putting profit before the safety of our children."

The statistical evidence is consistent enough to act on. Pew Research Center found 46% of teens report negative body image effects from social media, 45% say it disrupts sleep, and 19% say it harms their mental health. HHS advisory data shows teens spending three or more hours a day on social media face elevated risk of depression and anxiety. NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of "The Anxious Generation," argues platforms created a "phone-based childhood" that replaced unsupervised play with compulsive algorithmic engagement — and that teens are especially susceptible to it.

The political support is already there. KOSA has 76 Senate co-sponsors and endorsements from over 240 organizations, including pediatricians, child psychologists, and faith leaders. A prior version cleared the Senate 91-3 — the bill isn't controversial among senators; it's the House that's been the obstacle.

2. But the Fix Surveils Everyone (EFF, CDT)

Even if social media harms some teens, KOSA's fix will censor lawful content and build surveillance databases.

Platforms will pull mental health resources first to dodge liability. The EFF published its case against KOSA on August 3, written by Joe Mullin: when platforms face liability for content linked to anxiety, eating disorders, or substance use, the safest move is to preemptively remove it. Forums for addiction recovery, LGBTQ+ teens looking for community, and mental health support groups are exactly the kind of content platforms will delete to avoid getting sued.

Age verification means building a database of every user's identity. For platforms to comply with KOSA, they need to know which users are minors. That means age verification — government IDs, facial analysis, bank records — creating databases that hackers can breach, companies can misuse, and governments can demand. The Center for Democracy and Technology has raised "serious constitutional objections" to age verification mandates on both First Amendment and privacy grounds. The EFF argues the bill "takes those decisions away from families and the young people who have a First Amendment right."

Even the industry's preferred version has constitutional problems. NetChoice, a tech industry group, acknowledged the House bill was a better attempt but argued any legislation treating legal speech as inherently harmful will face First Amendment challenges. NetChoice argued the bills "degrade privacy and security, materially diminish the First Amendment protections that young people and adults have a full right to as Americans."

3. And the Evidence Was Never That Clear (Candice Odgers, UC Irvine)

Researchers who study teens longitudinally say the harm link is thinner than the headlines — and lawmakers are running ahead of what the evidence shows.

The harm link doesn't survive long-term study. Candice Odgers, a psychologist at UC Irvine who studies adolescent development, told NPR in June 2026 that social media use doesn't show up as a major cause of mental health symptoms in teens when researchers follow the same young people over time. She argues the claim that technology is causing a teen mental health epidemic is "not based on solid science" and that restricting platforms won't fix what's actually hurting teens.

The causation may run in reverse. Kids who are in trouble seek out social media; social media doesn't create the trouble. Restricting platforms doesn't address what's underneath.

Both camps have peer-reviewed work behind them. Jonathan Haidt and Candice Odgers reach opposite conclusions from the same decade of data. Teen mental health has worsened — no one disputes that. Whether platforms caused it is exactly what scientists are fighting over, and that distinction matters enormously for whether any of this legislation will help.

Where This Lands

The Senate marks up five bills on Wednesday. If KOSA advances with the duty-of-care provision intact, it goes to conference with a House bill that already rejected it — making the path to law difficult. Blackburn and Blumenthal won't accept KOSA without liability; House Republicans say duty of care won't survive a First Amendment challenge. The civil liberties critics say both chambers are missing the real risk: that whichever version passes, it will require platforms to surveil users and censor lawful content to comply. And the researchers who dispute the harm link argue that none of this legislation will move the needle on teen mental health — because it's targeting the wrong variable. Fourteen states haven't waited for Congress; they've passed their own chatbot and social media safety laws already.

Sources