The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been in the works for years. In July, it passed the Senate with a 91-3 bipartisan stamp of approval. Sadly, it has been put on the back burner in the House, which never should have happened because it concerns our children’s social media use and the harmful side effects that are slowly warping and even killing them.

Why do American teenagers need this sort of governmental intervention?

While it is the parents who ultimately should be policing their kids’ Internet use, online predation has gotten to such a point that there needs to be a universal “off” button for minors. That’s because the addictive nature of social media apps — compounded by immense peer pressure — makes them difficult to avoid.

New York University professor Jonathan Haidt, a renowned social psychologist, has long been exposing the immense harm that social media and smartphones have done to this generation of children. In his most recent article, Haidt calls out the social media giants Snap (Snapchat), Byte Dance (TikTok), and Meta (Instagram).

Snapchat has exposed children to sextortion and, as a result, caused suicidality. It has also provided them access to drug dealers who have sold kids deadly fentanyl-laced pills.

TikTok’s algorithm is calibrated to be addictive. This incessant consumption leads kids to all sorts of bad content. Haidt illustrates that TikTok knows all of this, and he elaborates on this fact by quoting Byte Dance’s own internal research:

Internal research from TikTok also reveals that they have failed at preventing highly inappropriate content from reaching users. For example, the researchers found that 35.71% of “Normalization of Pedophilia” content, 33.33% of “Minor Sexual Solicitation” content, 39.13% of “Minor Physical Abuse” content, 30.36% of “Leading Minors Off Platform” content, 50% of “Glorification of Minor Sexual Assault” and 100% of “Fetishizing Minors” content was missed by TikTok’s content moderation process.

TikTok is also a Chinese-affiliated app that has more than likely been used to spy on Americans. It deserves to be banned on that count alone.

Finally, regarding Instagram, Haidt shared internal research from Meta’s platform that was exposed by whistleblower Arturo Bejar. According to Bejar’s intelligence, “20% of 13 to 15 year-olds say they were the target of bullying in the past seven days,” reports Haidt. “Bejar also revealed that 13% of 13 to 15 year-olds said that they have received unwanted sexual advances… in the past seven days. Bejar describes these findings like this: ‘Instagram hosts the largest-scale sexual harassment of teens to have ever happened.”

In light of all these horrible stats about the harm these companies are causing our children, Haidt strongly advocates for KOSA to be passed before Christmas.

His viewpoint is mirrored by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who wrote an article for the New York Post to educate the public on what this bill is and why we need to set a fire under our House reps to get it passed.

“KOSA,” Blackburn notes, “would mark the first law to protect children in the virtual space since 1998.” The Internet and social media have come a long way since 1998 — and become a lot more hostile.

Blackburn specifically calls out Meta for lobbying against this bill, asserting that it would suppress free speech. This is a tricky balancing act and has been a concern with regard to the ban on TikTok as well. However, Blackburn refutes:

To put this false narrative to rest, Sen. [Richard] Blumenthal and I worked with Elon Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino to update the bill’s text, making clear that KOSA will safeguard free speech while protecting children online. The changes include language stipulating the law does not permit the government to penalize companies based on users’ viewpoints, nor does it alter existing protections for third-party content under Section 230. In addition, the new text narrows the law’s duty-of-care application regarding anxiety and depression, provides more guidance for platforms regarding those obligations, and ensures that audits under the legislation will solely focus on platform design — not content.

There are bans on other harmful substances like alcohol and tobacco use. When even Biden’s surgeon general declares social media a danger to kids, that should count for something, right?

There are only a few days left until Christmas. The new Congress will be sworn in soon thereafter. The House should get KOSA on the agenda and pass it as soon as possible. It would be a good step in the effort to protect our children and combat many of the efforts of bad actors online to destroy their mental health, physical well-being, and innocence.