Current status (as of July 2026): S. 1748 was read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on May 14, 2025, and remains in committee. It has not received a committee vote or a floor vote in the 119th Congress, and it has not become law. Its latest recorded action reads, verbatim: "Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. (Sponsor introductory remarks on measure: CR S2929-2930)."

S. 1748, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), is a Senate bill that would require online platforms likely to be used by people under 17 — including social media services, video games, messaging apps, and video streaming services — to take steps to prevent and mitigate specified harms to minors, and to provide safeguards and parental tools. It was introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on May 14, 2025, with 76 cosponsors from both parties. This page tracks where the bill stands; when LegislationPatch publishes a full analysis of KOSA, it will be linked here.

Where S. 1748 Stands

The bill sits in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the panel with jurisdiction over most consumer-protection and communications legislation. It has drawn broad cosponsorship: 76 senators, comprising 42 Republicans, 33 Democrats, and 1 independent, in addition to the sponsor. Sen. Blackburn and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have been the bill's principal authors across multiple Congresses. As of July 2026, the committee had not held a markup or vote on S. 1748.

The House, meanwhile, has moved a different measure. On June 29, 2026, it passed H.R. 7757, the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, by a vote of 267–117; the bill was received in the Senate on July 13, 2026, and referred to the same Commerce Committee where S. 1748 sits. The House bill does not include KOSA's duty-of-care standard. KOSA's authors objected to that omission: Sens. Blackburn and Blumenthal said in a joint statement that they "will not back down from the fight to pass the stronger, more widely supported version of the Kids Online Safety Act."

How KOSA Got Here

KOSA has been introduced in successive Congresses. In the 118th Congress (2023–2024), the version numbered S. 1409 was reported by the Commerce Committee and placed on the Senate calendar in December 2023, but it did not receive a standalone floor vote.

Instead, the Senate passed a combined package — the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, which incorporated KOSA together with an update to children's online privacy law — on July 30, 2024, by a vote of 91–3. Procedurally, the Senate carried that package as an amendment to an unrelated legislative vehicle, S. 2073 (an earlier cloture vote on July 25, 2024, had passed 86–1). The House did not take the package up before the 118th Congress ended, so the measure expired and had to be reintroduced. S. 1748 is the 119th Congress reintroduction.

What the Bill Would Require

According to the bill's official summary, S. 1748 would, among other things:

  • Impose a duty of care. Covered platforms would be required to exercise reasonable care in the design and use of features that increase minors' online activity, in order to prevent and mitigate harms to minors such as mental health disorders and severe harassment.
  • Require safeguards for minors. Platforms would have to provide protections for minors' data, tools for parents (such as access to a minor's privacy settings), and a mechanism for account holders and visitors to report harm to minors.
  • Limit research on children. Platforms would be prohibited from conducting market or product research on children under 13, and could conduct such research on those under 17 only with parental consent.
  • Add algorithm transparency and an opt-out. Platforms using algorithms that prioritize information based on user-specific data would have to notify users and permit them to switch to an algorithm that does not rely on that data.
  • Provide for enforcement. The bill would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and the states.

What Happens Next

For S. 1748 to advance, the Commerce Committee would generally hold a markup and report the bill, after which it could be scheduled for floor consideration. In the Senate, most legislation must clear a 60-vote cloture threshold to reach a final vote; the 2024 predecessor package cleared that bar. A bill that passed the Senate would then need to pass the House — the step that did not happen in the previous Congress — and be signed by the President.

Who Supports KOSA, Who Opposes It, and Why

Because S. 1748 remains in committee, no recorded Senate vote has tested it in the 119th Congress. The arguments below are the strongest on-record case each side has pressed — in letters, public statements, and testimony before lawmakers — rather than positions settled by a vote.

Why do supporters back KOSA?

S. 1748 was introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and its original cosponsors include Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Supporters argue that a "duty of care" would require large platforms to design their services to prevent and mitigate specific harms to minors — such as mental-health disorders, eating disorders, and sexual exploitation — rather than leaving those design choices unaccountable. A coalition of more than 200 organizations, led by the American Psychological Association (APA) and including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Common Sense Media, Fairplay, and Mental Health America, has urged the Senate to pass the bill; APA chief executive Arthur C. Evans Jr. said it "takes important steps toward curtailing the harms posed to youth by social media use and content." Supporters contend that platforms will not adopt such safeguards on their own, and that KOSA regulates product design and parental tools rather than users' speech.

Why do opponents object?

Civil-liberties and digital-rights groups — including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), and Fight for the Future — argue that the duty of care is too vague and would push platforms to over-restrict lawful speech to limit their legal exposure. In a May 2025 analysis of S. 1748 itself, the EFF argues the reintroduced bill "will make the internet worse for everyone": because a platform cannot know in advance whether "an attorney general or FTC lawyer" might later deem hosted content harmful, it contends, "when the safest legal option is to delete a forum, platforms will delete the forum." The EFF has also argued, of the prior version, that "there is no case law defining what is 'reasonable care'" in this context, and that the standard is only safe for a site to follow by restricting content by age — which it contends would function in practice as a mandate for age verification, with the privacy costs that carries. The ACLU argues that although the revised duty of care is written to regulate "design features" rather than speech, platforms would still "censor protected speech for fear of being held legally liable," with resources on subjects such as gender identity, reproductive health, or eating-disorder recovery among the most exposed.

How the bill has changed in response

The bill's evolution is itself on the record. In February 2024, the sponsors revised KOSA to limit duty-of-care enforcement to the Federal Trade Commission — removing state attorneys general from that provision — and to focus the duty on design features rather than the content a platform hosts. After that revision, several LGBTQ organizations, including GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG, and the Trevor Project, dropped their opposition; the ACLU, EFF, CDT, and Fight for the Future argued the changes were insufficient and stayed opposed. Supporters say the 119th Congress text carries that clarifying language forward so that the bill does not target speech or viewpoint. Neither chamber has voted on S. 1748 itself; the most recent recorded vote in this policy area is the House's 267–117 passage of the separate H.R. 7757 on June 29, 2026, a bill that omits the duty of care.

Primary Sources