STATEMENT: ParentsSOS Responds to Passage of the KIDS Act
(Washington, D.C.) — Parents for Safe Online Spaces (ParentsSOS), a coalition of families who have lost children due to online harms, issued the following statement regarding the passage of the KIDS Act:
“ParentsSOS welcomes this opportunity to move forward on discussions with House and Senate leaders on passing a strong version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) with a duty of care this year. As parents who have lost our children to online harms, we are more aware than anyone of the need to enact strong legislation without delay.
The KOSA and COPPA 2.0 titles in the KIDS Act include important new protections for families. Crucially, there is now broad bipartisan, bicameral agreement that federal online safety legislation should not preempt states’ ability to enact and enforce their own laws. We appreciate the changes made to the bill’s preemption language and knowledge standard at our request.
As we have said during the four years we have been advocating for KOSA, any final legislation must include a duty of care to ensure that companies like Snap, Instagram, and TikTok stop designing their products to addict children and begin protecting them from the most serious and deadly online harms.
We look forward to continuing our work with leadership in both chambers to ensure that Congress passes strong online protections — including a duty of care — by year-end.”
Signed,
Joann Bogard, Parent of Mason, Forever 15
Cheryl McCormick Brown, Parent of McKenna, Forever 16
John DeMay, Parent of Jordan, Forever 17
Christine McComas, Parent of Grace, Forever 15
Annie McGrath, Parent of Griffin ("Bubba"), Forever 13
Mia Minor, Parent of Matthew, Forever 12
Todd Minor, Parent of Matthew, Forever 12
Matt Molak, Parent of David, Forever 16
Maurine Molak, Parent of David, Forever 16
Brian Montgomery, Parent of Walker, Forever 16
Matt Riviere, Parent of Stephen and Andrew, Forever 19 and 21
Deb Schmill, Parent of Becca, Forever 18
Michelle Servi, Parent of Jack, Forever 16
Jeff Van Lith, Parent of Ethan, Forever 13
Sharon Winkler, Parent of Alex, Forever 17
