More from Congress moves forward on kids online safety

The Tennessee Republican, another of the bill’s lead sponsors, began her remarks with what KOSA doesn’t do. It doesn’t cover nonprofits, it doesn’t include rule-making, it doesn’t include news outlets, and it doesn’t give the government new authority, she said.

“There’s no censorship in this bill. None. Zero,” the Connecticut Democrat who’s the bill’s lead sponsor said on the Senate floor. “It is about product design. Much as it would be about a car that is unsafe and is required to have seatbelts and airbags.”

The Kentucky Republican said the bill “promises to be pandora’s box of unintended consequences.” He added that “there’s enough to hate this bill from the right and left,” describing, for example, how discussion of sexuality, climate change, and abortion could cause anxiety, which the duty of care mandates platforms try to mitigate.

The effort may be an attempt to force a vote on KOSA, which has stalled in both chambers despite having broad support in the Senate. The FAA law expires May 10th.

The series of bills Google endorsed would do things like fund investigations of child exploitation and make it easier for victims to request child abuse images to be removed from social media.