New US bill bundles child safety, AI chatbots, gaming into one act

Websites where more than one-third of the content is harmful sexual material for minors would have to introduce age verification measures to block underage users, while social media platforms, AI chatbot providers, and online gaming services would face a separate set of child safety obligations under the broader Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, which the US House of Representatives passed on Monday.

Rather than creating a single new regulatory framework, the legislation combines several standalone proposals covering children’s online safety, messaging, AI chatbots, online gaming, age verification, and youth profiling. However, for these platforms, age verification has not been mandated, but they are expected to apply the provisions to users they know to be minors. 

Online safety requirements: Platforms whose primary purpose is to host user-generated content, use engagement-driven design features, and rely on users’ personal information for advertising or recommendations would have to establish policies and procedures to address harms including:

• Threats of serious physical violence.
• Sexual exploitation and abuse.
• Distribution, sale, or use of narcotics, tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, and gambling.
• Financial harm caused by deceptive practices.

The legislation would also require platforms that know a user is a minor to provide safeguards enabling them to:

• Limit who can contact them.
• Prevent their profile or personal information from being recommended to adults.
• Reduce design features that encourage compulsive use, like infinite scrolling.
• Restrict sharing of precise geolocation information.
• Opt out of personalised recommendation systems or limit recommendation categories.

These protections would have to be enabled at the most protective setting by default for minors. Additionally, parents would receive tools allowing them to:

• View and modify a child’s privacy and account settings.
• Restrict purchases and financial transactions.
• View and limit time spent on the platform.

Platforms would also have to notify minors whenever parental controls are active. Beyond user controls, providers would need to establish reporting mechanisms for harms involving minors; respond to reports within 10 days, prohibit advertising of gambling, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and narcotics to minors, undergo annual independent audits, and publish public audit reports summarising their child safety measures. However, the bill clarifies that these provisions do not require platforms to implement age-gating or age verification for this subtitle.

Prohibition on ephemeral messaging: Platforms would be prohibited from offering ephemeral messaging features, i.e., messages that automatically disappear after being viewed or after a predetermined period, to users they know are minors. Manual deletion by users would remain permitted because it is not treated as ephemeral messaging under the bill.