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By Brandon Guffey
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Our government has a responsibility to protect children from dangers that threaten their safety and well-being. That responsibility does not go away because the threat is in our digital world as opposed to our physical world.
For too long, social media companies have been allowed to design products that maximize engagement, elicit emotion, and addict children while ignoring the foreseeable harms those products can cause to children.
Congress continues to debate solutions year after year while families across America continue to face the consequences. Whose child needs to die next before they understand the value of passing meaningful legislation now? The time for discussion has passed and Congress should immediately pass the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
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As a father who lost my son, Gavin, to a sextortion scheme that originated on social media, I know the devastating impact online danger has on a family. Hundreds of other parents and I came to D.C. on June 23 to advocate for real protections. Year after year, our crowd grows larger because another family has experienced the loss that my family endured.
I am a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, where I work to strengthen protections for children online. Often, I feel like I am fighting against the world’s richest lobbyists from Big Tech, but also my own Government. What I have learned as an elected official is that parents cannot fight this battle alone. State after state continues to pass online safety regulations and, consistently, we hear from our federal government why we can’t have 50 different laws. If Congress would do its job and provided protection for our children, we wouldn’t have to pass state laws.
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Technology companies have some of the brightest engineers and most advanced data systems in the world. They know how platforms are being used and recent court proceedings have revealed how they intentionally target children. They know when children are being exposed to harmful content. They know when predators are using their services to target minors. They know when algorithms are pushing vulnerable children toward dangerous material. Yet, safety remains secondary to profits and user engagement while members of Congress listen to the companies instead of to parents.
That is why the Senate version of KOSA is so important. KOSA establishes a duty of care for online platforms. It requires companies to take reasonable steps to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, including sexual exploitation, predatory behavior, promotion of self-harm, and other dangers. This should not be controversial. This is common sense.
We require manufacturers to build safe products. We require businesses to take reasonable precautions to protect consumers. We expect companies to address foreseeable risks when they know those risks exist. Technology companies should be held to the same standard. Why were many of those safety standards put in place to begin with? Duty of Care.
KOSA does not prohibit innovation. It does not ban social media. It does not prevent lawful speech. What it does is establish clear expectations that companies operating products used by children should take reasonable steps to protect them. Once again, common sense.
Parents already carry an enormous burden. They monitor devices, establish rules, review apps and have difficult conversations with their children. But no parent can monitor every message, every interaction and every emerging threat. Parents can’t even stop their children from using these dangerous platforms due to tech in education.
The reality is that children are navigating digital environments that were not built with their safety as the primary concern. Congress has an opportunity to change that.
The Senate version of KOSA represents years of bipartisan work and compromise. It provides meaningful transparency, gives families better tools and creates accountability for platforms that fail to address known harms. Most importantly, it recognizes that children’s safety must come before corporate profits.
I urge members of Congress to put politics aside and focus on the families they represent. Every day of delay means more children exposed to preventable harms and more parents left trying to pick up the pieces after tragedy strikes.
We cannot bring back the children who have already been lost. We can, however, take meaningful action to protect the next generation.
Congress: Quit stalling and let’s protect the next generation now.
Brandon Guffey is a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and Founder of Less Than 3.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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