United States of America: House Energy and Commerce Committee announced Kids Online Safety Act 2025 (House of Representatives version)

On 25 November 2025, the Chairmen of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade announced that they would consider the Kids Online Safety Act as part of a hearing on legislative solutions for protecting children and teenagers online. The Act, presented in its draft form, would apply to user-generated content platforms in relation to children (under-13s) and minors (under-17s). The Act would require covered platforms to establish reasonable policies, practices, and procedures, dependent on platform size and availability of technical solutions, to address certain categories of harm to minors, namely threats of physical violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, distribution or use of narcotics and alcohol, and financial harm caused by deceptive practices. This requirement would not be construed as requiring platforms to prevent minors from searching for or specifically requesting content. Covered platforms would also be required to implement accessibly and user-friendly safeguards to limit the ability of other users to communicate with a minor and to limit design features resulting in compulsive use. Further, platforms would need to provide an option to limit minors' use time, parental tools, default settings for children, and reporting tools specific to issues related to minors. The Act would also establish a Kids Online Safety Council, tasked with providing policy recommendations to Congress. The Act is not yet introduced to Congress and partially differs in content from a Senate Bill with the same title (SB 1748).