(Bloomberg) — Top House Republicans are stalling landmark US legislation that would protect children from online exploitation and bullying, bowing to criticisms from Big Tech and exposing a rift within the party over regulating social media.
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The legislation, the Kids Online Safety Act, passed the Senate on a 91-3 vote in July and President Joe Biden has vowed to sign it into law. But House GOP leaders, as well as several other Republican lawmakers, have raised concerns that it’s too heavy handed and could sideline some conservative content online.
The emotionally charged debate over the legislation has laid bare the resilience of tech companies’ political power in the face of growing public concerns about social media’s harmful effects on young people. And it illustrates the value of well-connected allies in Washington at a moment of public outcry.
Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Meta Platforms Inc. have sought to leverage their connections to influential lawmakers like House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in a lobbying push that tars the legislation as an attack on free speech rights, suggesting it would silence voices on both ends of the political spectrum. Top Democrats like Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey also have been a focus of the lobbying effort.
Those tech companies, which did not respond to requests for comment, are up against a coalition of parents whose children died or were seriously hurt in incidents related to online activity. The parents have waged their own passionate lobbying campaign, sharing wrenching personal stories with lawmakers and congressional staff.
The legislation threatens to bring down tech companies’ ad revenue by weakening design features that hook young users and keep them active on online platforms, said Matthew Schettenhelm, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst who follows the sector.
Perhaps more alarming to Big Tech, it could break the long-standing political logjam that has kept Congress from acting on internet legislation, opening the way to more disruptive actions such as a comprehensive data privacy law or changes in tech companies’ liability protection for online content, Schettenhelm said.
The debate over online safety pits a House committee chairwoman and former member of GOP leadership against her party’s own leaders, essentially leaving Republicans with no united path forward and decreasing the odds of a bipartisan deal.
GOP Divide
Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers kicked off a recent committee debate on the legislation in tears as she held up images of children who died in incidents related to social media. Wiping her nose, she recited their names, then passed around a folder with dozens more stories about children who died under similar circumstances.
But then many of McMorris Rodgers’ Republican colleagues dismantled the Senate-passed legislation. They swapped in language that was shared only the evening before, leaving the bill’s supporters little time to review.
Democrats described the revamped legislation as a “watered down” eleventh-hour push that would gut the “duty of care,” a key provision that would force tech companies to take responsibility for the harmful posts they recommend to children.
Even with the scaled back language, Scalise and other conservative Republicans who had opposed the original version haven’t endorsed the revised legislation. The House left Washington Wednesday to go on break until after the November election, and there’s no plan to bring the bill to the floor in the year-end lameduck session.
Behind the Scenes
Scalise, a Louisiana congressman with close ties to tech companies, signaled before the committee meeting he wouldn’t allow a House vote on the legislation unless key provisions were changed, according to Republican congressional aides familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record.
Scalise is the second-ranking Republican leader and has broad sway over what legislation gets a House vote.
The majority leader won concessions from the bill’s lead Republican sponsor narrowing the harms tech companies had to mitigate so that the duty only would apply to material promoting “inherently dangerous acts that are likely to cause serious bodily harm, serious emotional disturbance or death.”
Scalise and House Speaker Mike Johnson still aren’t satisfied. Even with the changes made to the legislation, the Republican leaders want more concessions before they will allow a House vote, a GOP leadership aide said.
The No. 2 Republican leader continues to object to creating a “duty of care” for material online platforms recommend to children, and also opposes giving the Federal Trade Commission power to enforce the law, according the leadership aide. Advocates say both are crucial to the bill’s effectiveness.
Laura Marquez-Garrett, a lawyer for some of the parent advocates, casts Scalise’s opposition to the tougher restrictions that passed the Senate as him “choosing Big Tech money over children.”
Lauren Fine, a Scalise spokesperson, said the House majority leader is merely trying to address legitimate concerns shared by some other Republican lawmakers, including the possibility the law could lead tech companies to curtail distribution of some conservative material.
“We must protect kids and create a safer environment online, so it is critical that we get this right,” Fine said. “We should empower parents – not the government – to protect their kids online.”
Fine referred questions about political donations to the lawmaker’s campaign. A representative for the campaign didn’t respond to multiple requests for a statement.
Johnson spokeswoman Athina Lawson said the speaker “has been and continues to be open to working through member concerns related to the bill.”
The hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus has raised similar concerns, including worries of censorship of anti-abortion and other conservative material. Some left-leaning groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, and LGBTQ+ groups also have expressed concerns the legislation could lead social media companies to censor content.
Pallone, the Commerce Committee’s top-ranking Democrat, has opposed the bill, arguing that LGBTQ+ children “could lose access to helpful and even life-saving content.” The New Jersey Democrat has received over $88,500 from the Google, Amazon, Meta and TechNet PACs since he joined the committee in 2015.
A spokesman for Pallone said the contributions played no role in the congressman’s consideration of the matter, adding Pallone has “consistently fought to hold Big Tech accountable.”
Close Ties
Scalise, a prolific fundraiser and reliable ally of business, has accumulated more political donations from the bill’s Big Tech opponents during his congressional career than anyone else in the current Republican House leadership, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
Since 2011, Scalise has raised $198,000 from the political action committees of Amazon, Google and Meta. The money benefited his campaign, leadership PAC, and, through his joint fundraising vehicle, the National Republican Congressional Committee and other GOP House campaigns.
An ambitious politician who tried and failed to win the speakership last year, Scalise has spent the past year and a half raising money for a new fundraising apparatus that could help him build support if he mounts another bid.
Google’s political action committee was one of the top corporate donors to his Scalise Leadership Fund, doling out $36,000 to the fund in 2024 alone, according to FEC records. Greg Maurer, a public policy director at Meta, gave the Scalise Leadership Fund $10,000 in March, while Meta public policy director Christopher Herndon gave $1,000, according to FEC records.
Several of Scalise’s former top aides have moved directly from his staff to lucrative tech industry lobbying jobs. Matt Bravo, Scalise’s former director of floor operations, is now a partner at lobbying firm S-3 and one of the most active lobbyists opposing the legislation. Bravo’s clients include Google and tech trade group NetChoice, which have both lobbied aggressively against the online safety bill.
Bravo circulated a memo to conservative lawmakers arguing online safety legislation would lead social media platforms to censor anti-abortion material, a sensitive issue on the right, said two congressional aides who viewed the correspondence. He has spent months lobbying against the legislation.
Bravo did not respond to requests for comment sent by email and left on his phone voicemail.
Fight Continues
Time is against the bill’s supporters, with only three months left in the current Congress. Republican leaders have now referred the bill to the House Education Committee for more review.
Before the vote in McMorris Rodgers’ Commerce Committee, lobbyists sent memos to lawmakers seeking to ensnare the bill in bitter social-issue fights.
One memo, circulated by the Republican tech lobbyists, portrayed the bill as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing for the pro-life movement,” claiming it would allow the FTC to crack down on anti-abortion speech online.
Another letter shared by Democratic tech lobbyists said the bill could result in the government forcing social media companies to remove pro-LGBTQ+ content online.
“The tech companies are doing everything they can to play both sides, as they have been from the beginning,” said Jon Schweppe, policy director of the American Principles Project, a conservative group that supports the measure.
Issue One, an advocacy group that favors the online safety legislation, last week began running tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of ads in Louisiana, Scalise and Johnson’s home state, urging them to pass the bill.
The ad features a clip of testimony from the mother of Carson Bride, who died by suicide after being cyberbullied online. “We are done with the hearings, we are done with the stories — we are looking for action,” she says.
–With assistance from Bill Allison.
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