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The bill establishes a robust federal baseline of definitions, default protections, parental controls, AI safeguards, and enforcement to better protect minors online — but does so at the cost of substantial compliance burden for platforms (especially smaller providers), potential privacy and access trade-offs for some users, and reduced state policy flexibility.
Children and teens: the bill creates clearer, stronger baseline privacy and safety protections (defined harmful design features, default-most-protective settings, limits on profiling and targeted marketing of known minors, prevents recommending minors' profiles to adults).
Parents and caregivers: the bill gives practical, default parental controls and tools (time limits, viewing settings, purchase limits, messaging controls, single parent-facing interface for games) to manage minors' online activity.
Minors: the bill reduces exposure to sexual content, exploitation, misleading advice, and excessive use through mandatory age verification on covered platforms, limits on risky content and features, crisis resources, and time/interaction limits.
Platform operators (especially small businesses and startups): the bill imposes substantial compliance, auditing, security, and verification costs that could raise prices, reduce features, or push smaller services out of the market.
State and local governments: federal preemption of conflicting state or local rules could block stronger local protections and curtail state policy experimentation on child-safety measures.
Adults and users seeking lawful content: mandatory age-verification and stricter defaults may create friction, denied access, or new privacy risks if verification systems are poorly implemented or expose sensitive data.
Based on analysis of 14 sections of legislative text.
Requires platforms, game providers, and chatbots to use age verification, default parental controls, AI disclosures, and safety policies to reduce harms to minors while funding studies and education.
Introduced March 3, 2026 by Brett Guthrie · Last progress March 3, 2026
Requires online platforms, multiplayer video game providers, and chatbot makers to adopt age-appropriate protections that reduce harms to minors. Major requirements include age-verification and access-blocking for online sites that host large amounts of sexual material harmful to minors; platform policies to prevent severe threats, sexual exploitation, substance promotion, gambling and financial deception targeting minors; default-enabled parental controls for online multiplayer games; and clear AI/chatbot disclosures plus limits on prolonged chatbot interactions with known minors. The Federal Trade Commission enforces the law, state attorneys general may sue, and multiple studies, public education campaigns, and an interagency Kids Internet Safety Partnership are created to guide implementation and research.