The KIDS Act Pretends To Give Parents Power They Already Have

Congress is considering passage of the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (KIDS), a sweeping omnibus bill that would require age verification across much of the internet, restrict messaging for teens, ban certain app features, and grant the Federal Trade Commission a vague mandate to police “compulsive usage” on platforms. As with most power grabs in Washington, KIDS is framed as common-sense child protection. However noble it is to want age verification on the front-end of porn-sites, going down this road will have parents give up ultimate authority in their own households — authority they’ll never recover.

The House package is, to its credit, a compromise for anti-tech activists. KIDS is a much narrower bill than the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which was previously approved by the Senate. The controversial “duty of care” provision was cut out, which would have required social media companies to act in the best interests of the youngest users on their platforms.

Again, sounds nice — until you consider that if this principle were applied everywhere in public life, every shopping center and downtown area would resemble a Chuck E. Cheese.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed reservations about KOSA. The act’s viability remains to be seen, as it currently sits stalled in the Senate. The false choice being offered by KIDS and the advocates boosting it is a world where children wander the online world with no guidance, and a censorship-surveillance regime that surrenders the privacy of all children and adults.

Parenting today, like in all times prior, is kind of scary. Technology moves so fast, and as millennials start having children of their own, they remember the trouble they got into unsupervised on AOL Instant Messenger and in pre-Reddit chat rooms.

Older parents with kids on their way to high school have been swimming in the deep end for years. By the time politicians took notice of the troubling trends on TikTok and began pressuring social media firms to offer more child-protection features, teens moved to Snapchat, Kik, Yubo, and even more discreet apps disguised as calculators.

Congress is too slow to meaningfully protect kids or to pass legislation that is tech-savvy enough to understand where youths spend time online. That’s what parents are for, and they have a wide array of tools at their disposal that can help guide their kids online.

Your internet service provider (Xfinity, Verizon, Spectrum, etc.) can block sites. Your mobile carrier can filter content as you see fit. If you want something more hands-on, companies like Bark, Gabb, and Pinwheel have nerfed smartphones designed specifically for kids, with built-in restrictions on downloads, screen time, and contact access.

I used Bark to onboard my 13-year-old to using a phone, after intentionally raising her without access to any tech devices. The experience was excellent. Using AI-powered features, Bark would scan all webpages visited and any text messages sent or received for harmful content: nudity, suicidal ideation, mention of narcotics, and yes, curse words as well. It was helpful to me, as a parent, to know that one of her friends was using all sorts of ugly language that we don’t welcome into our home.

Blocked.

She also took an interest in Reddit and Quora upon getting the freedom to surf the web and get questions answered. Because I’d get notifications about that, I could have a conversation with my child about the reliability of these sites for quality information.

Eventually, they got blocked. This was a helpful way for us to teach online safety at home and for the child to get comfortable using a phone, with all the new stresses it brings alongside additional freedoms.

When we felt it was appropriate, she got a proper iPhone on the family plan. Apple’s parental controls — Screen Time, App Limits, Communication Safety — are easy to use and pretty effective. Any parent can restrict app downloads and require the child to request it first. That gives you time to vet an app and read about it before consenting. The iOS features allow parents to lock down web browsing, set bedtimes for phone use, and monitor messaging.

These tools work. No congressman required. They’re also optional, which means you have to devote time to research, configuration, and enforcement. The number one thing stopping parents from protecting their children online is not the lack of tools or legislation; it’s the willingness to say “no” and learn about products already on the market to help them in what is, truly, a hard job.

I don’t want to diminish how hard it is. But I also have never met a teenager who pays their own phone bill. Parents are in charge and have real power because they pay for the device and its internet connection.

Every bill that moves through Congress is built on a timeless lie: that Americans are powerless in their private lives to affect change. The KIDS Act, like its earlier iterations, is no different. The Senate, but more importantly, America’s parents, should reject it. You already have all the power you need — use it.

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Stephen Kent is the media director for the Consumer Choice Center.