OKLAHOMA CITY (Nov. 25, 2024) – Attorney General Gentner Drummond is calling upon Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) before the end of this year to protect children from online harm.
Drummond and a coalition of 31 other state attorneys general outlined the urgent need to address the growing crisis of youth mental health linked to social media use in a letter sent last week to Congressional leaders.
“Our youth are spending untold hours a day on social media platforms without proper safeguards to protect them from toxic content and addictive algorithms,” said Drummond. “There are commonsense measures that need to be taken to protect our children from harm when they are online.”
The coalition highlighted several key provisions of KOSA that would enhance online protections for minors:
- Mandatory default safety settings: Requiring platforms to automatically enable their strongest safety protections for minors rather than burying these features behind opt-in screens.
- Addiction prevention: Allowing young users and their parents to disable manipulative design features and algorithmic recommendations that keep children endlessly scrolling.
- Parental empowerment: Providing parents with new tools to identify harmful behaviors and improved capabilities to report dangerous content.
This push for federal legislation comes as many states, including Oklahoma, have launched investigations and lawsuits against major social media platforms like Meta and TikTok for targeting underage users.
Also joining the letter to Congressional leadership are the attorneys general of Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming.
View the letter.
