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Nearly a decade after losing her son David to suicide following cyberbullying, San Antonio mother Maurine Molak has turned her grief into a national campaign for stronger protections for children online.
Molak is urging Congress to pass the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, after the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously advanced the legislation last week.
The Senate and House have passed different versions of the legislation, however, and lawmakers still have to reconcile the two bills before KOSA can reach President Donald Trump’s desk.
One of the biggest differences is a provision known as a “duty of care.” The Senate version would establish a legal responsibility for technology companies to design their platforms with children’s safety in mind. The House version passed in June without the added provision.
Molak says that requirement is critical to making the legislation effective.
“Not having any kind of legal responsibility for designing their platforms without kids' safety in mind is what we would lack if there was no duty of care in the Kids Online Safety Act. It would lack the teeth. It would lack real accountability for these platforms.”
Molak says KOSA could address some features of social media platforms that she believes are designed to keep children engaged for as long as possible.
She points to late-night push notifications, endless scrolling and algorithms that use a child’s behavior — including likes, clicks and how long they engage with content — to determine what they see next. She also says platforms currently recommend increasingly extreme content to keep young users engaged.
KOSA would also give minors greater control over their personal data and allow users to opt out of personalized algorithms.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed an earlier version of KOSA with a vote of 91-3 in 2024, but the legislation stalled in the House. The latest Senate action sends the current version toward a possible floor vote.
Molak says the challenge now is getting lawmakers in both chambers to agree on how far those protections should go. She points to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, both Republicans who have been involved in the debate, as lawmakers who could help bridge the differences between the two versions.
“I believe those two men can get together and come up with a solution,” Molak said. “And you know, I very well know that they have the intellect and the capability to do that. I'm just not certain that there's a will for that, right? And so, we'll see how this plays out.”
For Molak, the debate is about more than regulating technology. She says parents need help confronting online platforms whose algorithms and artificial intelligence are far beyond what an individual family can control.
“Parents are the first line of defense, but going up against these most sophisticated algorithms, going up against AI, going up against machine learning, most parents cannot fight that, and so that's why we're asking for help.”
