If recent headlines about children’s online safety have left you confused, you are not alone. Two developments are driving the coverage at once. In Congress, lawmakers are again debating a bill called the Kids Online Safety Act, usually shortened to KOSA. In the courts, social media companies face thousands of lawsuits from families, schools and states over claims that their products harmed young users.
According to Reuters, the two stories collided in June 2026, when the news agency reported that Meta had lobbied Congress for legal language to protect online companies from certain child-harm lawsuits. Reuters reported that Meta described the proposal as a way to set national standards rather than remove accountability, a characterization critics dispute.
This guide is meant to help you make sense of it. It is not a verdict on whether social media is good or bad for children. The more useful question, which this guide keeps returning to, is how families, platforms, schools, lawmakers and courts should share responsibility for children’s safety online.
What is KOSA?
KOSA is a proposed federal law focused on protecting minors on the apps and websites they are most likely to use. It was introduced in 2022 by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and has been revised several times since.
At the center of the bill is something called a “duty of care,” which in plain terms is a legal responsibility to take reasonable steps to prevent harm. Under KOSA, covered platforms would have to exercise reasonable care in how they design features for minors, in order to prevent and reduce specific harms. The bill names harms such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use, suicidal behaviors, bullying and sexual exploitation, along with patterns of use that resemble addiction.
The bill would also require platforms to give minors tools to protect their information, turn off features that encourage endless scrolling, and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations, the systems that decide what a user sees next. Platforms would publish transparency reports and allow independent audits.
Enforcement would fall largely to the Federal Trade Commission, the agency that polices unfair business practices. After concerns from LGBTQ and civil-liberties groups, the bill was revised so that state attorneys general could enforce some provisions but not the duty of care itself.
KOSA has traveled a long road. According to Reuters, the Senate passed an earlier version by a vote of 91-3 in 2024, but it stalled in the House and did not become law. Reuters reported that the bill was reintroduced in 2026 with support from both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate.
What are the social media lawsuits about?
Separate from the legislation, a large body of litigation is moving through the courts. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Meta, Google’s YouTube, TikTok and Snap by families, school districts, state attorneys general and Native American tribes. Many are grouped together in a single federal case in California through a process called a multidistrict litigation, which simply means many similar cases are consolidated for efficiency. Court trackers placed the count above 2,600 as of June 2026.
It helps to be precise. These cases contain allegations, meaning claims that are not proven unless a court says so. Plaintiffs allege that the companies designed their products to maximize the time young people spend on them, using features such as infinite scroll, autoplay and frequent notifications, and that this fueled compulsive use and mental-health harm. The cases focus largely on how the products are built rather than on what other users post.
Some of these claims have now been tested. According to NPR, a Los Angeles jury in March 2026 found Meta and Google liable in the first trial of its kind and ordered them to pay a combined $6 million to a young woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a minor. Both companies said they would appeal. Weeks later, according to Kentucky television station WKYT and Bloomberg, four companies agreed to pay a reported $27 million to settle a Kentucky school district’s case before it went to trial. A settlement resolves a case without the company admitting wrongdoing.
What companies say in response
The platforms dispute the core claims. They argue that their products provide real value, including connection, learning and community, and that they have invested in parental controls and other safety features. They also raise legal defenses, arguing that federal law and the First Amendment protect many of their design and content decisions.
Meta has faced particular scrutiny since 2021, when The Wall Street Journal reported, as part of its “Facebook Files” series, that the company’s own internal research found Instagram worsened body-image issues for some teenage girls. Meta disputed that characterization, with Mark Zuckerberg calling the findings inconclusive and the company noting that many teens reported positive experiences.
On the legislation, Reuters reported that Meta said its proposal would not erase existing lawsuits or amount to blanket immunity, and that a spokesperson for Sen. Blackburn, a bill sponsor, said lawmakers had not seen that language and would not consider it.
Why some parents and advocates support stronger laws
Supporters of KOSA point to a youth mental-health picture many parents recognize from their own homes. The U.S. Surgeon General reported in a 2023 advisory that up to 95% of teens ages 13 to 17 use a social media platform, and that more than a third say they use it “almost constantly.” That advisory concluded there is not yet enough evidence to call social media sufficiently safe for children and adolescents, while also acknowledging it can offer benefits for some young people.
For many supporters, the argument is practical. Parents can set limits and talk with their kids, but they cannot see inside a recommendation algorithm or change how a platform is built. Medical and child-advocacy groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have urged Congress to act, arguing that baseline rules would shift part of the responsibility onto the companies that build these products.
Why some civil liberties groups have concerns
Other organizations worry that KOSA, even with good intentions, could backfire. The American Civil Liberties Union has argued that the bill amounts to government-pressured censorship and could limit young people’s access to important information, including health resources. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have both warned that the duty-of-care standard is broad enough that platforms might over-remove lawful content to avoid legal risk, and that the law could push services toward age-verification systems requiring all users, including adults, to prove their identity, raising privacy questions.
These groups are especially concerned about effects on vulnerable young people, including LGBTQ teenagers who rely on online communities and youth searching for mental-health information. Supporters and the bill’s sponsors say later versions were rewritten to address those worries, narrowing how the law can be enforced. That tension, between protecting children from harm and protecting lawful speech, is a major reason the debate has been hard to resolve.
What could change for families
The path ahead runs on two tracks, neither settled.
On the legislative track, KOSA could pass in some form, be folded into a larger package, or stall again. One detail worth watching is preemption, a legal idea in which a federal law overrides state laws on the same subject. A national standard could bring more consistency across states, but depending on the wording, it could also limit state laws and lawsuits some families have relied on.
On the legal track, the cases continue regardless of what Congress does. Verdicts are being appealed, settlements reached, and more test cases are expected to reach trial later in 2026. For families, the bottom line is that the rules are still being written, in both Congress and the courts, and the picture could look different a year from now.
What parents can do now
You do not have to wait for Congress or the courts to act at home. The most useful starting point is staying informed, which you are already doing by reading this.
Beyond that, it helps to learn the parental controls and privacy settings platforms already offer, and to revisit them as your child grows, since the right setting for an 8-year-old is rarely right for a 15-year-old. Ongoing conversation matters more than any single rule. Talking with your child about what they enjoy, what feels uncomfortable, and how apps are built to hold attention builds trust that outlasts any one platform. Modeling your own healthy habits helps, as does connecting with your child’s school about devices. None of this requires technical expertise. It mostly takes showing up consistently.
Questions parents can ask schools, lawmakers, and platforms
A few clear questions can go a long way.
For schools: How do you handle phones and social media during the day, and how do you support students dealing with online stress or bullying?
For lawmakers: Where do you stand on KOSA, and how does your position try to protect both children’s safety and families’ ability to seek accountability?
For platforms: What controls do you offer parents and minors, how do your recommendation systems decide what my child sees, and how do I report a problem?
There are no perfect answers, but asking signals that families are paying attention and often surfaces useful information.
Final takeaway
The KOSA and social media lawsuit story is still being written, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed by it. A calmer way to hold it is this. Keeping children safe online is not the job of any single party. It is shared among families, platforms, schools, lawmakers and courts, and the news amounts to a long negotiation over how that responsibility should be divided. You do not need to resolve that debate to help your own child. Staying informed, staying engaged, and keeping the conversation open at home are within reach for any parent, no policy degree required.
This article is for general information only and should not be taken as legal advice. Lawsuits and legislation discussed here are active and may change.
Sources and Further Reading
- Reuters, “Exclusive: Meta lobbies Congress for protection from child-harm lawsuits,” June 18, 2026.
- U.S. Surgeon General, “Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023.
- The Wall Street Journal, “The Facebook Files” series, September 2021, along with Meta’s public responses.
- Kids Online Safety Act, bill text and sponsor statements from Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn (available through congress.gov).
- American Civil Liberties Union, statements on KOSA and the First Amendment, 2024.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation, published analyses of KOSA, 2024 and 2025.
- NPR, coverage of the verdict in K.G.M. v. Meta Platforms and YouTube, March 2026.
- WKYT (Lexington, Ky.) and Bloomberg News, coverage of the Breathitt County, Ky., school district settlement, June 2026.
- Court records, In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction / Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3047, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
