Tomorrow’s U.S. Senate Vote: Four Internet Bills, One Wrong Direction

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee is set to vote this week on four internet bills—KOSA, the SCREEN Act, the Youth AI Privacy Act, and the CHATBOT Act—which the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues would age-gate the internet, create sweeping privacy and data security problems, and force unconstitutional content restrictions on platforms. EFF urges the Committee to instead focus on a national consumer privacy bill or banning behavioral advertising to protect all internet users.

The Senate Commerce Committee will https://www.commerce.senate.gov/meetings/executive-session-24-08-05-2026/ vote https://www.commerce.senate.gov/meetings/executive-session-24-08-05-2026/ this week https://www.commerce.senate.gov/meetings/executive-session-24-08-05-2026/ on several censorious and privacy invasive bills: KOSA https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/senate-should-reject-kosas-privacy-risks , the SCREEN Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/screen-act-threatens-privacy-far-beyond-adult-websites , Youth AI Privacy Act, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/youth-ai-privacy-acts-privacy-paradox and CHATBOT Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/chatbot-act-forces-one-parenting-model-every-family . While we appreciate that the Committee is taking the time to look at these bills separately, it’s still impossible to ignore the message Congress is sending to the world: Age-gate the internet and block young people from speaking and accessing lawful speech online. Or else. Tell Congress: don't age-gate the internet https://www.acteff.org/campaign/167270/ Each of these bills claims to be trying to protect children and teenagers from dangerous situations on and offline—certainly a worthy goal. But the proposed solutions in these bills are unlikely to make children and teenagers safer at all. Rather, they would create sweeping new privacy and data security problems, and force platforms to adopt unconstitutional restrictions on the content they host, for both adults and teenagers. There is a better way. Instead of considering these bills, the Senate Commerce Committee should be focusing on a national consumer privacy bill https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms that would protect ALL internet users, or on banning behavioral advertising https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/ban-online-behavioral-advertising that tracks us across the web—again, for users of all ages. But the bills being considered this week move in the other direction—more information being collected, more surveillance, and less privacy for internet users of all ages. help eff oppose these bills EFF sent a letter https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-senate-commerce-regarding-concerns-screen-act-kosa-youth-ai-privacy-act-and to the Committee with our concerns about these bills. We look forward to continuing to work with them to find a way forward that protects all users.