WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — The Senate is expected to pass legislation Tuesday that is designed to provide specific protections for children and teens while viewing, posting or sharing content online.

The Kids Online Safety Act has sweeping bipartisan support, in addition to lobbying from parents of children who died by suicide after online bullying.

The House has not yet acted on the bill, but Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he will look at the bill and try to find consensus.

The goal is to force companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm on online platforms frequently used by minors, requiring them to exercise “duty of care” and ensure that they generally default to the safest settings possible.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who wrote the bill with Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, said the bill is about allowing children, teens and parents to take back control of their lives online, “and to say to big tech, we no longer trust you to make decisions for us.”

If the bill becomes law, companies would be required to mitigate harm to children, including bullying and violence, the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation and advertisements for illegal products such as narcotics, tobacco or alcohol.

To do that, social media platforms would have to provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations.

They would also be required to limit other users from communicating with children and limit features that “increase, sustain, or extend the use” of the platform — such as autoplay for videos or platform rewards.

The idea, Blumenthal and Blackburn say, is for the platforms to be “safe by design.”

The bill would be the first major tech regulation package to get action at the federal level years. While there has long been bipartisan support for the idea that the biggest technology companies should face more government scrutiny, there has been little consensus on how it should be done.

For example: Congress passed legislation earlier this year that would force China-based social media company TikTok to sell or face a ban, but that law only targets one company.

Some tech companies, like Microsoft, X and Snap, are supporting the bill. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has not taken a position.

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