Led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General Liz Murrill and 30 states today called upon Congressional leadership to pass the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (“KOSA”), crucial legislation that protects children from online harm, before the end of the year. In a letter, the coalition emphasized the urgent need to address the growing crisis of youth mental health linked to social media use, with studies showing minors spend more than five hours daily online.

“As technology changes, parents and law enforcement are learning how social media companies fail to disclose the addicting nature of their products and the harm it does to our children. I join my fellow attorneys general in supporting the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which will create a safer online environment for our kids,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill.

The attorneys general 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 state attorneys general offices launched investigations and lawsuits against major social media platforms like Meta and TikTok for their targeting of underage users.

Louisiana joins the attorneys general of Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming in this letter to Congressional leadership.

You can view the letter here.