House Republican Package a trojan horse for tech lobby policies, preemption of state AI and kid safety laws, and nullification of thousands of cases from states, school districts, survivor parents, young people on social media addiction

WASHINGTON, DC –  The Tech Oversight Project issued the following statement urging Members to oppose the KIDS Act. The package of bills includes weakened, Big Tech-friendly versions of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). Over recent weeks, landmark trials have produced a flood of unsealed internal documents from Meta, YouTube, Snap, and TikTok confirming these companies knowingly designed their platforms to addict children, and if this legislation were signed into law, it would create an unworkable federal standard that sets the bar for safety lower than existing state AI and kids’ safety laws. The bill passed by a 29-23 vote.

“The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s package fails at its goal of keeping children and teens safe. This is a Trojan horse for bad policy, bad politics, blanket preemption, and an industry bailout in the courts. We are urging all members to vote ‘no’ because Congress should pass the Senate’s bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, which already has a filibuster-proof level of support and would hold Big Tech’s feet to the fire,” said The Tech Oversight Project Executive Director Sacha Haworth. “Right now, landmark court cases are unearthing damning internal documents showing that Google, Meta, TikTok, and Snap knew they were recklessly addicting children and teens and endangering their lives. They chose not to stop it because it required tweaking their growth-at-all-costs business model, and kids died because of the callous decisions they made for millions of families. By advancing this package, House Republicans are giving Mark Zuckerberg and other Big Tech CEOs what they want – a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

What the Unsealed Evidence Shows

The landmark social media addiction trials in California have produced an unprecedented record of damning internal company documents. Key evidence made public to date includes:

• Meta internal documents showing executives explicitly targeted teenagers, with one stating that “the lifetime value of a 13-year-old teen is roughly $270 per teen” and another describing how “engaging the vast majority of teens in a school … is crucial.”
• A Meta internal study finding that “teens can’t switch off from Instagram even if they want to,” and an internal chat message in which Meta employees described the platform as “a drug.”
• Meta’s own scientists acknowledging that “the best external research indicates that Facebook’s impact on people’s well-being is negative” and internal documents showing that Instagram’s primary goal was to maximize use time, contradicting what Mark Zuckerberg told Congress.
• Internal Meta documents showing Zuckerberg “explicitly communicated a motivation to not notify parents of children’s activities on Facebook,” and company efforts to identify students’ specific school affiliations even after they opted out of sharing that information.
• YouTube internal slides stating the company’s “goal is not viewership, it’s viewer addiction,” alongside internal research confirming that “YouTube is built with the intention of being addictive” and that YouTube’s own researchers felt the platform “isn’t safe.”
• YouTube internal documents showing the company knew its autoplay feature disrupts sleep patterns and that students were circumventing restricted mode – and internally debated whether it was “worth our time to fix.”
• TikTok internal documents acknowledging that “compulsive usage on TikTok is rampant” among younger users, and a TikTok Trust and Safety memo documenting the harms of beauty filters, including what the company called “Snapchat dysmorphia.”
• Snap internal slides showing that 64 percent of Snapchat users aged 13 to 21 use the app during school hours, that the company focused on acquiring 13-year-olds, and that Snap’s map featured geolocated students whose data was sold to advertisers.
• Expert reports finding that these platforms were not designed to be safe, that companies did not provide effective warnings to teens and parents, and that parental controls offered by the platforms are ineffective.

The Tech Oversight Project’s trial evidence tracker is regularly updated and may be found at techoversight.org/bigtechontrial.