CRS Highlights Potential Child Safety Bill Approaches

Congress should consider approaches that avoid regulating “particular types of content” when legislating online child safety, the Congressional Research Service said in a report released Monday. Laws restricting the “provision of expressive material” could face First Amendment issues, and laws targeting “specific categories of speech based on its content are subject to the demanding strict scrutiny standard of judicial review,” the report said. Congress tried to criminalize the “provision of internet content” for minors, but courts “applying the strict scrutiny standard have struck down these statutes as unconstitutional,” the report said. CRS noted two potential examples of bills seeking to regulate child internet use without banning a particular type of content: the Kids Internet Design and Safety Act and the Protecting the Information of our Vulnerable Children and Youth Act.