{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2024/9/issues/technology/icymi-conservative-commentator-and-legal-scholar-josh-hammer-urges-house-to-pass-kids-online-safety-act", "ICYMI: Conservative Commentator and Legal Scholar Josh Hammer Urges House to Pass Kids Online Safety Act", "2024-09-12", "2024", "2024-09", "Republican", "Senate", "TN", "Marsha Blackburn", "B001243", "www.blackburn.senate.gov", "blackburn", "https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/news/cc8c80c1-d564-4bbb-93a4-f1d772346ae0", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Yesterday, Josh Hammer, senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of \u201cAmerica on Trial with Josh Hammer\u201d and \u201cThe Josh Hammer Show,\u201d urged the House to pass the Kids Online Safety Act.\n\nThis legislation, introduced by U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), passed the Senate 91-3 and would provide young people and parents with the tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to protect against online harms. If signed into law, it would be the first major reform to the tech industry since 1998.\n\nBelow are excerpts of yesterday\u2019s episode of \u201cAmerica on Trial with Josh Hammer.\n\nJosh Hammer Says KOSA is \u201cas Bipartisan as it Gets\u201d in Washington, D.C.\n\n\u201cThe Kids Online Safety Act \u2013 or KOSA for short \u2013 was approved by a 91-3 vote in the U.S. Senate. That is about as bipartisan as it gets these days in Washington, D.C. What would the Kids Online Safety Act actually do? Well, it would force the Big Tech platforms or social media oligarchs to take \u2018reasonable steps to prevent harms to children such as bullying, drug addiction, and sexual exploitation,\u2019 and it would broaden existing federal privacy protections to include kids and teens, 16-years-old and younger.\u201d\n\nBig Tech Has Colluded with the Federal Government to Censor Americans\n\n\u201cHave we not seen enough evidence over the years\u2026 involving Big Tech collusion with the federal government to censor, the \u2018censorship industrial complex.\u2019 Have we not gotten more than enough evidence by now to know that Big Tech is not necessarily our friend... Big corporations, the Fortune 500, not only are they not the allies of the American right and the conservative cause and, indeed, of the Republican Party at this point, they are something closely approximating the enemy.\u201d\n\nBig Tech Has Taken Advantage of Vulnerable Teenage Girls Leading to Unprecedented Rates of Depression and Suicide\n\n\u201cWhat's happening with Big Tech exploiting our children is horrific. Instagram and Tiktok, perhaps above all. Teenage girls in particular are the most vulnerable demographic out there when it comes to the garbage, and yes, garbage that is posted regularly on Tiktok, that the Instagram algorithms regularly show them based on how they interact with the posts and stories that they see there. They are made to feel insecure. They are made to feel vulnerable. They are made to feel they are inadequate, not good enough. And tragically, those resulted in historically unprecedented rates of depression and yes, indeed, tragically, suicide rates when it comes to teenage, adolescent and young girls and young women in particular.\u201d\n\nJosh Hammer to Speaker Johnson: Now is the Time to Bring KOSA for a Vote\n\n\u201cIn an election year, there are very few opportunities to pass any kind of legislation, really whatsoever, other than those that are deemed \u2018must-pass\u2019 and that fund the federal government. If you want to get a legislation, a bill, passed \u2013 let alone one that passed by a bipartisan margin of 91-3 in the House, this is the time to do it\u2026 Right now, the onus is on Mike Johnson, Speaker Mike Johnson, to bring this thing up for a vote.\u201d\n\nClick hereto listen to the full episode.\n\nRELATED:", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:43:57Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2024/9/issues/technology/icymi-conservative-commentator-and-legal-scholar-josh-hammer-urges-house-to-pass-kids-online-safety-act"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5162709169089794, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}