Unanimous Consent Objection

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am announcing my intent to object to any unanimous consent request to proceed to S.1490, the Kids Online Safety Act.

I agree with the sponsors of this bill that social media and online games can have a negative impact on the mental health of minors. However, this bill makes the mistake of empowering State attorneys general already enforcing bans on LGBTQ information and prosecuting individuals for helping others receive abortion healthcare. Armed with this bill, all a State attorney general would need to do is link the content they want to scrub from the internet with causing ``anxiety'' or ``depression'' and demonstrate that the platform allowed minors to access such content. For everyone except the largest platforms, the act of being served with the complaint, no matter how specious, would be enough incentive to take down the content in question. Sadly, some deep-pocketed groups that promote anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ policies are cheerleading the bill for this reason.

Until the bill is amended to foreclose the ability of State attorneys general to wage war on important reproductive and LGBTQ content, I will object to any unanimous consent request in relation to this legislation.

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