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A bipartisan pair of senators reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act on Tuesday with updates that aimed to address concerns that the bill could inadvertently cause more harm to the young internet users it seeks to protect. But some activists who raised those issues say the changes are still insufficient.

The bill aims to make the internet a safer place for kids to access by putting the onus on social media companies to prevent and mitigate harms that might come from their services. The new version of the bill defines a set list of harms that platforms need to take reasonable steps to mitigate, including by preventing the spread of posts promoting suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse and more. It would require those companies to undergo annual independent audits of their risks to minors and require them to enable the strongest privacy settings by default for kids.

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Congress and President Joe Biden have made clear online protections for children are a key priority, and KOSA has become one of the leading bills on the subject. KOSA has racked up a long list of more than 25 co-sponsors and the earlier version of the bill passed unanimously out of the Senate commerce committee last year. The new version of the bill has gained support from groups such as Common Sense Media, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Eating Disorders Coalition.

At a virtual press conference on Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who introduced the bill alongside Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is “a hundred percent behind this bill and efforts to protect kids online.”

While Blumenthal acknowledged it’s ultimately up to Senate leadership to figure out timing, he said, “I fully hope and expect we’ll have a vote this session.”

A Schumer spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Late last year, dozens of civil society groups warned Congress against passing the bill, warning it could further endanger young internet users in different ways. For example, the groups worried the bill would add pressure for online platforms to “over-moderate, including from state Attorneys General seeking to make political points about what kind of information is appropriate for young people.”

Blumenthal and Blackburn made several changes to the text in response to critiques from outside groups. They sought to more carefully tailor the legislation to limit the duty of care requirements for social media platforms to a specific set of potential harms to mental health based on evidence-backed medical information.

They also added protections for support services like the National Suicide Hotline, substance abuse groups and LGBTQ youth centers to ensure they aren’t unintentionally hampered by the bill’s requirements. Blumenthal’s office said it did not believe the duty of care would have applied to those sorts of groups, but opted to clarify it regardless.

But the changes have not been enough to placate some civil society and industry groups.

Evan Greer, director of digital rights nonprofit Fight for the Future, said Blumenthal’s office never met with the group or shared the updated text in advance of the introduction despite multiple requests. Greer acknowledged the co-sponsors’ offices met with other groups, but said in an emailed statement that “it seems they intentionally excluded groups that have specific issue-area expertise in content moderation, algorithmic recommendation, etc.”

“I’ve read through it and can say unequivocally that the changes that have been made DO NOT address the concerns that we raised in our letter,” Greer wrote. “The bill still contains a duty of care that covers content recommendation, and it still allows state Attorneys General to effectively dictate what content platforms can recommend to minors.”

“The ACLU remains strongly opposed to KOSA because it would ironically expose the very children it seeks to protect to increased harm and increased surveillance,” ACLU Senior Policy Counsel Cody Venzke said in a statement. The group joined the letter warning against its passage last year.

“KOSA’s core approach still threatens the privacy, security, and free expression of both minors and adults by deputizing platforms of all stripes to police their users and censor their content under the guise of a ‘duty of care,'” Venzke added. “To accomplish this, the bill would legitimize platforms’ already pervasive data collection to identify which users are minors when it should be seeking to curb those data abuses. Moreover, parental guidance in minors’ online lives is critical, but KOSA would mandate surveillance tools without regard to minors’ home situations or safety. KOSA would be a step backwards in making the internet a safer place for children and minors.”

At the press conference, in response to a question about Fight for the Future’s critiques, Blumenthal said the duty of care had been “very purposefully narrowed” to target certain harms.

“I think we’ve met that kind of suggestion very directly and effectively,” he said. “Obviously, our door remains open. We’re willing to hear and talk to other kinds of suggestions that are made. And we have talked to many of the groups that had great criticism and a number have actually dropped their opposition, as I think you’ll hear in response to today’s session. So I think our bill is clarified and improved in a way that meets some of the criticism. We’re not going to solve all of the problems of the world with a single bill. But we are making a measurable, very significant start.”

The bill also faced criticism from several groups that receive funding from the tech industry.

NetChoice, which has sued California over its Age-Appropriate Design Code Act and whose members include Google, Meta and TikTok, said in a press release that despite lawmakers’ attempts to respond to concerns, “unfortunately, how this bill would work in practice still requires an age verification mechanism and data collection on Americans of all ages.”

“Working out how young people should use technology is a difficult question and has always been best answered by parents,” NetChoice Vice President and General Counsel Carl Szabo said in a statement. “KOSA instead creates an oversight board of DC insiders who will replace parents in deciding what’s best for children.”

“KOSA 2.0 raises more questions than it answers,” Ari Cohn, free speech counsel TechFreedom, a think tank that’s received funding from Google, said in a statement. “What constitutes reason to know that a user is under 17 is entirely unclear, and undefined by the bill. In the face of that uncertainty, platforms will clearly have to age-verify all users to avoid liability—or worse, avoid obtaining any knowledge whatsoever and leave minors without any protections at all.”

“Protecting young people online is a broadly shared goal. But it would contradict the goals of bills such as this to impose compliance obligations that undermine the privacy and safety of teens,” said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Amazon, Google, Meta and Twitter. “Governments should avoid compliance requirements that would compel digital services to collect more personal information about their users — such as geolocation information and a government-issued identification — particularly when responsible companies are instituting measures to collect and store less data on customers.”

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand ‘off the charts,’ says Altimeter’s Gerstner

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand 'off the charts,' says Altimeter's Gerstner

Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.

“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.

President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.

The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.

Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.

Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”

He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.

“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok. 

The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.

Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.

The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google

Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement. 

Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.

“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”

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Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

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Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Via Reuters

Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.

Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.

Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.

Semiconductor stocks also felt the pain, with Marvell Technology, Arm Holdings and Micron Technology falling more than 8% each. Broadcom and Lam Research dropped 6%, while Advanced Micro Devices declined more than 4% Software stocks ServiceNow and Fortinet fell more than 5% each.

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The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.

Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.

China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”

The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.

Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.

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