House passes KIDS Act, mandating age verification and content moderation policies

The Act shifts streaming compliance from reactive take-downs to proactive age gating and content liability for adult-oriented material. For platforms, this necessitates significant infrastructure investment in identity verification stacks and heightens legal risk regarding library content that falls into broad 'harmful' categories. In the broader ecosystem, this creates a fragmented regulatory landscape where platforms might over-censor lawful speech to avoid litigation. Watch for Senate negotiations regarding 'duty of care' provisions, which were central to the Senate's original proposal but omitted from the House-passed package.

The KIDS Act marks a consolidated effort to nationalize standards that have largely been driven by individual states. Per Politico in June 2026, the final House version emerged as a bipartisan compromise that notably excludes the 'duty of care' provision favored by the Senate. This omission has already led Senate sponsors like Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn to label the current House bill insufficient, potentially stalling its progress unless a middle ground is reached on platform design liability. Supporters, including House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie, argue the package successfully addresses harms ranging from algorithmic addiction to predatory data brokering by incorporating elements of the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0).

While the U.S. debate centers on specific legal standards, international parallels are already impacting global streaming operations. In the U.K., the 2023 Online Safety Act reached full enforcement milestones in 2026. Per Reed Smith and Ofcom reporting in early 2026, the U.K. regulator has already issued hundreds of thousands of pounds in fines to platforms failing to implement 'highly effective' age checks. Ofcom’s current focus includes investigating how adult content is protected behind age-assurance walls and whether third-party verification tools provide enough security. These international precedents suggest that U.S. streaming providers may eventually face similar requirements to submit formal risk assessments and appoint safety compliance managers if the KIDS Act or a Senate equivalent becomes law.