Social media companies are scrambling to verify minors online. Congress just made it a lot more complicated

Two federal bills moving through Congress in 2026 take fundamentally different approaches to protecting minors online. The Kids Online Safety Act requires companies to conduct risk assessments, restrict default settings on minors' accounts up to age 17, disclose how recommendation algorithms work, and give parents meaningful oversight tools. The App Store Accountability Act attempts to stop harm before a child opens an app by requiring age verification at the account level, parental consent for each minor's download, and linking accounts. The article notes that the industry's self-regulatory response, including age minimums set at 13, parental control settings buried in app menus, and terms of service that minors routinely circumvent, has satisfied almost no one.

Blanket access restrictions address compliance rather than the underlying harm. Age verification and parental consent mechanisms restrict access for compliant users and impose a privacy burden by requiring adults to prove their age, but they do not prevent abuse when a child does access a platform, nor do they follow an offender when they move to an unmonitored channel. Detection systems that operate at the point of contact address the harm itself. Guardii's anti-grooming, anti-sextortion, anti-CSAM, cyberbullying and age-inappropriate contact detection modules work across platforms including Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, intercepting sustained targeting, escalation and coercion in direct-message conversations before abuse occurs, surfacing a child in crisis to a parent or professional, and enabling rapid escalation to the right authority without restricting access for every user or requiring every adult to prove their identity.