Republican attorneys general oppose House children’s online safety bill

A bipartisan coalition of 44 attorneys general turned against a House children’s online safety bill, and more than a dozen of the signers were Republicans, exposing a sharp split inside the party over who should set the rules for Big Tech and child protection.

The fight centers on the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act, H.R. 7757, which was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 3 and advanced two days later by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a 28-24 party-line vote. The bill would require platforms such as TikTok and Meta to provide parental controls and curb their collection of minors’ data, a set of provisions supporters cast as a national safeguard and opponents see as an overreach.

The attorneys general said the bill would go too far in preempting state law. They warned it could limit states’ ability to address online harms affecting children and adolescents, including social media harms, obscenity, social gaming platforms and AI chatbots. That warning carried particular weight because the Republican signers included attorneys general from Tennessee, Alabama and Utah, states that have already moved ahead with screen-time-related measures of their own.

Alabama and Utah passed 2026 laws aimed at screen time in education settings, while Tennessee also moved this year on school screen-time limits for K-5 students. That makes the dispute less about whether children should be protected online than about who gets to write the rules, and whether Congress should leave room for states to keep experimenting with stricter protections.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said Congress should pursue legislation with a meaningful duty of care requirement for online platforms. New York Attorney General Letitia James said federal law should set a floor, not a ceiling. Together, those arguments show the coalition is not rejecting online safety regulation outright. It is pushing back against a bill that state officials believe could weaken their own enforcement power.

The split also highlights a broader divide on the right. House Republicans are backing a single federal framework, while Republican attorneys general are warning that a nationwide standard could flatten tougher state laws and constrain future state action. Senate children’s online safety proposals have drawn bipartisan support, but the House bill has become a test case for how far conservatives are willing to go in regulating platforms, data collection and parental control.