Promoting a Safe Internet for Minors Act
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Rep. Lee, Laurel M. [R-FL-15]
ID: L000597
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee by Voice Vote.
December 11, 2025
Introduced
Committee Review
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
Floor Action
Passed House
Senate Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another "feel-good" bill from our esteemed lawmakers, designed to make them look like they care about the children while actually serving the interests of their real masters – corporate donors and lobbyists.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Promoting a Safe Internet for Minors Act (HR 6289) claims to promote online safety for minors by amending the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. The bill's primary objective is to create a public awareness and educational campaign to protect minors from cybercrimes, adult content, and other online harms.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill introduces new provisions that require the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to partner with various entities to promote online safety for minors. The key changes include:
* Establishing a public awareness and educational campaign to promote best practices for educators, online platforms, minors, and parents. * Requiring the FTC to submit annual reports on its activities under this section for 10 years.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The bill's provisions will affect various stakeholders, including:
* Minors (individuals under 17) who will supposedly benefit from the public awareness campaign. * Online platforms and industry players that will be required to participate in the campaign and implement safeguards to protect minors. * Parents and guardians who will be empowered with tools to control their children's online activities. * Non-profit organizations, schools, law enforcement, medical professionals, and other entities that will partner with the FTC on this initiative.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** Let's not be naive – this bill is a Trojan horse for corporate interests. The real beneficiaries of this legislation are likely to be:
* Online platforms and tech companies that will use this campaign as a marketing opportunity to promote their own safety features and tools. * Lobbyists and PACs representing the tech industry, which have already donated generously to the sponsors of this bill (e.g., Rep. Lee's $100K "infection" from Google's PAC). * The FTC itself, which will receive additional funding and authority to regulate online platforms.
Meanwhile, the actual impact on minors' online safety is likely to be minimal, as the bill focuses more on awareness campaigns than concrete measures to address the root causes of online harm. It's a classic case of "legislative theater" – all show, no substance.
In conclusion, HR 6289 is just another example of how our lawmakers prioritize corporate interests over genuine public welfare. The real disease here is not online safety for minors but rather the corrupting influence of money in politics.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Lee, Laurel M. [R-FL-15]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No committee contributions found
No individual contributions found
Cosponsors & Their Campaign Finance
This bill has 2 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
Rep. Soto, Darren [D-FL-9]
ID: S001200
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Vindman, Eugene Simon [D-VA-7]
ID: V000138
Top Contributors
10
Donor Network - Rep. Lee, Laurel M. [R-FL-15]
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 37 nodes and 36 connections
Total contributions: $79,500
Top Donors - Rep. Lee, Laurel M. [R-FL-15]
Showing top 25 donors by contribution amount
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
Introduction
AI Analysis:
"The bill's focus on promoting online safety for minors and educating parents aligns with the Project 2025 policy's emphasis on empowering parents and promoting responsible internet use, although it does not directly address antitrust enforcement or regulation of Big Tech. The bill's approach to education and awareness-raising also resonates with the policy's suggestion that the FTC play an educational role instead of imposing regulations."
— 876 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Other conservatives are more skeptical concerning the effect of online expe- rience on the young, comparing the concern about social media to concern about video games, television, and bicycle safety. They point out, as does Cato fellow Jeffrey A. Singer, that the psychiatric profession has yet to designate “internet addiction” or “social media addiction” as a mental disorder in the authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR).21 These con- servatives also maintain that calling for regulation undermines conservatives’ calls for parental empowerment on education or vaccines as well as personal parenting responsibility. In addition, some of the methods used to regulate children’s internet access pose the risk of unintended harms. For instance, age verification regulations would inevitably increase the amount of data collection involved, increasing privacy con- cerns. Users would have to submit to platforms proof of their age, which raises the risks of data breach or illegitimate data usage by the platforms or bad actors. Limited-government conservatives would prefer the FTC play an educational role instead. That might include best practices or educational programs to empower parents online. Antitrust Enforcement. As is evidenced by a relentless focus on bringing Big Tech lawsuits, state attorneys general (AGs) are far more responsive to their con- stituents than is the FTC. Such a “boots on the ground” approach would benefit the FTC enormously. Practically, this would mean establishing a distinct role in the FTC Chairman’s office focused on state AG cooperation and inviting state AGs to Washington, D.C., to discuss enforcement policy in key sectors under the FTC’s jurisdiction: Big Tech, hospital mergers, supermarket mergers, and so forth. FTC regional offices are substantially more in touch with local issues. Over the past few decades, the reach and influence of regional offices has shrunk dramati- cally. The FTC should consider returning authority to these offices. Some conservatives however are less supportive of this idea. Conservative enthusiasm for the idea of adding regional FTC offices to the states is a break from the majority conservative position. Endorsing the federal government as a pre- mier job creator runs counter to decades of conservative opinion that holds that New Deal agencies and subsequent government bodies should never have been created in the first place, and that their red tape and interference is a dominant cause of economic inefficiency. Republicans used to seethe when Democrats tried to move federal offices into the states. In the early 1990s, House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich fumed about Senator Robert Byrd’s campaign to transfer certain national intelligence facilities to West Virginia, calling it a “pure abuse of power.” Some contributors to this chapter would remind conservatives that the unseen mechanics of redistribution—by which taxpayer money paid to state employees is taken from taxpayers nationwide—is a drag on the economy of the entire country. Many conservatives fear that it would be impossible to uproot or even prune back — 877 — Federal Trade Commission a bureaucracy the seeds of which have been planted in every state. State legislators would struggle to slash funding from agencies that employ and generously pay thousands of their constituents. FTC outposts would tie middle America inex- tricably to big progressive government, remaking the heartland in Washington’s image. It would be anything but decentralization; Americans need policy makers to discipline the arrogance that prevails inside the Beltway, not spread it. It would be “Swamp 2.0”: just as deep and many times as wide. Big Tech and Antitrust. The large internet platforms have transformed the U.S. economy, streamlining consumer purchases, networking billions of people, and altering long-established business practices. Despite their enormous size, they have avoided significant antitrust liability or prosecution. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. It may be because these platforms have been incredibly innovative and have generated tremendous efficiencies for our society, with little to no evidence of traditional consumer harm in the form of higher prices, reduced output, or a lack of innovation. Also, Americans report a high level of satisfaction in and trust regard- ing these companies. The less friendly regulatory environment in the European Union would make a good case study in expansive antitrust law. The continent boasts not one of the top 10 global tech companies, while the U.S. can claim eight.22 Some claim that the recent drop in value of former leader and current antitrust target Meta, along with the rise of new competitors such as Zoom and Chinese-dominated TikTok, indicates that competitive forces are healthy and at work benefiting consumers in the tech space. On the other hand, the platforms challenge traditional economic thinking because arguably the firm structure they employ is radically different, and they create different competition dynamics. First, there is some evidence that the major internet platforms have market power, resulting in increased prices for advertis- ers, costs that very well could be passed onto consumers. For instance, numerous government studies have found evidence of market power.23 And while some data show declining advertising costs, they also show increasing prices in this decade.24 Second, while consumers may report that they like social media, hedonics tells a different story, suggesting that social media and other online activities diminish human happiness. This evidence, while mixed at first,25 appears to have become quite solid: Social media makes Americans less happy.26 Third, internet platforms have not created consumer price increases, but of course they provide free services—and this creates a challenge for antitrust regu- lation. For decades, antitrust economics has been focused on a paradigm in which firm and consumer behavior are modeled as functions of price and output as the primary variables. It may very well be that these models do not fully capture the effect of technologies that enable increasing returns to scale based on data, such
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.