Final night time, exterior the Rayburn Home Workplace Constructing, a bunch of grieving dad and mom gathered holding images of the kids they misplaced to on-line harms. Projected throughout the constructing the place Congress will maintain its on-line‑security listening to tomorrow: “STOP SACKS’ AI PREEMPTION.” ParentsTogether, Dad and mom RISE, Dad and mom SOS, and the Younger Peoples Alliance say the Home’s children‑security package deal quietly embeds federal preemption—David Sacks’ core AI‑shielding agenda—whereas weakening the Senate’s stronger KOSA. Payments like Home KOSA, COPPA 2.0, the Dad and mom Over Platforms Act, and watered‑down AI security proposals would wipe out stronger state legal guidelines and block future protections. Dad and mom hyperlink this to the Megan Garcia lawsuit over an AI chatbot that groomed a minor, and to the current Mike Davis letter warning DOJ and OSTP in opposition to Massive Tech’s push for federal immunity.
Dad and mom are making a easy demand: don’t use “children security” because the branding for a nationwide legal responsibility defend that protects AI firms whereas stripping dad and mom, states, and victims of their solely instruments for justice.
This wasn’t a coincidence. Nor was it partisan. It was a coordinated warning from ParentsTogether, Dad and mom RISE, Dad and mom SOS, and the Younger Peoples Alliance, joined by survivor households, youth advocates, and creators’ rights allies: Massive Tech is attempting to smuggle David Sacks’s AI-preemption agenda right into a “children security” package deal — and oldsters are finished being props in another person’s coverage theater. That is some chilly -blooded moist work by the highest shills
What Dad and mom Are Protesting — and Why Now
Tomorrow’s listening to within the Home Vitality & Commerce Committee is titled “Legislative Options to Defend Kids and Teenagers On-line.” It sounds noble. However the legislative package deal tells a distinct story.
Regardless of the branding, a number of of the payments on the agenda are weaker than the protections dad and mom fought for within the Senate and a number of other include broad federal preemption clauses that will wipe out or freeze stronger state legal guidelines that defend youngsters.
For fogeys who’ve buried their youngsters due to social-media harms, algorithmic extremism, sextortion, or abusive AI chatbots, the message is straightforward:
We fought to make our states safer. Don’t you dare take these instruments away.
And that, instantly, is the place David Sacks enters the body.
How the Sacks Agenda Shapes This Combat
Over the previous yr, Sacks has aggressively pushed a concept that AI and tech firms needs to be shielded from state regulation, utilizing federal legislation to override (or “preempt”) state consumer-protection authority, publicity-rights statutes, and youngsters’s security legal guidelines.
He made this argument first in the course of the AI moratorium battle — attempting to connect a sweeping preemption clause to a invoice nobody thought would ever go. Creators, dad and mom, state AGs, and populists throughout the spectrum rose up and killed it.
Now D.C. lobbyists try the identical maneuver via kids-safety branding, hoping nobody notices that the Home variations of those payments ship precisely what Sacks requested for:
a federal ceiling that blocks state AGs, dad and mom, and victims from holding Massive Tech and AI firms accountable.
The projection on Rayburn is the dad and mom’ response.
The 4 Father or mother Teams Main the Cost
ParentsTogether
A nationwide parent-advocacy group lengthy centered on children’ digital security, algorithmic harms, and AI-mediated danger. Led on tech points by Shelby Knox, ParentsTogether has documented the psychological, developmental, and grooming dangers of unregulated AI chatbots.
Dad and mom RISE
A survivor-parent motion of households “turning grief into motion.” They’ve misplaced youngsters to platform-enabled harms — from self-harm content material to sextortion to harmful algorithmic rabbit holes.
Dad and mom SOS (Dad and mom for Protected On-line Areas)
Roughly twenty bereaved households organizing as a nationwide power for contemporary kids-safety legal guidelines. They’ve been among the many most outspoken critics of Massive Tech’s makes an attempt to weaken KOSA and shift legal responsibility onto households.
Younger Peoples Alliance
A youth-led group that has already filed FTC complaints over manipulative AI chatbots like Replika and co-signed nationwide youth-safety declarations on AI.
Collectively, these 4 teams type the child-safety flank of the identical coalition that defeated Sacks’s AI-amnesty push.
The Payments at Concern — and Why Dad and mom Name Them “Sacks Payments”
Tomorrow’s listening to options 17 payments—a quantity which itself cries out that it’s a rip-off—however dad and mom are laser-focused on those that quietly embed federal preemption.
1. Home KOSA — “Similar Title, Weaker Invoice, Hidden Preemption”
The Children On-line Security Act on the agenda is not the KOSA that handed the Senate 91–3 final yr however makes use of the identical identify as a deception. The Home model:
- waters down the core “obligation of care” into obscure “insurance policies and procedures,”
- provides broad state preemption, wiping out stronger state legal guidelines and blocking future ones.
That is precisely what Sacks lobbied for in the course of the AI moratorium battle: a federal ceiling disguised as child-safety laws.
2. COPPA 2.0 (H.R. 6291) — Preemption on Minors’ Knowledge
The brand new Kids and Teenagers’ On-line Privateness Act dramatically expands federal preemption, blocking states from adopting stronger privateness protections for minors.
That’s Massive Tech’s prime precedence: unify knowledge guidelines on the federal stage, hold states out of the image, and permit AI builders to coach fashions on minors’ knowledge beneath a “nationwide normal.”
3. Dad and mom Over Platforms Act — A Legal responsibility Defend in Father or mother Clothes
This draft invoice has been pushed exhausting by Google and different platforms. Survivor dad and mom say it will “set dad and mom again even additional” by shifting duty away from platforms and onto households.
That is one other Sacks-style legal responsibility framework: blame the dad and mom, not the product.
4. AI-Particular Payments (AWARE Act & SAFE Bots Act)
These payments gesture at AI harms, however channel them into gentle “steering” and “warnings,” fairly than actual enforcement. With out robust legal responsibility, they function federal cowl for AI firms whereas eliminating state pathways for justice.
How This Ties to the Megan Garcia Case
All 4 dad or mum teams level to the identical hazard illustrated by Megan Garcia v. Character.AI, the landmark lawsuit alleging that an AI companion chatbot groomed, emotionally abused, and inspired her 14-year-old son Suell Setzer shortly earlier than his suicide. We’ve mentioned this case a couple of instances.
A federal choose refused to deal with the bot’s speech as First-Modification-protected “robotic speech,” letting her wrongful-death claims proceed.
The very fact sample is obvious:
- AI merchandise may cause catastrophic hurt.
- Massive Tech’s first transfer is to say immunity.
- Dad and mom’ solely recourse is state legislation and the courts.
Federal preemption would destroy these pathways.
That is why the dad and mom protesting exterior Rayburn are holding up photographs of their youngsters and projecting their message onto the constructing: they refuse to let Congress strip away the one instruments that introduced Character.AI and Google into courtroom.
How This Ties to the Mike Davis Letter
Mike Davis and the Article III Undertaking despatched a blistering letter to DOJ and OSTP final week warning that Massive Tech’s try to show AI coaching into common “truthful use” is a energy seize designed to deprive creators and states of oversight.
The dad and mom and youth teams exterior Rayburn are saying the identical factor — simply in a distinct area:
You can’t preempt state child-safety legal guidelines to guard Silicon Valley’s AI ambitions.
Creators and oldsters are more and more aligned on the identical structural risk:
federal preemption that protects AI firms from accountability.
Watch the Listening to On December 2 at 1015 am ET
The dad and mom are usually not staging a symbolic protest. They’re exposing a bait-and-switch taking place in actual time:
- A invoice package deal branded as “children security”
- that’s weaker than the Senate model dad and mom fought for,
- comprises stealth federal preemption,
- and advances the legal responsibility defend Massive Tech needs — the identical Sacks preemption agenda dad and mom, creators, AGs, and populists simply defeated within the AI moratorium.
Tomorrow, they’ll be contained in the listening to room, not exterior. And so they’re bringing their youngsters’s tales with them. In fact, the listed witnesses are all Massive Tech shills. We’ll see.
If Congress received’t pay attention, dad and mom will make Congress pay attention. Watch the listening to at this hyperlink.
