KUOW72%
What do red and blue state AGs have against the KIDS Act? 28%
By Kim Malcolm40%
5/29/2026, 1:22:19 AM
Topics: Technology
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Appeal to Emotion, and Status Quo Bias, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 17.7% saturation with 202 hits. Analysis detected 1,414 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,141 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 38.8% and a BS Rank of 28% (12,168 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 72.40% of the article peer group.
A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general sent a letter to congressional leaders this week opposing a new piece of legislation, the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act, KIDS for short.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown signed the letter.
He told KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about his concerns.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Kim Malcolm: This sounds counterintuitive.
Families have been crying out for more protections for their kids online.
Why are you and these other AGs opposed to this so-called safety act that's making its way through Congress?
Nick Brown: First, I think your point is correct.
This is a universally accepted priority amongst so many individuals and families across the state, across the country.
Parents everywhere I go are concerned about the harms their children are facing online.
Even as adults, we recognize the dangerous addictive nature of some of the technology that we're engaged in right now.
As the attorney general, I would love to see Congress finally take up this issue seriously, stand up against big tech, and make sure that they're prioritizing the protections for our children.
Unfortunately, the bill that they are working on now, the KIDS Act, really is not the right way to do it.
That is why you're seeing Democrat and Republican attorneys general working together on a bipartisan basis to oppose this legislation, first, because it preempts states from acting in this space.
This is one of those areas where we want to ensure that at the state and local level we have the ability to regulate effectively.
Each of our states are different.
We have different interests.
We don't want to preempt states from moving forward.
We also are concerned about the bill not having a duty of care provision that the tech companies would have to follow, a standard of care for our children.
That provides a lot of concern for the attorneys general.
That's why we wrote this letter.
We're always looking for opportunities to advocate for our youth and families in this state, and this is one of those areas where we just couldn't stand by and watch Congress advance something that we think is problematic.
Is there a counterproposal?
What does this group that signed this letter want Congress to do differently?
We would love for them to not simply kowtow to the tech industry.
This reads like a bill that was drafted largely by the tech industry and their teams, rather than fully incorporating not only the attorneys generals' perspective, but the perspective of families, and have more tough provisions that would actually protect children in a more substantial way.
We've been pushing federal solutions for this for a long time, we attorneys general of both parties.
But because they haven't acted, as a state we have advanced kids online safety protections here the last couple of sessions to try to get our state Legislature to take this seriously.
We don't want a bill that preempts states from acting.
We still believe our principle duty of public safety and protecting our residents should remain a state function.
A bill that tries to occupy the entire field is problematic.
We want to make sure that there are, first and foremost, stronger duty-of-care provisions that tech companies would have to follow.
Democrats and Republicans are not agreeing on much these days, but this letter to Congress had bipartisan support.
Is that an important bridge-building development, or is this just a one-off?
No, it's certainly not a one-off.
Undoubtedly, we're in a time of great divide and partisanship in our country.
A lot of attention gets drawn to our federal litigation against the administration.
In all of the now 60 cases we've brought against the Trump administration, no Republican has joined any of those cases.
But I continue to work with my Republican colleagues on a host of issues, and to their credit, they are willing to work with Democratic AGs on some of these issues.
When it comes to matters of consumer protection, of public safety, and certainly there's been a lot of agreement on the dangers that our children are facing from the tech industry in this space, you're seeing those cases be brought.
This is a continuation of a lot of litigation that the states have been bringing collectively on a bipartisan basis.
Think about the opioid litigation that the states have been involved in for many years now.
That's a bipartisan issue.
You think about the recent Live Nation-Ticketmaster case that we just won.
When the Department of Justice cut a very favorable deal for Live Nation, Republican and Democratic AGs refused to accept that deal, and it continued with our own case.
It brought better relief for our constituents, and there were AGs from Tennessee and South Carolina and Ohio, I believe, that were all part of those cases.
So, there remain areas where we work in collaboration despite our disagreements on a whole host of very important things.
I know you've got young kids at home.
What kind of online safety precautions have you put in place for them that you might recommend to others?
Well, you know, first and foremost, each family, each parent, anyone who's raising a child, they have to make the decisions that are based for them.
I'll never be the type of politician or leader that tries to dictate or suggest things to other parents.
I know what works for me and my children as I help raise them.
There are some basic things that we try to do to limit their access to things online, to encourage things that don't involve technology.
I have a 13-year-old daughter who's been begging me for a cellphone because she's one of the few kids in her middle school that doesn't have one, but I just didn't want to give her that technology yet.
We'll do it probably sooner rather than later.
But for me and her mother, it was the right decision to limit that sort of access.
I try to monitor as much as possible the type of access my kids are having, but as parents, we know we're never going to be a full-time observer of what they're seeing online.
I've got great concerns about what they see on YouTube, or my son plays Roblox all the time.
I have concerns with that technology.
I think the best thing that I can do is set an example for them, not being glued to my technology and my phone, and doing things active and outdoors, engaging and having conversations that don't involve texting each other.
But every family, every parent, everyone who cares for someone has to decide what's best for them and their families.
Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.
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