The kids' online safety push gets more complicated - Axios

Oh, marvellous. The White House and Senator Blackburn have apparently decided that the best way to protect children online is to slip in a bit of federal pre-emption of state AI laws as a sweetener. Because nothing says 'we care about kids' like using them as a bargaining chip for AI deregulation. The effort is 'running into resistance,' which is politician-speak for 'someone noticed the bait-and-switch.' It's a remarkably transparent trade: support the Kids Online Safety Act in exchange for wiping out state-level AI guardrails like California's model governance bill or Connecticut's risk-assessment law. Wrap your deregulatory agenda in a children's safety blanket and hope no one checks the label.

The compromise is being sold as a way to create 'clarity' and 'national standards,' but let's be honest: this is about tech lobbyists getting what they couldn't win in statehouses. The White House gets a win on a popular kids' safety bill, and Senator Blackburn gets to neuter progressive state regulations. Everyone wins — except, of course, the children, who are merely the prop, and the states, whose democratic experiments in AI oversight get steamrolled. Expect the usual parade of 'bipartisan cooperation' press releases while the substance is hollowed out.

So who's resisting? Likely a coalition of privacy advocates and state attorneys general who see their hard-fought rules being bulldozed. But Washington is 'working on a compromise,' which means they'll dilute it until everyone forgets what the original bill even did. Kids online safety? Sure, as long as it comes with a side of AI freedom. Classic legislative sausage-making, with a side of cynical calculation.