Do Online Safety Laws Actually Protect Kids? What the UK's First Real-World Data Tells American Parents

I spent last week reading a 40-page report from the UK about whether their online safety law is working. My husband asked what I was doing. I told him I was trying to find out if Congress is about to waste everyone's time or save our kids. He said both. He might be right.

Here is where we are. The United Kingdom enforced its Online Safety Act starting in July 2025 — the most ambitious child internet safety law any Western democracy has implemented. Seven months later, Internet Matters published the first comprehensive effectiveness study. And yesterday, May 12, roughly 70 parents stood on the Capitol lawn in Washington begging Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act because their children were hurt or killed by what they found online.

Those two facts do not live in separate boxes. They are the same conversation. One country tried. The data is in. And another country is still arguing about whether to try.

So I read the data. All of it.

What the UK actually found

The numbers are mixed in a way that should make every parent uncomfortable, not reassured.

On the positive side, 68% of children and 67% of parents report seeing more safety features on the platforms their kids use. Chat restrictions. Better reporting tools. More age-appropriate content recommendations. That is real. The law forced platforms to act, and platforms acted.

But here is the number that sat in my chest for two days: 49% of children still reported encountering harm online in the month after the safety measures took effect. Violent content. Hateful content. The kind of material these laws were specifically designed to stop.

Half. After the law. After the enforcement. After the fines. Half.

And the age verification system — the centerpiece of the whole regulatory approach — has a problem that would be funny if it were not about children. Fifty-three percent of kids say they have had to verify their age online. Thirty-two percent say they bypassed the age check. One parent in the study described catching their son using an eyebrow pencil to draw a moustache on his face to fool the facial estimation system. The system verified him as 15.

That last detail is not an anecdote. It is the entire problem in a single sentence. We are building billion-dollar compliance systems that can be defeated by a child with access to an eyebrow pencil.

Twenty-six percent of parents in the study admitted they let their child bypass age checks. A quarter of parents. Actively helping their kids get around the safety net. I do not write that to shame anyone. I write it because any law that depends on parents being the enforcement mechanism will fail at the exact population that needs it most.

What's happening in America right now

While the UK collects disappointing data, the United States is stuck in a congressional traffic jam.

The Senate passed a version of the Kids Online Safety Act that includes a duty of care — a legal requirement for platforms to look out for the best interests of children. Senator Marsha Blackburn sponsored the language. It covers eating disorders, depression, anxiety, compulsive use patterns. It has teeth.

The House gutted it. The Energy and Commerce Committee removed the duty of care entirely and inserted language explicitly stating that nothing in the bill creates a duty of care for platforms. Not weakened. Removed. Then added a federal preemption clause that would override the state-level laws that are actually working right now, including California's SB 243 on AI chatbot safety for minors.

Senator Ted Cruz told the parents at yesterday's Capitol rally that his committee would advance the legislation. He said, "If we do nothing else in Washington, we need to be protecting our kids." I want to believe him. But I have heard that sentence from elected officials before, and here I am writing about it in 2026 while the UK is already collecting failure data on their attempt.

What the jury verdicts changed

While Congress argues, juries acted. In March 2026, a California jury found Meta and YouTube liable for designing platforms that cause children to become addicted. The jury concluded the companies' executives knew their platforms were addictive and failed to protect young users. They awarded $3 million in damages plus $3 million in punitive damages for being — the jury's word — "malicious."

A separate New Mexico jury hit Meta with $375 million for failing to protect children from exploitation on its platforms.

These verdicts matter more to your child's safety than any bill in Congress right now. Not because of the dollar amounts, which are rounding errors for these companies. Because of the 2,000 other pending lawsuits that now have precedent. Because Meta cannot go into every courtroom in America and argue that they bear no responsibility. A jury said they do. Two juries, in two states, in the same month.

Litigation is doing what legislation has not done yet. (Actually, that is not quite right. Litigation is doing what legislation did in the UK and discovered was not enough.)

The honest uncomfortable truth

Here is what I think, and I am not equivocating.

Laws help. The UK data proves it — 68% of kids see better safety features because the law forced platforms to build them. That is real and it matters. But laws are not enough. The same data proves that too — 49% of kids still encounter harm, 32% bypass age checks, and a quarter of parents are complicit in the bypass.

The problem has three layers and laws can only reach one of them.

Layer one is platform design. Laws can force platforms to change defaults, add friction, build age gates, limit recommendations. The UK law did this and the data shows it worked. This is the layer where regulation has genuine, measurable power.

Layer two is enforcement at scale. Age verification sounds solid until you watch a twelve-year-old with an eyebrow pencil defeat it. VPN downloads surged after the UK enforcement began, pushing kids toward less regulated corners of the internet. This is where the UK data gets genuinely worrying — the law created compliance systems that sophisticated users (and children are sophisticated users of technology, make no mistake) can route around.

Layer three is the relationship between a specific child and a specific screen in a specific house. No law addresses that. No law can address that. That is a parenting problem, and I say that as a parent who has gotten it wrong more times than I can count.

What parents should actually do right now

Stop waiting for Congress. I am serious. Advocate for KOSA — call your senators, support the parents who rallied yesterday, push for the Senate version with the duty of care intact. All of that matters.

But do not make the mistake that parents in the UK made, which the Internet Matters data now documents: assuming the law will handle it. Only 22% of UK parents believe the government is doing enough. They are right. The government is not doing enough. It cannot do enough. Not because it does not want to, but because no regulatory system built on after-the-fact compliance can move as fast as a child who figured out the workaround in fifteen minutes.

Set up your console parental controls. Understand what parental control apps can and cannot do. Know which AI chatbots your child is talking to and what laws exist — and what laws do not exist — around them. Have the conversation. Have it badly. Have it awkwardly. Have it again next week.

The parents standing on the Capitol lawn yesterday lost children. They are fighting for laws because laws are the mechanism available to them. They are right to fight. And the UK data tells us, with painful clarity, that even when they win, the fight is not over. It is transferred. From the legislature to your living room.

If your child is struggling with online harm, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988), the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741), or the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453.

Sources cited in this article:

1. Internet Matters — The Online Safety Act: Are children safer online? (May 2026)
2. The Cyber Express — Online Safety Act Exposes Age Verification System Flaws
3. Congress.gov — S.1748: Kids Online Safety Act
4. TechPolicy.Press — House GOP Moves Ahead with Kids Online Safety Package
5. California State Senator Steve Padilla — First-in-the-Nation AI Chatbot Safeguards
6. Washington Times — Parents' rally for kids online safety legislation (May 12, 2026)
7. Fortune — Meta and YouTube found liable in landmark child social media harm case
8. Bitdefender — The Online Safety Act Is Changing the Internet for Kids
9. MultiState — State Children's Online Safety Laws Expand to AI Chatbots (April 2026)
10. NPR — Jury finds Meta and Google negligent in social media harms trial