Month: July 2024

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

The Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (also known as COPPA 2.0), the first major internet bills meant to protect children to reach that milestone in two decades. A legislative vehicle that included both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 passed 91-3.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called it “a momentous day” in a speech ahead of the vote, saying that “the Senate keeps its promise to every parent who’s lost a child because of the risks of social media.” He called for the House to pass the bills “as soon as they can.”
KOSA is a landmark piece of legislation that a persistent group of parent advocates have played a key role in pushing forward — meeting with lawmakers, showing up at hearings with tech CEOs, and bringing along photos of their children who, in many cases, died by suicide after experiencing cyberbullying or other harms from social media. These parents say that a bill like KOSA could have saved their own children from suffering and hope it will do the same for other children.
The bill works by creating a duty of care for online platforms that are used by minors, requiring they take “reasonable” measures in how they design their products to mitigate a list of harms, including online bullying, sexual exploitation, drug promotion, and eating disorders. It specifies that the bill doesn’t prevent platforms from letting minors search for any specific content or providing them resources to mitigate any of the listed harms, “including evidence-informed information and clinical resources.”

Parent advocates believe this legal duty of care will protect children, but digital rights, free speech, and some LGBTQ+ advocates believe that the bill could actually harm marginalized kids by creating a chilling effect and pressuring platforms to limit free expression on the internet. In a recent letter to senators, groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), LGBT Tech, and industry groups like NetChoice, wrote that the duty of care could result in “aggressive filtering of content by companies preventing access to important, First Amendment-protected, educational, and even lifesaving content” to avoid liability. They also fear it will lead platforms to impose age verification systems, raising additional privacy and constitutional concerns.
These concerns are not coming out of left field. Lead cosponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has previously justified the bill on the basis that “we should be protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture.” Since then, the bill was been amended in response to the concerns of LGBTQ advocates, and the revisions were sufficient to get some organizations — like GLAAD and the Trevor Project — to drop their opposition to the bill.
In a speech on the Senate floor ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), another of the bill’s lead sponsors, said the law not aiming to block or censor content. “We’re simply creating an environment that is safe by design. And at its core, this bill is a product design bill.” Blumenthal compared KOSA to other efforts throughout his career to “protect consumers against defective products that are designed to make more money and more profits at the risk or expense of injury to people,” including by targeting cigarettes and car manufacturers.
Blackburn said that while “there are laws that protect children from buying alcohol, buying tobacco, buying pornography,” the same kinds of protections are lacking on the internet. “When you look at the social media platforms, there are no guardrails.”
The duty of care is probably the most controversial, but KOSA contains a host of other provisions. KOSA also requires safeguards for kids on the internet, like preventing unknown adults from communicating with kids or viewing their personal data, restricting the ability to share minors’ geolocation data, and letting kids’ accounts opt out of personalized recommendations or at least limit categories of recommendations. Platforms would also need to default kids’ accounts to the strictest level of privacy settings and make it easy to delete their personal data and limit the time they spend on the service. The law would also require a handful of parental control tools, allowing parents to view their children’s privacy and account settings, restrict their purchases, and limit how much time they spend.
COPPA 2.0, which builds on a 1998 children’s privacy law by the same name, would raise the age covered by those protections from those under 13 to those under 17. It would also ban targeted advertising to kids covered by the bill. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), the lead sponsor of the new bill, was also the lead sponsor of the original COPPA. Markey said in a speech on the Senate floor that covering kids under 13 was “all I could get” in 1998. Markey said the original law “has done a lot of good, but as the years have passed, and technology has evolved, our online world once again, started to look like the Wild West.”
The House recently decided to adjourn a week early
Two of the senators who voted no — Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) — said they had concerns that KOSA could potentially be used to censor information. Wyden wrote in a thread on X that while changes to the bill have made it “less likely that the bill can be used as a tool for MAGA extremists to wage war on legal and essential information to teens,” he still worries it “could be used to sue services that offer privacy technologies like encryption or anonymity features that kids rely on to communicate securely and privately without being spied on by predators online.” Paul called it a “pandora’s box of unintended consequences.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) also voted no.
The bills now move to the House, which had about a week left to take them up before the August recess — except that the chamber recently decided to adjourn a week early. Prior to Thursday’s procedural vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a statement to The Verge that he was “looking forward to reviewing the details of the legislation that comes out of the Senate. Parents should have greater control and the necessary tools to protect their kids online. I am committed to working to find consensus in the House.” But it will be harder to pick up momentum after Congress’ break, given the political dynamics of passing substantive policy in the months right before a presidential election.
Should the bills become law, KOSA is still likely to face opposition in the courts. NetChoice, which represents major tech platforms like Google and Meta, has sued to block several other laws throughout the country with similar goals of protecting kids. NetChoice has (in many cases, successfully) argued that such bills pose a risk to free expression that would not withstand First Amendment scrutiny. If challenged, KOSA will also have to contend with a recent Supreme Court ruling, where the majority opinion said that content moderation and curation are protected forms of expression.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

The Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (also known as COPPA 2.0), the first major internet bills meant to protect children to reach that milestone in two decades. A legislative vehicle that included both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 passed 91-3.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called it “a momentous day” in a speech ahead of the vote, saying that “the Senate keeps its promise to every parent who’s lost a child because of the risks of social media.” He called for the House to pass the bills “as soon as they can.”

KOSA is a landmark piece of legislation that a persistent group of parent advocates have played a key role in pushing forward — meeting with lawmakers, showing up at hearings with tech CEOs, and bringing along photos of their children who, in many cases, died by suicide after experiencing cyberbullying or other harms from social media. These parents say that a bill like KOSA could have saved their own children from suffering and hope it will do the same for other children.

The bill works by creating a duty of care for online platforms that are used by minors, requiring they take “reasonable” measures in how they design their products to mitigate a list of harms, including online bullying, sexual exploitation, drug promotion, and eating disorders. It specifies that the bill doesn’t prevent platforms from letting minors search for any specific content or providing them resources to mitigate any of the listed harms, “including evidence-informed information and clinical resources.”

Parent advocates believe this legal duty of care will protect children, but digital rights, free speech, and some LGBTQ+ advocates believe that the bill could actually harm marginalized kids by creating a chilling effect and pressuring platforms to limit free expression on the internet. In a recent letter to senators, groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), LGBT Tech, and industry groups like NetChoice, wrote that the duty of care could result in “aggressive filtering of content by companies preventing access to important, First Amendment-protected, educational, and even lifesaving content” to avoid liability. They also fear it will lead platforms to impose age verification systems, raising additional privacy and constitutional concerns.

These concerns are not coming out of left field. Lead cosponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has previously justified the bill on the basis that “we should be protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture.” Since then, the bill was been amended in response to the concerns of LGBTQ advocates, and the revisions were sufficient to get some organizations — like GLAAD and the Trevor Project — to drop their opposition to the bill.

In a speech on the Senate floor ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), another of the bill’s lead sponsors, said the law not aiming to block or censor content. “We’re simply creating an environment that is safe by design. And at its core, this bill is a product design bill.” Blumenthal compared KOSA to other efforts throughout his career to “protect consumers against defective products that are designed to make more money and more profits at the risk or expense of injury to people,” including by targeting cigarettes and car manufacturers.

Blackburn said that while “there are laws that protect children from buying alcohol, buying tobacco, buying pornography,” the same kinds of protections are lacking on the internet. “When you look at the social media platforms, there are no guardrails.”

The duty of care is probably the most controversial, but KOSA contains a host of other provisions. KOSA also requires safeguards for kids on the internet, like preventing unknown adults from communicating with kids or viewing their personal data, restricting the ability to share minors’ geolocation data, and letting kids’ accounts opt out of personalized recommendations or at least limit categories of recommendations. Platforms would also need to default kids’ accounts to the strictest level of privacy settings and make it easy to delete their personal data and limit the time they spend on the service. The law would also require a handful of parental control tools, allowing parents to view their children’s privacy and account settings, restrict their purchases, and limit how much time they spend.

COPPA 2.0, which builds on a 1998 children’s privacy law by the same name, would raise the age covered by those protections from those under 13 to those under 17. It would also ban targeted advertising to kids covered by the bill. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), the lead sponsor of the new bill, was also the lead sponsor of the original COPPA. Markey said in a speech on the Senate floor that covering kids under 13 was “all I could get” in 1998. Markey said the original law “has done a lot of good, but as the years have passed, and technology has evolved, our online world once again, started to look like the Wild West.”

Two of the senators who voted no — Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) — said they had concerns that KOSA could potentially be used to censor information. Wyden wrote in a thread on X that while changes to the bill have made it “less likely that the bill can be used as a tool for MAGA extremists to wage war on legal and essential information to teens,” he still worries it “could be used to sue services that offer privacy technologies like encryption or anonymity features that kids rely on to communicate securely and privately without being spied on by predators online.” Paul called it a “pandora’s box of unintended consequences.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) also voted no.

The bills now move to the House, which had about a week left to take them up before the August recess — except that the chamber recently decided to adjourn a week early. Prior to Thursday’s procedural vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a statement to The Verge that he was “looking forward to reviewing the details of the legislation that comes out of the Senate. Parents should have greater control and the necessary tools to protect their kids online. I am committed to working to find consensus in the House.” But it will be harder to pick up momentum after Congress’ break, given the political dynamics of passing substantive policy in the months right before a presidential election.

Should the bills become law, KOSA is still likely to face opposition in the courts. NetChoice, which represents major tech platforms like Google and Meta, has sued to block several other laws throughout the country with similar goals of protecting kids. NetChoice has (in many cases, successfully) argued that such bills pose a risk to free expression that would not withstand First Amendment scrutiny. If challenged, KOSA will also have to contend with a recent Supreme Court ruling, where the majority opinion said that content moderation and curation are protected forms of expression.

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Amazon’s new Echo Spot strikes a good balance between smart speaker and smart display. I’ve been looking for a good alarm clock with voice control for years now — and with Amazon’s newest smart speaker, I think I’ve found it. The Nest Hub is too big for my nightstand and the Echo Show 5 is too bright, but the new Echo Spot ($79.99) is just right.
While it’s not perfect, the Spot’s small footprint, minimalist display, impressive sound for its size, built-in voice assistant, and snappy responses fill most of my needs. These features make it a good option if you want the benefits of a smart speaker and some basic visual information in your bedroom without the distractions of a large screen.
As the sequel to the original Echo Spot that was discontinued in 2019, the new Echo Spot ditches the camera, which was our main gripe with the earlier version. It also replaces the full circular screen with a semicircular display that shows the clock. While that display is a bit too small (and slightly cheap-looking), overall, the Spot is a capable smart alarm clock for a good price, especially when it’s on sale.

Small screen, big personality
An Alexa-powered smart speaker, the Spot follows the design cues of the Echo Pop with its flat circular front, but it adds a small 2.83-inch display above the speaker grille. This is a touchscreen display that shows a clock or various animations when playing music, telling the weather, setting timers, and controlling smart home devices. It’s very responsive to touch, although it’s limited in terms of what you can do with it.
The Spot also responds well to Alexa’s voice commands with minimal lag and can trigger Alexa Routines with presence detection using an ultrasound sensor. It’s a Bluetooth speaker (there’s no line-out) and an Alexa Matter controller (over Wi-Fi), but unlike the Echo Dot, there’s no temperature sensor, and it doesn’t act as an Eero mesh Wi-Fi extender.

The new Echo Spot (right) is surprisingly chunky and bigger than the original Spot (left).

The Spot’s screen is primarily designed as a clock — showing just enough information to be useful and not so much to be annoying. Instead of the rotating content you find on the Echo Shows that sometimes push ads for Amazon’s services, the Spot just shows the current time and the time your next alarm is set. There’s also an option to show the weather and date.
The display is small enough to not be distracting at night thanks to a nighttime mode that switches to a simple red LED display. It has six fun clockfaces for daytime, although two of them feel a bit squished in the small rectangle allotted to them. It would look better if the screen took up the entire upper semicircle instead of just two-thirds of it. This could have enabled the neat Echo Show sunrise alarm clock feature that gradually brightens the whole screen.
The Spot will have too much screen for you if you liked the no-frills LED dot-matrix look of the Dot with Clock
The Spot’s small screen means that the clock either goes away or becomes very small when it’s being used for anything other than a clock, which can be annoying. When it plays music, it shows a graphic visualizer and playback controls. When you’re listening to a book, it shows the title (oddly, no controls), and for timers, it displays the countdown. If I want the full-screen clock to show up while doing any of these tasks, I have to say, “Alexa, go Home” or swipe down and tap the Home button.
This speaks to the fact that the Spot isn’t a smart display; it’s more of a smart speaker with a screen. It’s closer in function to the now-discontinued Echo Dot With Clock than to the Echo Show 5. I found the Spot’s display easier to read on my nightstand than the Dot, and I liked the additional control options, but if you prefer the no-frills LED dot-matrix look of the Dot with Clock, then the Spot will have too much screen for you.

The Spot’s touchscreen allows for basic control over things like music playback and smart home devices. But while it shows a button to turn a light on or off and a slider to adjust brightness for, say, a lamp, I have to use my voice to get those controls to show up. I also couldn’t use the screen to set an alarm on the Spot’s screen. Again, I had to use voice or the Alexa app. This feels like a miss in a device designed to be an alarm clock.

The Echo Spot has a similar shape to the Echo Pop and the same physical buttons: volume up and down and mute.

Otherwise, the Spot’s alarm clock function is very good. There’s a wide array of wake-up tones, including a classic ring. I can also say, “Alexa, wake me up at 6AM to Taylor Swift” or ask it to wake me up to a specific radio station. Plus, I can have the smart lights in my bedroom turn on with the alarm or have an Alexa Routine run.
Annoyingly, the “snooze” and “stop alarm” buttons on the screen are tiny — too small to easily hit when you wake up bleary-eyed. But using voice or tapping the top of the Spot to snooze works fine. Also, there’s no backup battery, which isn’t easy to find on any smart speaker / alarm clock but is an important feature for my family.
As far as audio is concerned, the Spot’s forward-facing 1.73-inch mono driver makes it a good speaker for listening to music, sleep sounds, or an audiobook in bed. It’s not as room-filling as the Dot but has clearer vocals and delivers a richer sound than the smaller Echo Pop.
The Spot also works with Alexa audio calling, and I can use it as a home intercom with the Alexa Drop In feature — useful when I want to tell my teenager to turn his music down. It’s the only dedicated smart alarm clock I’ve tested that has this feature. There are a number of third-party smart alarm clocks with built-in Alexa, but none support Drop In.

I’ve tried a lot of devices as smart alarm clocks, and I like the Spot’s size and small display for my nightstand. Clockwise from bottom left: Echo Dot with Clock, Echo Show 5, Echo Spot (first-gen), iPhone 15 Pro in StandBy mode, Nest Hub (second-gen), Echo Spot.

This is not a smart display
As I mentioned previously, the Spot is not really a smart display (despite that being what Amazon calls it). You can’t use it as a digital photo frame or video calling device or watch a livestream from a security camera or video content on it. But I didn’t miss any of these features in a bedside device. If they’re important to you, consider the Echo Show 5, which can do everything the Spot can plus all of the above but is bigger and brighter with its larger screen.
Overall, I like the direction is taking Amazon with its newest Echos, creating more defined use cases for its smart speakers and displays beyond streaming music and setting timers. First, there was the Echo Hub, a smart home controller; now, there’s the Echo Spot, a smart alarm clock.
While $80 is expensive compared to the $50 Echo Dot, you’re getting more functionality with the Spot. Plus, if you can find it on sale (like the recent deep discount for Prime Day), it’s an easy buy. There’s room for improvement, but if you’ve been looking for a better voice-controlled smart alarm clock, the Spot deserves a spot on your nightstand.
Photography by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon’s new Echo Spot strikes a good balance between smart speaker and smart display.

I’ve been looking for a good alarm clock with voice control for years now — and with Amazon’s newest smart speaker, I think I’ve found it. The Nest Hub is too big for my nightstand and the Echo Show 5 is too bright, but the new Echo Spot ($79.99) is just right.

While it’s not perfect, the Spot’s small footprint, minimalist display, impressive sound for its size, built-in voice assistant, and snappy responses fill most of my needs. These features make it a good option if you want the benefits of a smart speaker and some basic visual information in your bedroom without the distractions of a large screen.

As the sequel to the original Echo Spot that was discontinued in 2019, the new Echo Spot ditches the camera, which was our main gripe with the earlier version. It also replaces the full circular screen with a semicircular display that shows the clock. While that display is a bit too small (and slightly cheap-looking), overall, the Spot is a capable smart alarm clock for a good price, especially when it’s on sale.

Small screen, big personality

An Alexa-powered smart speaker, the Spot follows the design cues of the Echo Pop with its flat circular front, but it adds a small 2.83-inch display above the speaker grille. This is a touchscreen display that shows a clock or various animations when playing music, telling the weather, setting timers, and controlling smart home devices. It’s very responsive to touch, although it’s limited in terms of what you can do with it.

The Spot also responds well to Alexa’s voice commands with minimal lag and can trigger Alexa Routines with presence detection using an ultrasound sensor. It’s a Bluetooth speaker (there’s no line-out) and an Alexa Matter controller (over Wi-Fi), but unlike the Echo Dot, there’s no temperature sensor, and it doesn’t act as an Eero mesh Wi-Fi extender.

The new Echo Spot (right) is surprisingly chunky and bigger than the original Spot (left).

The Spot’s screen is primarily designed as a clock — showing just enough information to be useful and not so much to be annoying. Instead of the rotating content you find on the Echo Shows that sometimes push ads for Amazon’s services, the Spot just shows the current time and the time your next alarm is set. There’s also an option to show the weather and date.

The display is small enough to not be distracting at night thanks to a nighttime mode that switches to a simple red LED display. It has six fun clockfaces for daytime, although two of them feel a bit squished in the small rectangle allotted to them. It would look better if the screen took up the entire upper semicircle instead of just two-thirds of it. This could have enabled the neat Echo Show sunrise alarm clock feature that gradually brightens the whole screen.

The Spot’s small screen means that the clock either goes away or becomes very small when it’s being used for anything other than a clock, which can be annoying. When it plays music, it shows a graphic visualizer and playback controls. When you’re listening to a book, it shows the title (oddly, no controls), and for timers, it displays the countdown. If I want the full-screen clock to show up while doing any of these tasks, I have to say, “Alexa, go Home” or swipe down and tap the Home button.

This speaks to the fact that the Spot isn’t a smart display; it’s more of a smart speaker with a screen. It’s closer in function to the now-discontinued Echo Dot With Clock than to the Echo Show 5. I found the Spot’s display easier to read on my nightstand than the Dot, and I liked the additional control options, but if you prefer the no-frills LED dot-matrix look of the Dot with Clock, then the Spot will have too much screen for you.

The Spot’s touchscreen allows for basic control over things like music playback and smart home devices. But while it shows a button to turn a light on or off and a slider to adjust brightness for, say, a lamp, I have to use my voice to get those controls to show up. I also couldn’t use the screen to set an alarm on the Spot’s screen. Again, I had to use voice or the Alexa app. This feels like a miss in a device designed to be an alarm clock.

The Echo Spot has a similar shape to the Echo Pop and the same physical buttons: volume up and down and mute.

Otherwise, the Spot’s alarm clock function is very good. There’s a wide array of wake-up tones, including a classic ring. I can also say, “Alexa, wake me up at 6AM to Taylor Swift” or ask it to wake me up to a specific radio station. Plus, I can have the smart lights in my bedroom turn on with the alarm or have an Alexa Routine run.

Annoyingly, the “snooze” and “stop alarm” buttons on the screen are tiny — too small to easily hit when you wake up bleary-eyed. But using voice or tapping the top of the Spot to snooze works fine. Also, there’s no backup battery, which isn’t easy to find on any smart speaker / alarm clock but is an important feature for my family.

As far as audio is concerned, the Spot’s forward-facing 1.73-inch mono driver makes it a good speaker for listening to music, sleep sounds, or an audiobook in bed. It’s not as room-filling as the Dot but has clearer vocals and delivers a richer sound than the smaller Echo Pop.

The Spot also works with Alexa audio calling, and I can use it as a home intercom with the Alexa Drop In feature — useful when I want to tell my teenager to turn his music down. It’s the only dedicated smart alarm clock I’ve tested that has this feature. There are a number of third-party smart alarm clocks with built-in Alexa, but none support Drop In.

I’ve tried a lot of devices as smart alarm clocks, and I like the Spot’s size and small display for my nightstand. Clockwise from bottom left: Echo Dot with Clock, Echo Show 5, Echo Spot (first-gen), iPhone 15 Pro in StandBy mode, Nest Hub (second-gen), Echo Spot.

This is not a smart display

As I mentioned previously, the Spot is not really a smart display (despite that being what Amazon calls it). You can’t use it as a digital photo frame or video calling device or watch a livestream from a security camera or video content on it. But I didn’t miss any of these features in a bedside device. If they’re important to you, consider the Echo Show 5, which can do everything the Spot can plus all of the above but is bigger and brighter with its larger screen.

Overall, I like the direction is taking Amazon with its newest Echos, creating more defined use cases for its smart speakers and displays beyond streaming music and setting timers. First, there was the Echo Hub, a smart home controller; now, there’s the Echo Spot, a smart alarm clock.

While $80 is expensive compared to the $50 Echo Dot, you’re getting more functionality with the Spot. Plus, if you can find it on sale (like the recent deep discount for Prime Day), it’s an easy buy. There’s room for improvement, but if you’ve been looking for a better voice-controlled smart alarm clock, the Spot deserves a spot on your nightstand.

Photography by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

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