MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WHNT) -- Attorney General Steve Marshall has signed a letter urging Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act. The act would require social media platforms to use their strongest safety settings by default, rather than requiring kids to opt in.

Marshall said the current measures don't go far enough.

"There is research studies that are coming out now that demonstrate that significant use of social media and particularly exposure to certain messages can cause depression, anxiety, and bad self-image," said Marshall.

The bill also allows parents to help with that exposure by better monitoring what their kids see online. "That would be the baseline," said Marshall. "States ought to have the opportunity as well to regulate it even more if they choose to. That would be a policy choice that we could make, but believe it's an appropriate area for Congress to be able to weigh in."

But Aaron Mackey, director of free speech and transparency litigation at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that same regulation could give way to censorship.

"How do you actually create a rule where an online service allows youth to access information that says like 'here's how you get help if you're being bullied', or 'if you're the victim of harassment', without actually just sort of blocking people," he said.

He said media sites won't be able to separate harmful from helpful information.

"So I think the aim of KOSA is sort of self-defeating in that it's implementation will result in actually limiting young adults and children's ability to access information when they're in a moment of acute crisis," said Mackey.

Attorney General Marshall disagrees.

"It's not censorship when we're talking about young people and parents being able to engage in what their kids are doing," said Marshall. "This is about protecting children online and making sure the content they are seeing is appropriate for the age of those kids."

The Senate passed a version of the Kid's Online Safety Act earlier this year, while the House of Representatives has yet to take up the bill.