Page:The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online.pdf/1



BY JASON KELLEY MAY 2, 2023



Congress has resurrected the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that would increase surveillance and restrict access to information in the name of protecting children online. KOSA was introduced in 2022 but failed to gain traction, and today its authors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), have reintroduced it with slight modiﬁcations. Though some of these changes were made in response to over 100 civil society organizations and LGBTQ+ rights groups’ criticisms of the bill, its latest version is still troubling. Today’s version of KOSA would still require surveillance of anyone sixteen and under. It would put the tools of censorship in the hands of state attorneys general, and would greatly endanger the rights, and safety, of young people online. And KOSA’s burdens will affect adults, too, who will likely face hurdles to accessing legal content online as a result of the bill.

Online child safety is a complex issue, but KOSA attempts to boil it down to a single solution. The bill holds platforms liable if their designs and services do not “prevent and mitigate” a list of societal ills: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, physical violence, online bullying and harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse, and suicidal behaviors. Additionally, platforms would be responsible for patterns of use that indicate or encourage addiction-like behaviors.

Deciding what designs or services lead to these problems would primarily be left up to the Federal Trade Commission and 50 individual state attorneys general to decide. Ultimately, this puts platforms that serve young people in an impossible situation: without clear guidance regarding what sort of design or content might