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.
TELL CONGRESS: OPPOSE THE KIDS ONLINE SAFETY ACT
KOSA Still Requires Filtering and Blocking of Legal Speech
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 lead to these harms, they would likely censor any discussions that could make them liable. To be clear: though the bill’s language is about “designs and services,” the designs of a platform are not causing eating disorders. As a result, KOSA would make platforms liable for the content they show minors, full stop. It will be based on vague requirements that any Attorney General could, more or less, make up.
Attorneys General Would Decide What Content is Dangerous To Young People
KOSA’s co-author, Sen. Blackburn of Tennessee, has referred to education about race discrimination as “dangerous for kids.” Many states have agreed, and recently moved to limit public education about the history of race, gender, and sexuality discrimination. If KOSA passes, platforms are likely to preemptively block conversations that discuss these topics, as well as discussions about substance use, suicide, and eating disorders. As we’ve written in our previous commentary on the bill, KOSA could result in loss of access to information that a majority of people would agree is not dangerous. Again, issues like substance abuse, eating disorders, and depression are complex societal issues, and there is not clear agreement on their causes or their solutions. To pick just one example: in some communities, safe injection sites are seen as part of a solution to substance abuse; in others, they are seen as part of the problem.
