It’s hard to feel urgency about something that moves so slowly. Bear with me though, because it’s time for kids to care about online safety laws, or else howeverA federal bill designed to protect children from online harm
The bill has been hanging in Congress in some form since 2022, when Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Introducing their bipartisan response A series of congressional hearings and investigations into online child safety. Although the specific provisions of KOSA have changed over the years, the central goal of the law remains the same: lawmakers want to make platforms more accountable for the well-being of children who use their services and provide parents with tools to manage how young people use the Internet.
The dangers posed to minors by the Internet have long been consistent Real threat and a moral panic. It’s a political issue that has bipartisan support, as well as one that seems extremely difficult to rule on without violating First Amendment protections.
KOSA was born after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed, among other things, that she found meta-evidence that its platforms were harming the mental health of teenagers and did nothing to mitigate those harms (Facebook Said before (that they believe Haugen’s claims are misleading). The environment in which the bill’s sponsors sought support, however, is rife with evidence of how such legislation can be abused for partisan reasons.
Conservative think tank Heritage Foundation Said directly That they will want to use measures like KOSA to restrict access to content related to sexuality and gender identity online And as amended versions of the bill attempt to address these concerns, a digital rights advocacy group, Fight for the Future, has come together. A coalition of organizations Believe the current version of that bill still makes LGBTQ+ youth vulnerable Censorship and harm, limiting self-expression and excluding minors from access to information.
So, what is the cosa, exactly?
Here’s why we’re talking about COSA now: the latest Senate version There are enough votes to pass the bill. And recently, legislators House launched their own version of the bill, which differs in some ways from the Senate version, but is on track To go before the full Energy and Commerce Committee in June.
The House bill is moving along Another privacy measure which addresses data protection standards more generally. The two KOSA bills have bipartisan support and follow a successful push to pass a law that would ban the short-video platform TikTok.
Both KOSA Bills aim to achieve their goals by requiring the following:
- Online services covered by the bill must take measures to prevent harm to users under 17. The House and Senate bills have different definitions of platforms and damages to which this provision would apply Both require platforms to reduce harm related to certain mental health disorders, compulsive social media use, physical violence, sexual exploitation and drug use.
- Covered sites must introduce restrictions on how minors use it into the design of their platform. For example, KOSA would require platforms to limit other users’ ability to interact with minors, limit personalized recommendation features for minors, limit features that encourage minors to spend more time in the app — including infinite scrolling and autoplay. , featured features widely imitated by TikTok’s For You page and other social media platforms.
- These platforms must also offer parental tools which allows a minor user privacy, ability to purchase in-app items and manage time spent on the platform. Platforms must have a reporting system specifically for content that may harm minors.
The downside of prioritizing online security
If it passes — and it’s still a big if — KOSA will be the first major overhaul of rules governing online child protection since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a 1998 law that regulates how a wide range of sites handle the information collected. on users under 13 years of age. Although COPPA allows companies to collect information from these users with parental consent, the rules include, Practically speakingMany major platforms lead by banning users under 13 from having an account.
Whatever the intent, many privacy advocates are skeptical of Cosa. While some of the recent changes have won support from some national organizations, the measure has struggled to gain support from LGBTQ+ organizations, who worry that the provisions could be used to limit young people’s access to resources about their identity. And while Cosa has made some major revisions to address these fears, Not all advocates are believers.
For example, the ACLU is skeptical of KOSA. inside A statement earlier this year, the civil liberties organization said the bill would harm adults’ First Amendment rights by encouraging the removal of anonymous browsing across broad swathes of the Internet and by encouraging platforms to “censor protected speech” to ensure compliance with the bill. Similarly, the provisions Electronic Frontier Foundation The amended KOSA called the measure an “unconstitutional censorship bill” that would give state attorneys general too much power to determine how these provisions are actually implemented.
Push has a deep connection with calls to regulate the Internet to protect children from harm. This makes sense in some ways: the Internet hosts many things that can be harmful to children and adults alike, from privacy violations to network harassment to encouraging sensational and inappropriate content. But online access is always a both/and situation: the Internet is both harmful and a lifeline for young people. And it seems that organizations representing the interests of many marginalized communities are not convinced that KOSA will strike a balance.
