The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been reintroduced into Congress. If handed into legislation, this invoice may impose among the most vital legislative modifications that the web has seen within the U.S. because the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998.
As it presently stands, KOSA would be capable to maintain social media platforms legally accountable if it’s confirmed that these corporations aren’t doing sufficient to guard minors from hurt. The invoice features a lengthy listing of doable harms, corresponding to consuming problems, sexual exploitation, substance abuse, and suicide. Though it overwhelmingly handed by the Senate final yr, the invoice was stifled within the House.
KOSA has confronted a lot backlash since its introduction in 2022.
Human rights teams just like the ACLU raised considerations that the invoice might be weaponized as a software for censorship and surveillance. While amendments to KOSA have mitigated a few of these considerations, teams just like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future have remained in opposition to the invoice.
“The invoice’s authors have claimed again and again that this invoice doesn’t affect speech. But the Duty of Care is about speech: it’s about blocking speech that the federal government believes is dangerous for youths,” Fight for the Future wrote in an announcement. “And the individuals who can be figuring out what speech is dangerous? They are the identical ones utilizing each software to silence marginalized communities and assault these they understand as enemies.”
However, KOSA has garnered assist from corporations like Microsoft, Snap, and X; X CEO Linda Yaccarino even labored with Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on the newest draft of the invoice. Google and Meta have remained against the invoice, however Apple introduced immediately that it’s going to assist the laws.
“Apple is happy to supply our assist for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Everyone has a component to play in retaining children secure on-line, and we imagine [this] laws could have a significant affect on youngsters’s on-line security,” Timothy Powderly, Apple’s senior director of Government Affairs, mentioned in an announcement.
