By Sarah Holliday
The Washington Stand
The cries for safer online platforms have increased greatly over the years. As evidence emerges that social media is not merely dangerous but actually a breeding ground for cyberbullying, sexual predators, and exposure to pornography, the same message echoes out in the public square: “[W]e better do something.” And with the Senate’s decision on Tuesday to pass “a pair of bills to expand online privacy and safety protections for children,” it seems that plea did not return void.
Two pieces of legislation considered by the Senate, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 2.0, “represent the most significant restrictions on tech platforms to clear a chamber of Congress in decades,” The Washington Post reported. While the bills passed by a vote of 91-3, there appears to be more to this legislation than meets the eye.
KOSA, far more than COPPA, is the bill that has sparked concerns. According to The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, “While well-intended and useful in some ways, the bill is full of landmines that the House would be wise to clean up.” As the WSJ editors went on to say, it’s positive that KOSA “would have to give parents the power to limit the ability of others to communicate with their children.” The language would also enable parents to “restrict privacy settings, financial transactions, and time spent on a platform.” However, the editors warned, KOSA would also “empower the Federal Trade Commission [FTC] and 50 state Attorneys General to serve in loco parentis and police the platforms.”
That could potentially lead to a variety of issues, largely because, as WSJ further explained, “Companies would have a legal ‘duty of care’ to design their platforms to prevent harm to minors. This means the FTC could sue platforms if it says their features, including algorithms, harm minors.” And notably, the definition for “harm” is rather vague, the editors pointed out. As such, “Some platforms could be deemed harmful and illegal by their very design.”
Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah.) are two who spoke out against KOSA, both expressing their skepticism in public statements. “I deeply sympathize with the families of those who have tragically” had loved ones effected by online dangers, Paul stated. And while he believes the bill was created by people who “genuinely want to protect children,” Paul urged that “KOSA is not the solution.” According to the Kentuckian, the repercussions of the proposal could “not only stifle free speech” but also “deprive Americans of the benefits of our technological advancements.” This senator’s concern is that “any solution to protect kids online must ensure the positive aspects of the internet are preserved.”
Lee agreed, emphasizing in a post on X, KOSA “fails to meaningfully address the most urgent threats to America’s children online, while opening the door to political censorship by the federal government.” As such, he added, “I cannot support it.” He elaborated, “There’s an urgent need for Congress to take real action to protect our children from the threats they face online. If our counterparts in the House of Representatives can amend this bill to address the serious (but very fixable) flaws … I will enthusiastically vote for an improved version of KOSA in the future.”
Like Lee, the WSJ believes the bill’s wrinkles could be smoothed out in the House in a way that is “empowering [for] parents without unleashing predatory regulators.” Ultimately, these proposals seem to have immense support because protecting children online has immense support. Many have acknowledged KOSA and COPPA are attempts to “hold tech companies more accountable for the harm that they cause.” To help unpack the positive aspects of the policies, Melissa Henson, Parents Television and Media Council’s (PTC) vice president of Programs, shared her thoughts with The Washington Stand.
On behalf of PTC, which exists to help protect minors from online threats, Henson said, “[We’ve been] very supportive of both of these pieces of legislation for a couple of years now and [are] very gratified to see that it got passed before the August recess.” Bills aimed at protecting minors, such as COPPA and KOSA, are “critical,” she underscored, because they help give parents control over the children’s time online.
Henson argued that the bills help take some of the burden off of parents and places it back onto Big Tech. One of the biggest positives, she added, is that the legislation “limits the ability of these platforms to target kids with using algorithmic data to feed content to them that may be encouraging harmful behavior.” In response to the concerns brought up by Lee, Paul, and others, Henson noted that while censorship is a risk worth weighing, it may be helpful to “acknowledge or recognize that there’s already been a certain amount of political censorship [happening] on social media platforms.”
Henson insisted that dismissing the legislation too quickly could “be sort of like throwing out the baby with the bath water” — especially when “the data on emergency room admissions for self-harm or … self-reported anxiety, depression, [and] suicidal ideation … have just skyrocketed with the advent and the growth of social media.” She concluded that it’s best to focus on “what we know to be [the] very real problem” and work from there.
Originally published at The Washington Stand!
