Response: The Truth About KOSA
Earlier this week CNN published an opinion piece titled, “Restricting and monitoring social media won’t protect kids — here’s what will.” The article, authored by a researcher and policy analyst from the Center for Democracy and Technology, was, among other things, a lengthy, albeit profoundly inaccurate, critique of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
Given that the authors work for an organization heavily funded by companies including Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple, Discord, Snap and other major, billion-dollar-plus, tech industry players, it seems important to take what they write with a hefty grain of salt. Because the piece is likely just another misinformation effort by Big Tech to fight off the one bill that in the last quarter century stands poised to meaningfully regulate and rein in their toxic business model.
Take the piece’s opening salvo, for example. Here the writers claim that KOSA, as well as the recently introduced Protecting Kids on Social Media Act – “rest on the premise that minors should be blocked from accessing some content or online services entirely.”
That is simply false.
KOSA explicitly protects the ability of children to search for information. It contains a specific rule of construction stating that nothing in the bill can be used to “prevent or preclude any minor from deliberately and independently searching for, or specifically requesting, content.” Want to learn about Black History Month? You absolutely can. Want to find a support group for LGBTQ teens? Go ahead.
What KOSA does with its central “duty of care” provision is prohibit social media platforms from using designs and algorithms to push toxic content into children’s feeds. KOSA prevents these companies from sending children content that contributes to severe harms such as suicide, eating disorders, cyberbullying, sexual exploitation and sextortion, predation by strangers, fentanyl and other illegal drug use, and social media addiction.
Critically, KOSA places the onus on social media companies not to take information away, but to design products that are safe. So, when children want to search for ways to mitigate one of the covered harms, as well as “evidence-informed information and clinical resources” such as from suicide or eating disorder prevention organizations, they can. Non-profits like these are specifically protected in the bill.
The reason KOSA is so potentially transformative – and why Big Tech is so afraid of this bill becoming law and thus has been fighting so hard against it – is because it will require a change in the way social media platforms are designed. KOSA will stop Meta, Snap, Discord, YouTube and other companies from purposefully trying to addict children to their platforms, ensnaring them in a never-ending scroll that becomes increasingly dangerous the longer kids stay glued to their screens.
There is a big difference — a cavernous one, in fact — between censorship and preventing Instagram from sending minors pro eating disorder content that they never requested in the first place. The latter, and only the latter, is what KOSA does. Although the op-ed’s authors do suggest that social media platforms could do more to actively keep kids safe by implementing features that would make their profiles private by default, improve user reporting tools and reduce interactions with strangers, ultimately, they put the burden back on parents to protect their children.
As parents who have paid the ultimate price at the hands of Big Tech, we cry foul. None of us can entirely shield our children from the advanced technologies, sophisticated algorithms and billions of dollars social media platforms employ.
Still, the authors suggest that parents should “focus on equipping young people to navigate the web safely, knowing that caregivers, educators and other support networks are there to help them as they grow.” And they recommend that parents “talk to their child about what they are doing online or respond to something they post on social media.” Because, they write, children’s safety online comes down to supportive parents, learning “that risky content exists,” and developing “tools to promote their own safety online.”
We did all of that. We vetted the people our children met online; we kept our computers in common areas in our homes; we required they “friend” us on their social media accounts so we could follow their posts; we talked to them about the dangers lurking on and off their screens. Our children still died.
Parents alone cannot keep children safe from illicit drug dealers, sexual predators and lethal viral challenges. We need policy reform and laws to help us, too. That is what KOSA will do. Although this CNN op-ed would have readers believe otherwise, the facts are clear. KOSA is not a censorship bill. It’s a life-saving one.
