KOSA is pretty gross. It’s basically giving the government (and, by extension, whomever is in charge of said government) the ability to literally say “This is harmful to children, you’re legally liable if children find it.” to ANY topic they want.
I’m sure the reasons that’s bad don’t really need much explanation.
What’s going to happen is not that those things will be banned for children, they’ll just be flat-out banned. Corporate “trust and safety” teams making these rules do not view things with shades of grey: if there’s a material risk to the company, then fuck it, it’s not allowed. Don’t want kids talking about marijuana? Banned. Abortion? Banned. Drag? Banned. LGBT people in general? Banned. (Source: about a decade of doing that work.)
This is not so much a slippery slope as a greased-up slip-n-slide they want to push everyone down.
Private communications? Banned.
That’s a problem not only for obvious targets like journalists and whistleblowers, and everyday folks who just want to share private thoughts with their families and other loved ones, but also for abused kids who need a safe way to call for help.
And, without private communications, the rights recognized by the Fourth Amendment would be reduced to little more than empty promises.
This article is a few months old, but still relevant:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act
How about parents actually monitor their kids web activity instead getting the government involved? I fucking hate Facebook and most forms of social media and they do skirt responsibility for a lot of the problems they cause but making internet forums liable for things like bullying, scammers, or anything “damaging to children” is basically impossible.
Protecting kids user data? All for it. But from what I read this just seems like another step in over policing the internet
What I know is I’m teaching my daughter how to use a VPN, if for no other reason than to let her know I trust her at her age to have her privacy.
This is a gross overstep kind of bill, while I do agree that tech companies do need to be held responsible; this is not the path as this bill is still open to abuse in my opinion. So many topics could be banned because the bottom line of a company is far more important than being able to discuss ‘controversial topics’ openly. KOSA needs to be scrapped, burned, and dumped out of memory. A new, saner policy should be developed in its place.
