Bach Seat

The Kids Online Safety Act, known as KOSA, is another half-assed publicity grab. The politicians fail to address the root cause of the problem – data collection. We can all agree that social media is bad for kids. There is enough proof from multiple studies and former social media company employees. Therefore, KOSA is not the answer. It will infringe on the rights and interests of all internet users.

Kids Online Safety Act

To begin with, the Kids Online Safety Act, known as KOSA introduced by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D) and Marsha Blackburn (R), would establish a two-tier Internet in the U.S. The bill requires that sites that are ‘likely to be accessed by kids‘ act in the “best interest of users who are 16 or younger.” That means that all platforms would be responsible for mitigating the risk of physical or emotional harm to young users. This includes “the promotion of self-harm or suicide, encouragement of addictive behavior, enabling of online bullying or predatory marketing.” Sound nice; however, KOSA is not the solution we need. Here are some of the reasons to oppose KOSA:

Kids Online Safety Act safety

The KOSA requirements would mandate that platforms have parental controls. These government-mandated controls could be harmful to kids in abusive situations. According to Fight for the Future, a coalition of over 50 civil society groups, “KOSA risks subjecting teens who are experiencing domestic violence and parental abuse to additional forms of digital surveillance and control that could prevent these vulnerable youth from reaching out for help or support.”

Additionally, the KOSA requirements would endanger VPNs (one of the government’s favorite boogey-techs). The group wrote; “… by creating strong incentives to filter and enable parental control over the content minors can access, KOSA could also jeopardize young people’s access to end-to-end encrypted technologies, which they depend on to access resources related to mental health and to keep their data safe from bad actors.”

KOSA is government censorship

KOSA would give the President control over what people see online. The government would create a “Kids Online Safety Council” that would advise the government on implementing and enforcing KOSA. As a result, the legislation’s requirement to restrict access to topics such as sex education, LGBTQ issues, and mental health from minors could cause platforms KOSA could force platforms to self-censor just to avoid the hassle and costs.

Furthermore, Fight for the Future writes that censorship would be politically driven. “Online services would face substantial pressure to over-moderate, including from state Attorneys General seeking to make political points… KOSA would cut off another vital avenue of access to information for vulnerable youth.”

KOSA encourages more data collection

According to Fight for the Future, the bill would incentivize sites to collect even more information about children to verify their ages and place further restrictions on minors’ accounts. They explain,

“Age verification may require users to provide platforms with personally identifiable information such as date of birth and government-issued identification documents, which can threaten users’ privacy, including through the risk of data breaches, and chill their willingness to access sensitive information online because they cannot do so anonymously.”

Therefore, they conclude, “Rather than age-gating privacy settings and safety tools to apply only to minors, Congress should focus on ensuring that all users, regardless of age, benefit from strong privacy protections by passing comprehensive privacy legislation.”

Kids Online Safety Act unintended consequences

KOSA would also create unintended consequences. The unintended consequences include driving children to use less secure or more harmful platforms. The Kids Online Safety Act would make kids more vulnerable to online predators who could exploit their age verification information. It would also undermine the trust and communication between children and parents, as well as between platforms and users.

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There are valid concerns about the impact of social media on us all. But the Kids Online Safety Act misses the point. Congress should be targeting data collection. Nearly all social media platforms and online businesses collect personal data from their users. The EFF points out that all social media firms harvest and monetize our personal data and incentivize other online businesses to do the same. The result is that detailed information about us is widely available to purchasers, thieves, and government subpoenas.

Consider location data brokers, for example. Our apps collect detailed records of our online activities without our knowledge or genuine consent. The app developers sell it to data brokers, who will in turn sell it to anyone who will pay for it. An election denier bought it to try to prove voting fraud. One broker sold data on who had visited reproductive health facilities.

If a bad actor or the government wanted to buy this data, it could probably find a way to do so. Collecting more data will not stop the bad actors from acquiring PII.

The better approach is to limit how all businesses collect personal data. This would de-incentive data collection and reduce the supply of data for bad actors.

Everybody should be allowed to make informed choices based on their own values and preferences.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.