American censorship bill, KOSA, has passed the Senate 91 to 3. It is now one step closer to becoming law.
KOSA, also known as the Kids Online Safety Act, is an American censorship bill that represents one of the many threats to the internet today. There are many reasons why it has frustrated digital rights advocates, but one angle that makes this especially needling is the fact that it is one of the many faces of the “for the children” effort. In other words, yes, the federal government is massively censoring the internet and it is a clear violation of the US Constitution, but don’t worry, it’s for the children, so therefor, it’s perfectly OK to take away freedom of expression in this context.
For those who don’t know, KOSA is a bill that compels online websites to censor otherwise perfectly legal content. It places a so-called “duty of care” on these websites and services in an alleged effort to protect the children. It is up to the online services to block this content unless the user can identify that they are, in fact, not children.
The legislation faces numerous criticisms such as how what is considered “harmful” to children is vaguely described. In fact, it’s a definition that can change at any time without government involvement. What’s more, KOSA has been considered legislation that is a thinly veiled attack on the LGBTQ+ community as content related to that community is likely to be flagged as “harmful” to children by far right lawmakers. In fact, some far right organizations have gone so far as to fully admit that cracking down on the LGBTQ+ community is the entire point of KOSA because those right wing organizations view such content as poisonous to today’s youth. In other words, those right wing organizations are bigoted ass holes who are chomping at the bit to use KOSA as a weapon to service their bigoted ways.
We’ve covered KOSA off and on such as earlier this year and last year. While we haven’t covered it much lately, it still remains a considerable threat to internet freedom and freedom of expression.
Well, recently, we found out that the threat of KOSA has become even more real. This is thanks to the fact that the legislation has passed the Senate 91 to 3. From TechDirt:
There are still big questions about whether the House will follow suit, and, if so, how different their bill would be, and how the bills from the two chambers would be reconciled, but this is a step closer to KOSA becoming law, and creating all of the many problems people have been highlighting about it for years.
One thing I wanted to note, though, is how cynical the politicians supporting this have been. It’s become pretty typical for senators to roll out “example kids” as a kind of prop as for why they have to pass these bills. They will have stories about horrible things that happened, but with no clear explanation for how this bill would actually prevent that bad thing, and while totally ignoring the many other bad things the bill would cause.
In the case of KOSA, we’ve already highlighted how it would do harm to all sorts of information and tools that are used to help and protect kids. The most obvious example is LGBTQ+ kids, who often use the internet to help find their identity or to communicate with others who might feel isolated in their physical communities. Indeed, GOP support for KOSA was conditioned on the idea that the law would be used to suppress LGBTQ+ related content.
But, I did find it notable that, after all of the pro-KOSA team using kids as props to vote for the bill, how little attention was given last week to the ACLU sending hundreds of students to Congress to tell them how much KOSA would harm them.
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union sent 300 high school students to Capitol Hill to lobby against the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill meant to protect children online.
The teenagers told the staffs of 85 lawmakers that the legislation could censor important conversations, particularly among marginalized groups like L.G.B.T.Q. communities.
“We live on the internet, and we are afraid that important information we’ve accessed all our lives will no longer be available,” said Anjali Verma, a 17-year-old rising high school senior from Bucks County, Pa., who was part of the student lobbying campaign. “Regardless of your political perspective, this looks like a censorship bill.”
But somehow, that perspective gets mostly ignored in all of this.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also posted their thoughts on what’s happening with this legislation as well. From the EFF:
The Senate vote means that the House could take up and vote on this bill at any time. The House could also choose to debate its own, similarly flawed, version of KOSA. Several members of the House have expressed concerns about the bill.
The members of Congress who vote for this bill should remember—they do not, and will not, control who will be in charge of punishing bad internet speech. The Federal Trade Commission, majority-controlled by the President’s party, will be able to decide what kind of content “harms” minors, then investigate or file lawsuits against websites that host that content.
Politicians in both parties have sought to control various types of internet content. One bill sponsor has said that widely used educational materials that teach about the history of racism in the U.S. causes depression in kids. Kids speaking out about mental health challenges or trying to help friends with addiction are likely to be treated the same as those promoting addictive or self-harming behaviors, and will be kicked offline. Minors engaging in activism or even discussing the news could be shut down, since the grounds for suing websites expand to conditions like “anxiety.”
KOSA will lead to people who make online content about sex education, and LGBTQ+ identity and health, being persecuted and shut down as well. Views on how, or if, these subjects should be broached vary widely across U.S. communities. All it will take is one member of the Federal Trade Commission seeking to score political points, or a state attorney general seeking to ensure re-election, to start going after the online speech his or her constituents don’t like.
All of these speech burdens will affect adults, too. Adults simply won’t find the content that was mass-deleted in the name of avoiding KOSA-inspired lawsuits; and we’ll all be burdened by websites and apps that install ID checks, age gates, and invasive (and poorly functioning) software content filters.
The vast majority of speech that KOSA affects is constitutionally protected in the U.S., which is why there is a long list of reasons that KOSA is unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the lawmakers voting for this bill have hand-waved away those concerns. They’ve also blown off the voices of millions of young people who will have their free expression constricted by this bill, including the thousands who spoke to EFF directly about their concerns and fears around KOSA.
So, no one knows for sure when the House will take up the bill, but it could happen at any point. It is concerning to see this bill advance, though it is worth pointing out that the situation is much worse than just one bill. There have been plenty of anti-internet bills that have been working their way through the US government as of late. This includes dangerous age verification laws, link tax bills, and even anti-Section 230 legislative efforts that threaten the ability to build a website and, subsequently, build an online business as well. What’s more, this will hurt American users who are only destined to see huge portions of the open web shut down and existing services be severely reduced. It’s bad news for everyone across the board.
With respect to KOSA, one can hope that something will delay the legislation to the point where the clock gets run out. After all, elections are happening later this year. If the bill doesn’t pass before the election, then it has to start over, thus pushing internet censorship back a bit. It’s not necessarily something one can reliably hope for in all of this because there’s not a lot of steps left for this legislation to become law and still plenty of time between now and November. Still, it is a possibility at this stage. So, all the more reason to fight against this – even if it is to push for a delay in the proceedings.
