Insight
July 26, 2023
Introduction
The Senate Commerce Committee will likely vote on the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) on July 27. These bipartisan bills are aimed at addressing perceived harm to children caused by social media companies and other online platforms. On July 25, President Biden urged Congress to pass these bills, echoing remarks made at his State of the Union address related to protecting children online.
While ensuring children’s online safety is clearly important, these bills, as previous American Action Forum work has explored, would come with significant costs to user privacy and could potentially violate the First Amendment. As lawmakers consider this legislation, they should carefully weigh the tradeoffs of these bills.
KOSA
The Kids Online Safety Act Lame Duck Push
Kids Online Safety Act Could Do More Harm Than Good
Assessing Child Online Safety Legislation
Why It Matters
KOSA would impose a “duty of care” that online platforms must meet to protect underage users, specifically targeting the algorithmic amplification of potentially harmful content to minors. Platforms would be required to act in the “best interests” of minors who use the platform. These “protection by design requirements” would impact the way firms construct their algorithms and ranking features and the types and amounts of data they collect, as well as open them up to expanded liability from regulators unsatisfied...
Actor Kim Soo-hyun's legal team vowed to file a 30 billion won ($19.9 million) civil suit against the head of far-right YouTuber Kim Se-eui for damages caused by allegedly fabricated claims about ...