Report from the Washington Post
In Brief – The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), legislation pressing social media platforms to shield teens from objectionable content, including promotion of self-harm, substance abuse, and sexual exploitation, has again been introduced in the US Senate. The bill, now supported by Apple for the first time, empowers government officials to sue platforms that failed to block content that is alleged to have contributed to later harms, requires platforms to default to the strongest privacy settings for minors, and allows users to disable so-called “addictive” features. Last year, KOSA overwhelmingly passed the Senate, but stumbled in the House due to Republican leaders’ concerns that it could be used to censor legal speech. Microsoft, Snap and X support the bill, while Meta and Google have been opponents. While most child safety organizations are strongly supporters, many free speech groups and progressive advocates for vulnerable youths, including those in the LGBTQ community, are long-time critics. In recent years, bipartisan “child safety” legislation was undermined by concerns on both sides of the aisle that enforcement could be ideologically driven, however Congress recently enacted the Take It Down Act that pressures platforms to block nonconsensual intimate imagery, which could signal a sea change in the prospect of online regulation.
Context – Regulating online platforms to “protect” teenagers is an increasingly global phenomenon. France is requiring age verification for adult sites and are debating parental approval for social media users under age 15. The EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act direct platforms to protect younger users with specific requirements being determined by regulators. The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in January on a Texas-law requiring age checks for online porn and their decision will further inform US courts scrutinizing the flood of US state laws regulating social media to protect teens. Australia has set a firm minimum age of 16 for social media besides YouTube and countries across Asia are actively considering age-based online regulation.