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Stop KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)

stopkosa.com

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Re: Stop KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)

#51

Post by 93po »

sangupta wrote: post #44
cowboyscott wrote: post #20

Has anyone found a good explainer about the politics of (and money behind) this and similar legislation? This morning, my city's Axios newsletter contained Instagram sponsorship on the matter, which included this language: "More than 75% of parents agree: Teens under 16 shouldn’t be able to download apps from app stores without parental permission. Instagram wants to work with Congress to pass federal legislation tha…

Instagram wants to push onus of protection on to parents/platform owners. Rather than safeguarding their own platform to protect abusive content, this will allow them to blame parents - "Hey, you installed the app, so it's your fault."

Additionally, Instagram/Facebook will/probably has been lobbying a ton/spending a ton so that the terms of the law are as favorable to them as possible, and at the same time also make new entries into the space have considerable expense in complying with the laws.

Re: Stop KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)

#52

Post by 93po »

ipsin wrote: post #26
ryandrake wrote: post #21

Unfortunately, in the long term, special interests are always going to win, because they can just try over and over until it passes. This is always what happens with these bills: Opponents have to fight it and win every time. Proponents only have to win once. So, chances are, the proponents are going to get their way eventually.

This doesn't sound logical to me. I mean, suppose proponents win once. Stupid protections get enacted. But... can't opponents also get bills proposed, and passed?

It is significantly more difficult to remove laws than add them.

Re: Stop KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)

#53

Post by Brybry »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #50
Brybry wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require ... a covered platform to implement an age gating or age verification functionality. Does it even have an age verification requirement? The only part I could find was it requires the NIST to investigate age verification system creation/implementation/effectiveness/impact. I think that part should be removed but it also made me feel like the stopkosa site might be fe…

Without age gating, a company would have to apply censorship site wide, if there is reasonable belief that the site is used by minors. That's also not great.

In the text it says "covered platform knows is used by minors", "covered platform knows is a minor", and "platform knows is a child".

> The term “know” or “knows” means to have actual knowledge or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances.

Is this part the reasonable belief? Or is it that the ambiguity will cause companies to age gate to try to protect themselves?

Though I don't see how an age gate would even protect companies. Say a minor lies on the age gate, illegitimately uses the site, and their parent calls in angry.

The company now knows their service is used (illegitimately) by minors, do they then have to implement protections?

Re: Stop KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)

#54

Post by averysmallbird »

Brybry wrote: post #46
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #43

The shameful thing about this act is that it has a few good ideas, they're just riding along with a bunch of truly abhorrent ones. If they just axed the entire censorship angle and age verification requirement, and kept the requirement of opt-in (via self-declaration of the user as a minor/guardian account pair) tools for parents and extended the tools available to minors to everybody, I wouldn't even be opposed to t…

> Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require ... a covered platform to implement an age gating or age verification functionality. Does it even have an age verification requirement? The only part I could find was it requires the NIST to investigate age verification system creation/implementation/effectiveness/impact. I think that part should be removed but it also made me feel like the stopkosa site might be fe…

It does not create an age verification requirement. A platform only has obligations to provide safeguards when it has knowledge that a user is 16 and under. It also provides statutory direction that it does not require further steps to infer or collect age.

(I'm staff that cowrote the bill.)

Re: Stop KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)

#55

Post by shkkmo »

jjackson5324 wrote: post #40
shkkmo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, if you look at statistics around gen z you can see that there definitely are negative consequences of internet access I haven't seen any such data. It's hard to separate generation effects and look purely at the effects of internet access in any sort of valid way. You're probably thinking of studies around social media use. It isn't clear to me that internet filtering will combat any of what makes socia…

> You're probably thinking of studies around social media use Yes? Social media use is done through the internet? The vast majority of internet use for young teens is social media use. I'm not sure what you mean by drawing the distinction between internet use and social media use. > It isn't clear to me that internet filtering will combat any of what makes social media use such a mental health risk for teens. I'm not…

> I'm not sure what you mean by drawing the distinction between internet use and social media use.

They're two different terms that mean different things. Just because something is true for squares doesn't mean that it's true for rectangles even though squares are rectangles. Using the correct words matter because otherwise you are spreading misinformation and confusion.

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