Mr. Blumenthal’s latest version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which was proposed to protect children’s safety online and focuses on regulating online information that children must see, is already being criticized as governments are allowed to decide what information someone must see and what is appropriate for children to see online is perceived as dangerous.
In addition to regulating content, the law would require technology companies to collect more data on internet users than they already do, under the guise of ensuring that users have reached a reasonable age, effectively making them a censorship and surveillance tool for the government among today’s young internet users.
The main aim of the bill is to censor a wide range of speech in response to concerns that young people spend too much time on social media and are often exposed to harmful content.
The bill would include any online platform that connects to the internet and is or will be used by minors, such as Facebook, Instagram, Apple’s iMessage and Signal, web browsers, email applications and VPN software, as well as platforms such as Reddit and TikTok.
The draft law is also criticized for denying adults and children access to medical information on the internet, because it makes it impossible for websites to decide what content promotes self-harm or other disorders and which provides necessary health information and advice to those affected.
The sources for this piece include an article in TechDirt.
