Kids Online Safety Act is a massive government overreach that infringes parental autonomy
The proposed Kids Online Safety Act, is making its way through Congress. Like much failed legislation, KOSA aspires to a very worthwhile goal — namely protecting our kids from online harms — yet fails miserably in its approach to doing so. As it stands, KOSA will not make our kids any safer online, in fact, it will only undermine their privacy and access to vital online education resources. Moreover, KOSA is a massive government overreach that infringes upon parental autonomy, opens the door to government censorship on ideological grounds and will worsen the quality of online services for everyone.
Parental autonomy is a fundamental freedom
Parental autonomy is a key and fundamental freedom we are all entitled to: The right to choose how we raise our children. As individuals, children’s needs are multifaceted and unique, and different children thrive best under different parenting styles. It’s one of the many reasons we don’t want the government trying to play parent, because only parents can know what’s truly best for their children. KOSA would deprive us of that much needed latitude by enforcing government mandated online experiences on our children. Given how important digital literacy and familiarity with the online world are for kids these days, it’s incredibly important that we have the discretion to structure our children’s online experiences in the ways that best serve their growth and development.
Parent's choice: School choice is what's best for our students.
More worrying is the power for censorship that KOSA would bestow on government bureaucrats. Under KOSA as proposed, Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission and the Democratic state Attorneys General would have the power to decide which content is and is not harmful for our kids — opening the door to suppression of conservative viewpoints and dissent on ideological grounds. At the same time, Khan and her cronies could decide that certain kinds of content we find inappropriate for kids is perfectly acceptable. It’s a power the government must not have, and precisely the kind of situation the founding fathers sought to avoid when they prohibited the government from making speech determinations.
KOSA is an invasion of internet users' privacy
For some people, KOSA might appear more palatable as a tradeoff between our rights and child safety. But KOSA doesn’t even make our kids safer and will in fact undermine their privacy by placing their online activity under heightened surveillance by government bureaucrats. At the same time, the kind of tracking KOSA mandates would require greater surveillance of all internet users to ensure compliance, and major platforms could be forced to implement invasive age verification schemes and reduce the functionality of online social services, resulting in a poorer quality of experience for everyone.
Youth mental health is in crisis. Summer camps help kids unplug and reconnect with nature.
In a post-KOSA world, using the internet will be more tedious and require onerous privacy sacrifices just to access a worse version of the online platforms and services we’ve enjoyed before.
I’m glad to see the important topic of child safety getting attention, and I’m glad to see that our lawmakers are trying to improve it. But KOSA is the last thing our children need to keep them safe. In Kentucky, we value the personal decisions families make when protecting their children at home and online. Keeping the government out of these decisions is vital to families across the commonwealth.
Parents will always be best equipped for the job of parenting. We have thousands of online tools and services designed specifically for empowering parents to better shape and guide our children’s online experience, and many if not most are free. Likewise, digital literacy is key: we need to make sure parents have these tools and know how to use all the options available to them, because it’s the only real way to keep our children safe while tailoring their online experience to best serve their needs.
As important as it is to protect our kids from online harms, KOSA is the wrong approach to doing so. It needs to be sent back to the drawing board, because as it stands, KOSA will only make matters worse.
Agree or disagree? Submit your letter to the editor here.
Liam Gallagher is from Louisville, KY and is the Legislative Director for Americans for Prosperity Kentucky.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kids Online Safety Act won't make teens safer. Leave it to parents
