How the Kids Online Safety Act puts us all at risk.::The Kids Online Safety Act, moving through Congress, presents serious privacy issues for adults and could hurt the kids it aims to protect, too.

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    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The law requires websites that host porn to use one of several methods to ensure visitors are 18 years or older, including state-issued digital IDs and third-party age verification services.

    But after 10 years of litigation, the Supreme Court refused to hear the government’s final appeal, leaving in place a ruling that the law was unconstitutional.

    Chief among these ideas is that social platforms must soon take additional steps to protect minors — a requirement that will likely force them to undertake age verification measures similar to Utah’s.

    But as Mike Masnick notes at Techdirt, the law is written in a vague enough manner that platforms will likely feel compelled to adopt verification schemes anyway.

    Should KOSA become law, I imagine it will be mere weeks before the attorney general of Texas, Florida, or another red state sues Meta, Google, and other tech giants simply for making trans content available to minors.

    It would be a shame if lawmakers’ first big swing at improving internet safety in years came at the expense at the speech rights of every single person using a platform.


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