Following changes spearheaded by one of the bill’s sponsors, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a coalition of seven LGBTQ advocacy groups dropped their opposition to the Kids Online Safety Act.
“We would like to thank you for hearing our concerns about the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and updating the legislation to address potential adverse consequences for LGBTQ+ youth,” the organizations said in a letter to Blumenthal’s office on Thursday.
GLAAD, GLSEN, Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Center for Transgender Equality and the Trevor Project were the signatories.
KOSA would be the strongest piece of big tech regulation passed in decades, imposing a duty of care for social media companies to prevent their products from harming children along with guardrails around their use of features that could worsen depression, bullying, sexual exploitation, eating disorders and other harms.
Prior to the latest iteration, however, advocates warned the duty of care, coupled with the deputization of enforcement powers to state attorneys general, might facilitate abuses like the suppression of affirming online content sought by LGBTQ youth.
However, “under the new bill text, the duty of care is clarified to focus specifically on the product design features and components that are used to keep kids hooked on their platforms, often to the detriment of the mental health and wellbeing of kids,” a spokesperson for Blumenthal’s office told the Washington Blade.
This applies to “the business model and practices of social media companies, rather than the content that is hosted on their platforms,” they said, covering “features like personalized recommendation systems, nudges, and appearance altering filters” that have been shown to harm young people.
Additionally, enforcement is now under the purview of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a change that the spokesperson said will ensure “that there is a uniform standard in the enforcement of the provision, rather than differing interpretations for each state.”
The LGBTQ groups wrote that these changes to KOSA collectively “mitigate the risk of it being misused to suppress LGBTQ+ resources or stifle young people’s access to online communities,” and therefore “if this draft of the bill moves forward, our organizations will not oppose its passage.”
The legislation appears poised to do exactly that. Blumenthal’s office issued a press release on Thursday announcing the new bill had earned the support of an additional 12 U.S. senators: Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Angus King (I-Maine), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).
With more than 60 cosponsors, KOSA is on track to pass in the Senate but faces an uncertain future in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Bipartisan momentum to pass the bill, along with other proposed regulations aimed at dominant tech platform companies, reached a fever pitch during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s blockbuster hearing on Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis on Jan. 31.
Story courtesy of the Washington Blade via the National LGBTQ Media Association. The National LGBTQ Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: https://nationallgbtmediaassociation.com/