Everybody agrees that children need to be safe online. But the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is not the solution it’s little more than a grab bag of concerns and mandates not up to the task.
In the eyes of proponent policymakers, digital platforms like online gaming, video streaming, and social media are inherently harmful to minors. KOSA’s drafters intend to protect kids by wrangling online platforms with rules to limit addictive and harmful content exposure.
However, broad mandates and unclear definitions could accidentally limit access to beneficial products and services. One example is the prohibition of “dark patterns,” or internet design practices aimed at circumventing the agency of a user. The term is vague enough that it’s not clear where a dark pattern ends, and useful design decisions, aimed at helping users navigate a platform, begin.
Using a mixture of mandates and disclosure requirements, KOSA relies on a “general theory of harm” that dark patterns and personal recommendations expose minors to harmful content in an online ecosystem where bullies and other nefarious actors lurk. Yet how exactly online activity harms children is unclear and still hotly debated.
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Tirzah Duren is the Vice President of Policy for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit educational organization. For more information about the Institute, visit TheAmericanConsumer.org or follow us on X @ConsumerPal.