US Senate passes “Kids Online Safety Act” (KOSA) to protect children online

The US Senate has passed the “Kids Online Safety Act” (KOSA) to protect children online after growing numbers of minors were harmed. The bill requires large social media, online gaming, and virtual reality sites that act as forums for user-generated content to actively prevent minors under 17 from harm and threats. KOSA was rolled into the KOSPA bill package, and various sections will take effect 12 to 18 months after the President signs it into law.

Platforms must protect and mitigate the following harms while reporting on their efforts and effectiveness:
(1) Consistent with evidence-informed medical information, the following mental health disorders: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors.
(2) Patterns of use that indicate or encourage addiction-like behaviors.
(3) Physical violence, online bullying, and harassment of the minor.
(4) Sexual exploitation and abuse
(5) Promotion and marketing of narcotic drugs (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)), tobacco products, gambling, or alcohol.
(6) Predatory, unfair, or deceptive marketing practices, or other financial harms.

KOSA requires all companies to respond to imminent threats to minors promptly, but otherwise allows large companies with more than ten million users 10 days and smaller companies 21 days to respond to reported issues. Unfortunately, this allows many situations of micro-aggressions, minor bullying, and so forth to simmer for weeks before being addressed.

The act requires platforms to implement safeguards at their highest settings for minors by default, and parents are provided with account management and settings control. This includes limits on targeted ads, communications with minors, geolocation, automatic recommendation and playback, and time use. Basically, a platform that is the opposite of addictive TikTok or Minecraft.

Concerned readers can closely monitor their children online or simply disconnect their kids from online threats with a ‘dumbphone’ (like this one on Amazon).

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is given the authority to litigate companies that do not release details on how their opaque algorithmic ranking systems work. This essentially forces companies like TikTok to reveal its secret formula on leveraging data on users and behaviors for achieving broad popularity with addictive use. Providers must also provide an input-transparent algorithm option that does not depend on user-specific data for displaying content.

Additionally, the National Academy of Sciences must publish for the FTC five studies within the first 12 months on the following topics:
(1) Anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and suicidal behaviors.
(2) Substance use disorders and the use of narcotic drugs, tobacco products, gambling, or alcohol by minors.
(3) Sexual exploitation and abuse.
(4) Addiction-like use of social media and design factors that lead to unhealthy and harmful overuse of social media.
Interestingly, the act prevents public release of study data by the National Academy.