Thread by @evan_greer

THREAD: There has been a fair amount of discussion about how, even with the changes, the #KidsOnlineSafetyAct (or #KOSA) would be weaponized against LGBTQ+ folks & especially queer and trans youth.

But there's another huge problem with the bill: it would censor abortion content.

#KOSA creates a broad "Duty of Care" for tech companies that goes way beyond dictating what kinds of privacy or security they need to have in place and gets the government involved in dictating what kinds of content they can allow or recommend to minors.

The bill tries to keep this narrow by saying the duty of care only applies to specific impacts on mental health (as defined by the DSM), or predatory, unfair, or deceptive marketing practices" prong (Sec.3a6) or "physical violence."

All sounds reasonable, right?

Here's the problem: it's all up to state Attorneys General to enforce, and no one seems to have thought through how this all plays out in a post-Roe world.

Republican AGs like Ken Paxton absolutely can and will use this bill to demand platforms censor content about abortion.

AGs could claim that platforms allowing teenagers to see videos about consent or sexual health or reproductive health options is a "predatory or unfair" marketing practice. They could claim that a website offering abortion pills is engaged in "physical violence."

There are several AGs in the US right now who argue that parents who provide their children with access to medically recommended gender affirming care are engaged in "child abuse" and consider birth control to be "murder." This is the environment we're working in.

And because "duty of care" is a vague and broad legal concept, KOSA will give these highly motivated right wing AGs a massive cudgel with which to threaten platforms that allow online speech, fundraising, and organizing around abortion access, abortion activism, etc

#KOSA could also disincentivize platforms from offering end-to-end encryption, leading to more stories like the teenager and her mom in Nebraska who were arrested under the states' anti-abortion law after Facebook handed over their messages to law enforcement.

#KOSA's sponsors claim that adding this section (screenshot) fixes all of this, because teens and young adults can still seek out online content. But that just totally fails to comprehend how most social media platforms actually work.

Platforms will still be totally unsure if they are liable for algorithmic sorting of search results (which is literally how search works). For example if I search "why do I feel different from other boys" and a platform returns results including content about gender identity...

All of this effectively amounts to an end-run around Section 230 and the First Amendment (which is why, as the @ACLU has said, #KOSA is almost certainly unconstitutional)

Right now 230 stops state AGs from demanding censorship of abortion content that violates anti-abortion laws

#KOSA would give them a way to get around 230 and claim that allowing or recommending (and keep in mind this literally often just means "showing you a post your friend made in your main feed" or whatever) content about abortion violates the "duty of care."

And we all know how platforms will react. They're not going to go to the mat in court and take a principled stand for queer and trans teenagers or online access to abortion info. They're going to do whatever their risk-averse lawyers tell them to do to avoid liability under #KOSA

Very quickly we'll see Meta, Discord, YouTube etc say things like "Due to local regulations, we no longer allow discussion of controversial topics like gender identity or abortion in groups or comment threads used by people under 18"

Worse, we could see a lot of "scan your face or swipe your credit card to prove that you're an adult and can join this group where people are talking about LGBTQ issues or abortion rights."

A bill that claims to be about privacy expanding surveillance. Just terrible.

Our kids and teens deserve to be protected from Big Tech's data harvesting, algorithmic manipulation, and reckless design choices.

But they also deserve to be protected from attacks on their human rights and bodily autonomy.

#KOSA hurts kids more than it helps them. Full stop.

Passing a comprehensive privacy bill like #ADPPA would do WAY MORE to protect children than #KOSA.

Passing #antitrust reform like #AICOA and #OAMA would do WAY MORE to rein in the abusive business practices of Big Tech giants.

Stop using kids as pawns. Get something real done.

There's so many weird ways AGs could weaponize this bill I forgot about a few of them. The "mental health" section, for example is just a gaping loophole for abuse. All an AG has to do is say "I believe teaching kids about abortion leads to anxiety and depression" and boom

Again, the thing to understand when you open the floodgates for lawsuits over user generated content is that those lawsuits don't actually have to succeed to have a chilling effect. See SESTA/FOSTA