KOSA: The Next Dystopian “Child Safety” Trojan Horse ⚫️ (S. 1748) from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn, R-TN), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal, D-CT), Sen. John Thune (@SenJohnThune, R-SD), Sen. Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer, D-NY), and colleagues is pushing hard through Congress right now. Sold as protection from suicide, eating disorders, bullying, sexual exploitation, and addictive design features, the Kids Online Safety Act actually builds a sweeping censorship and surveillance regime that will reshape how everyone uses social media and online platforms. ⚫️ Here’s what it really does: • Imposes a vague “duty of care” requiring platforms to exercise “reasonable care” in design and features to prevent and mitigate a laundry list of harms to anyone under 17 - with platforms facing FTC enforcement and state AG lawsuits if they get it “wrong.” • Forces platforms to disable “addictive” features (infinite scroll, autoplay, rewards, notifications) for minors, default to the strongest privacy settings, offer algorithmic opt-outs, time limits, and heavy parental controls - all while requiring verifiable parental consent for younger users and easy reporting mechanisms that invite mass flagging. • Mandates annual independent audits and public transparency reports detailing user data, time spent, harm reports, and mitigation efforts - creating permanent records of what minors (and by extension, families) are doing online. • Uses broad, subjective definitions of “harm” (compulsive use, depressive disorders, harassment, promotion of certain content) that will push platforms to over-moderate, shadow-ban, or outright suppress vast amounts of speech to avoid massive liability. ⚪️ This isn’t targeted child protection. It’s a blunt instrument that sweeps in everyday social media use, chills innovation and free expression, and normalizes government-backed content policing and data oversight across the entire internet. True child safety has never come from bureaucratic “duty of care” mandates and third-party audits. It comes from empowered parents, stronger cultural guardrails, meaningful product liability for real harms, and serious investment in youth mental health infrastructure - not another layer of surveillance and preemptive censorship that drives kids underground and hands their behavioral data to bureaucrats, researchers, and platforms. ⚫️ Follow the power. Who benefits from forcing every major platform to police speech, collect detailed usage data on minors, and submit to government-style audits just to operate in 2026? Not the kids scrolling.
Not parents trying to raise resilient humans. ⚪️ The winners are the institutions that now get to shape what content is “safe,” the big tech giants that can afford compliance armies while smaller platforms get crushed, data researchers cashing in on mandated transparency, and the surveillance state expanding its reach into every teen’s feed. ⚫️ This is the same failed playbook we’ve seen with the #GUARDAct, the UK’s Online Safety Act, and dozens of state age-verification and design-code laws: privacy erosion and speech control sold as protection, real problems (predators, addiction, mental health crises) left unaddressed while the infrastructure for total online control gets built. ⚫️ Reject the #KOSA.
Demand real solutions that protect kids without sacrificing everyone’s privacy, free speech, and parental rights. #KOSA #StopCensorship #ProtectPrivacy #ParentalRights Primary source: S. 1748 – Kids Online Safety Act, 119th Congress
congress.gov/bill/119th-cong…

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