WASHINGTON – Key sponsors of the controversial Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) bill have urged fellow lawmakers to move quickly on the controversial bill, after the Democratic administration’s surgeon general called on Congress to issue “warnings about mental health” on social media platforms.
As XBIZ reported, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) marketed KOSA as a bipartisan effort and sold it to their colleagues as a “protect the children” measure.
In February, Blackburn and Blumenthal released a new version of the bill, which they said would address privacy and censorship issues noted by opponents, but critics insisted the revised version still poses insurmountable problems.
In a scathing 2022 editorial, Jason Kelley of leading digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that behind its child-friendly name and supposed mission, KOSA “hides a plan to demand surveillance and censorship of anyone 16 and under.”
The bill, Kelley noted, would actually “seriously endanger the rights and safety of young people online,” while also chilling controversial speech – including sexual expression – on the Internet.
On Monday, Blackburn praised Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, after the Biden administration official published an op-ed in The New York Times titled “Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms.”
In the piece, Murthy proposed “a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media has been linked to significant harm to adolescent mental health.”
A surgeon general’s warning label, he explained, would require congressional action and “regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not proven safe.”
Evidence from tobacco studies, he added, “shows that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior.”
“Thank you, @Surgeon_General,” Blackburn posted to her X account, sandwiched between posts containing Bible verses and scathing attacks on the Biden administration. “We must continue to draw attention to the harmful impact social media has on our children. It’s time to vote and pass the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act.”
Blackburn and Blumenthal also sent a statement to Newsweek praising Murthy’s proposal.
“We are pleased that the Surgeon General – America’s best doctor – continues to draw attention to the harmful impact social media has on our children,” they wrote. “Now is the time to vote and pass the filibuster-proof, bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act.”
Last fall, Blackburn “sparked alarm among some transgender advocates when she said that ‘protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture’ should be a top priority for lawmakers in a video in which she also praised KOSA,” NBC’s Kat Tenbarge reported News in December.
Blackburn’s statements about how conservative prosecutors could use KOSA in the future to chill free speech around sexual issues and LGBTQ+ education align with the activist track record of NCOSE, Parents Television and Media Council, Citizens for Decency and other religious and cultural conservative groups that align with it. signed a letter in support of the previous version of KOSA.
Industry attorney and free speech specialist Lawrence Walters of the Walters Law Group explained in February that KOSA would “give the government new powers to interfere with the First Amendment rights of online platforms generally, threatening anonymous speech and the introduction of age verification for all. users.”
The bill would also “restrict access to adult material for adults and is constitutionally suspect,” he told XBIZ, urging anyone who cares about online freedom to oppose the bill.
“Congress has put significant pressure on social media sites to accept government regulation, so it’s no surprise that some major platforms are bowing to that pressure – just as they did when it came to FOSTA/SESTA,” Walters noted. “Now is the time to speak out.”
Main image: Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee