Censorship online won’t keep children safe

Now more than ever, the internet is an informational battleground. What should be a thriving marketplace for speech is being tainted constantly by threats of censorship from bureaucrats with their own agenda. 

One key ideal of many Republican supporters is the belief that the government has no business interfering with our First Amendment rights to free speech and accessible information. So it is truly baffling to see some Republican members in Congress support a bill that puts this fundamental ideal in jeopardy. 

The Kids Online Safety Act, which this month was introduced in the House and has a companion bill in the Senate, is a well-intentioned effort to keep our youngest generation protected from the very real dangers of the dark web — something that should indeed be a universal priority for legislators, regardless of their political affiliation. However, KOSA ends up enabling government officials to exacerbate problems such as partisan censorship for everyone in America, children and adults alike. 

If KOSA is passed, the documented censorship people have already experienced online will be just the start. President Joe Biden’s Federal Trade Commission, which is already being investigated by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) for abusing its authority in favor of advancing liberal goals, would be in charge of enforcement. In other words, partisan politicians, not parents and families, would decide what children can and cannot see online. Imagine an internet where children can see content from Biden but not from former President Donald Trump or from the New York Times but not from Fox News. 

Decisions over what children may access shouldn’t extend farther than the walls of each family’s home. Allowing bureaucrats with partisan interests to control our access to information only serves to fit liberal lawmakers’ agendas, takes more decisions away from families, and drives this country toward further government control. 

Speaking of dystopia, not only would KOSA censor what children see, but it would further empower the government to ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by mandating the expansion and use of identity verification technology. By essentially requiring everybody to provide government IDs or biometric information to access online platforms, KOSA would eliminate the constitutionally protected right to anonymity. Multiple Supreme Court cases have already affirmed this right to anonymity as part of protected free speech under the First Amendment. 

Moreover, KOSA would exponentially increase the amount of data being collected, edited, and stored by thousands of online sites, creating a seriously heightened risk of data breaches and leaks and thereby undermining the bill’s explicit goal of keeping children safe online. In NetChoice’s lawsuits against various states on these issues, the judges echoed these privacy and security concerns. With data breaches already on the rise, especially with regard to government-managed servers, any internet user in the United States could be harmed by rules that further undermine our security. 

Leaders should be empowering parents to be active participants in their children’s lives and activities, both on and offline. But KOSA would replace parents with politicians, giving the government yet another tool for censoring inconvenient content and pushing their own agendas. 

To be sure, it is of the utmost importance to keep children safe in the digital experience, but lawmakers must find better ways that don’t violate the First Amendment or open them (and all of us) up to even more risks. 

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Carl Szabo is the vice president and general counsel of NetChoice and a professor of internet law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. NetChoice is a trade association dedicated to protecting free enterprise and free expression online.