1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is a well-intentioned but deeply flawed bill that poses serious risks to online freedom of expression and privacy. While protecting children online is a laudable goal, KOSA's vague language and broad reach could enable widespread censorship and government overreach. The bill would impose burdensome and subjective requirements on online platforms to monitor and restrict user speech, even from adults, under the justification of protecting minors. This invites viewpoint discrimination and chilling of free speech. Furthermore, the bill's emphasis on age verification and mandatory identification raises alarming privacy concerns in an era of rampant data breaches and surveillance capitalism. Implementing KOSA would require invasive data collection practices that undermine user privacy and security online. There are better ways to address online harms to youth that don't sacrifice core democratic values. For these reasons, I urge you to vote against KOSA and instead pursue more narrowly tailored, rights-respecting approaches to safeguarding children online that don't jeopardize the open internet we all depend on. KOSA's dangers outweigh any potential benefits and Congress should rethink this drastic overreach into online expression and user privacy.