Strong Opposition to KOSA & Online Age Verification Mandates That End Anonymity

Strong Opposition to KOSA and Online Age Verification Mandates That End Anonymity I am writing to express my vehement opposition to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and any related legislation that would mandate age verification and effectively abolish the right to anonymous speech online. As The Intercept reports, a bipartisan package of "child online safety" bills is moving through Congress under the guise of protecting children. But there is no way to verify someone's age without verifying their identity. These laws would force social media platforms to collect government IDs, payment information, or other identity-disclosing data—permanently linking a user's offline identity with their online behavior. Stripping anonymity from the internet would constitute one of the most sweeping rollbacks of civil rights in recent history. It would enable unprecedented mass surveillance and censorship, endangering the most marginalized members of our society: · Whistleblowers exposing corporate or government wrongdoing could be tracked and fired. · Activists organizing protests could be identified and surveilled before ever setting foot on the street. · Trans people in hostile states could be outed without their consent. · Undocumented immigrants could lose the ability to communicate safely with advocates. · Young people seeking abortion information in restrictive states could no longer access information anonymously. The Heritage Foundation has already publicly stated it plans to leverage KOSA to remove LGBTQ+ content and abortion content from the internet. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the lead co-sponsor of KOSA, has said it is essential to protect "minor children from the transgender in this culture." This is not about safety—it is about censorship. These laws also create a massive new market for third-party identification vendors, enrich Big Tech companies that are lobbying for them, and make it harder for smaller platforms to compete. A free society depends on the right to publish and consume information anonymously, to organize and speak privately. I urge you to: 1. Vote NO on KOSA and all age verification mandates that eliminate anonymous speech. 2. Protect the right to speak anonymously online as a fundamental civil liberty. 3. Reject false narratives that equate anonymity with harm and surveillance with safety. Do not let Congress abolish one of our most essential freedoms.