Support Care, Not Censorship - Reject KOSA Online “Safety” Package

I’m writing to urge you to reject the current online-safety legislative package under consideration in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, including the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA, S.1409 / H.R. 7891) and related bills addressing minors’ access, online harms, and content restrictions. While these proposals are framed as protection, they pose serious risks to free expression, political transparency, and the well-being of the young people they claim to defend. Censorship is not care. It is a substitute for the investments that actually keep children safe. 1. Content regulation ignores the root causes of youth distress. Decades of research—including the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 Advisory on Youth Mental Health and CDC YRBS longitudinal data—show that youth mental-health challenges stem from systemic issues: poverty, trauma, isolation, discrimination, and a lack of accessible care. No bill in this package (including H.R. 5251, H.R. 3149, H.R. 6259, or other minors’ content-control proposals) addresses these root causes. Regulating speech cannot fix structural problems. 2. Restricting content creates predictable and dangerous harms. Bills with broad “harm” standards—especially KOSA (S.1409 / H.R. 7891) and proposals to filter or age-gate content—will inevitably suppress political reporting, human-rights documentation, and journalism containing disturbing but essential imagery. Platforms will over-remove content to avoid liability, undermining public understanding and democratic oversight. 3. These laws give unprecedented power to politicians, state attorneys general, and large corporations. Vague enforcement language across this legislative package allows government officials to decide what minors can see, inviting ideological censorship of LGBTQ+ resources, sexual-health information, racial-justice content, or coverage of violence and war. At the same time, compliance requirements consolidate power among the largest tech platforms, making them de facto arbiters of online speech. 4. Vulnerable youth are harmed the most. Research from the APA, the Trevor Project, and multiple peer-reviewed studies shows that LGBTQ+ youth, rural youth, low-income youth, and youth in unsafe households rely on online communities for identity support, medical information, and crisis help. Cutting off access does not make them safer—it makes them more isolated. 5. Evidence shows what actually works: investment in public health and education. National Academies reports, developmental psychology meta-analyses, and decades of public-health data all point to the same solution: strengthen youth resilience through accessible mental-health services, well-funded schools with trained counselors, trauma-informed education, stable housing, food security, and media-literacy programs. Countries with the best youth outcomes rely on care, not censorship. Congress can protect children—but not by shrinking their world. Please reject censorship-based legislation, including KOSA (S.1409 / H.R. 7891) and related content-restriction bills, and instead invest in the proven path: public health, education, and accessible mental-health care. Young people deserve care—not a controlled internet.