But the Children: What Some Supporting KOSA Are Really in It For

WASHINGTON—The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is currently advancing through the U.S. Senate with a bipartisan slate of sponsors, including the pair of senators who introduced the bill this past legislative session. Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, and Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, are the prime sponsors of the bill presented as a measure to protect minors on the internet from the so-called grip of large technology companies. Despite the spoken goals of the sponsors, several civil society organizations and digital rights groups have widely opposed the bill for a variety of reasons. Chiefly, the collective opposition stems from the fact that KOSA could directly cause harm to queer and LGBTQ communities on the internet through censorship and surveillance.  Though not presented as a measure to implicitly block LGBTQ information from the internet or from minors browsing it, supporting groups of the bill beg to differ on its intent. Consider the legislative history of the bill thus far—AVN last week reported on the passage of KOSA through the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for consideration by the entire Senate on second reading. The support for the bill during the committee was clear, as it received a unanimous voice vote to advance. More conservative members of the committee, including Sen. Blackburn, presented this as a bipartisan effort for a bill that is structured to supposedly protect children from age-restricted content. But, the context in which KOSA is advanced comes at a time when GOP religious conservatives and far-right populists in state and federal legislatures are capitalizing on a series of moral panics that attempt to conflate legitimate, consensual sex work and adult entertainment with illegal activity.  Adult industry advocacy organization the Free Speech Coalition signed on a joint letter that was submitted to the committee in November 2022 when a KOSA variation was on the docket. The coalition, with other industry-adjacent organizations such as the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, pointed to the broad scope of KOSA and how it empowers state attorneys general to ultimately have the final say as to what is considered harmful to minors and what isn’t. Using the example of Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, one can foresee a quite realistic scenario for potential misuse of KOSA: Moody—a staunch supporter of far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is gunning for the 2024 Republican nomination for President—would be highly likely to implement enforcement power granted by KOSA to openly censor otherwise First Amendment-protected forms of speech that she may consider to be “harmful” to minors such as evidence-based material for those who identify as LGBTQ, information on gender-affirming care, and information related to reproductive health care access and abortions, among other topics.  The likelihood of this potential scenario was confirmed in recent weeks by the news media. One of the organizations supporting the passage of KOSA is the Heritage Foundation. Heritage is classified by Media Bias Fack Check as a right-wing organization with a mixed record for factual reporting on a variety of issues. Heritage has taken a harder-right turn during the tenure of former President Donald Trump and has consistently advocated for a traditional Judeo-Christian society through its policy recommendations and denial of key public health policy debates. Techdirt.com editor Mike Masnick wrote on May 24 about how the Heritage Foundation openly admitted that groups like itself would use KOSA to censor LGBTQ content. In an exchange on X.com (formerly Twitter), Heritage Foundation’s social media team responded to a critical observation made by Canadian lawyer Florence Ashley pointing out the group’s intention of “protecting kids” from subject matter that deals with trans identity and other LGBTQ topics. Ashley, a legal academic who clerked for the Supreme Court of Canada, commented that “the Heritage Foundation openly states that they’ll use bills purporting to protect kids to instead attack trans content, saying it’s posing a risk of social contagion.” Ashley posted a screenshot of a column written by Heritage researcher Jared Eckert and an intern, published at The American Conservative, claiming in pure alarmist tinge that “big tech turns kids trans.” Barring the fact that this claim is not only disputed and extremely disparaging to certain members of the LGBTQ community, the authors try and link the rise of social media use among minors to the increased self-identifying from youth who say they are trans or genderqueer. They link to research produced by a controversial “detransitioner” academic from Germany who asserts that social influence, especially online, leads to more youth identifying as trans, while Eckert and his acolyte present this particular data as an indication of youth being exposed to so-called “gender ideology” through social media communities. And, the authors point to proposals like KOSA as a means to block access to this “harmful” material. “Raising the minimum age for internet use ... may be one way to protect kids from online harms,” write the Heritage authors. “Another step in the right direction would be to prohibit the sexual exploitation of minors and the promotion of content that poses risks to minors’ physical and mental health (which the Kids Online Safety Act would do). If we seek to protect kids online, we must guard against the harms of sexual and transgender content.” And, in reply to Ashley’s post, a member of the Heritage Foundation’s social media team confirmed that “keeping trans content away from children is protecting kids.” A study published in the journal Pediatrics completely disputes what Eckert refers to and the German research frames as some sort of “contagion” harming young people. Janus Rose, senior editor for Vice News technology beat Motherboard, highlights the organized efforts of the right-wing to use KOSA as a tool to potentially censor speech that they don’t approve of, such as LGBTQ subject matter. Rose additionally raises concerns about the support for KOSA submitted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). NCOSE, formerly known as Morality in Media, is a far-right religiously-motivated “anti-trafficking” organization that has been critical of the adult entertainment industry for years. But, NCOSE is also active in culture war debates on sexuality in mainstream culture and has openly advocated for anti-LGBTQ measures since well before it rebranded as a knock-off of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a federally-chartered nonprofit that’s actually credible and supported by the Department of Justice.  AVN reported on the grassroots group Expose NCOSE which wants the organization to be named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). While NCOSE isn’t yet named a hate group by SPLC, its president, Patrick A. Trueman, has previously worked with and is affiliated with organizations that are classified as hate groups. These groups include the American Family Association and the Family Research Council. Both categorize LGBTQ rights as a “radical” left-wing agenda. However, religious-motivated groups aren’t the only ones who wish to see KOSA passed by Congress and signed into law. The America First Policy Institute, a research think tank established to add an academic personification to the policy agenda of Donald Trump, is also in support of the bill. A briefing by the institute’s Center for the American Child outlines so-called “privacy protections” for minors but seems to misunderstand what those protections include. Janus Rose, who also pointed to the institute, highlighted the far-right religious group American Principles Project as a supporter of KOSA and additionally highlighted Sen. Blackburn’s position on LGBTQ rights, including trans healthcare such as medical and psychological gender affirmation treatments. The GLAAD Accountability Project and the Human Rights Campaign both point to Blackburn’s troubling track record with LGBTQ rights and civil liberties for queer people. Interestingly, Sen. Blumenthal, as well as several other Democrats who sponsored the bill, has a tremendous track record in supporting LGBTQ people. Unfortunately, it seems they are being duped to adopt an invasive internet bill that would constitute vast censorship.  The New Republic published a column by staff writer Melissa Gira Grant highlighting the level of foolishness Democrats are displaying in support of the KOSA bill and other measures that could upend the internet as we all know it. Grant notes that it isn’t a surprise that legislation like KOSA receives broad support from both sides of the aisle; however, she issues a sobering and truthful observation that “Democrats cannot plead ignorance of the Republican Party’s notion of child protection, especially not while it looks like some are trying to turn it to their own ends.”  Evan Greer, the director of digital rights watchdog Fight for the Future, pointed out while live posting the committee hearing where KOSA was marked up before advancing to the Senate floor that Sen. Ed Markey, D-MA, was concerned that the current bill could potentially harm LGBTQ youth. In an analysis, this reporter also observed that KOSA would lead to a non-uniform patchwork of rules, state by state, as the clear ideological aspect of an elected attorney general could lead to limitations on information in a particular state that is otherwise accessible in others and is legal and protected.