Over and over again, we see politicians browbeat companies until they agree to support terrible legislation. Back when FOSTA was being debated, there was tremendous pressure from the media and Congress for tech to support it, falsely claiming that without it they were enabling sex trafficking. Eventually, after a ton of pressure was put on the companies, Meta (then still Facebook) broke ranks with the rest of the industry and came out with full throated support for the law. Congress used that support to claim that the tech industry was on board, and passed FOSTA.
And, of course, if you read Techdirt, you know what has happened since. FOSTA has been an unmitigated disaster. It has literally put lives at risk, has created a bunch of frivolous litigation (including against Meta, the very company that helped pass the law), has been useless in stopping sex trafficking (despite the media and politicians insisting it was necessary), and if anything has likely made the problem way worse.
But, we’re seeing the same playbook being run out with KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act, which has broad bipartisan support in Congress, even as Republicans have made it clear they view it as a tool to silence LGBTQ+ content.
There’s yet another Congressional moral panic hearing happening this week, where the CEOs of Meta, Discord, Snap, TikTok, and ExTwitter will go to DC to get yelled at by very clueless but grandstandingly angry Senators. The whole point of this dog and pony show is to pretend they’re “protecting the children” online, when it’s been shown time and time again that they don’t actually care about the harm they’re doing, or what’s really happening online.
But, because of this, all the companies are looking for ways to make some sort of public claim about how “safe” they keep kids. ExTwitter made some announcements late last week, but Snap decided to go all in and issue a Facebook-like support for KOSA.
A Snap spokesperson told POLITICO about the company’s support of Kids Online Safety Act. The popular messaging service’s position breaks ranks with its trade group NetChoice, which has opposed KOSA. The bill directs platforms to prevent the recommendation of harmful content to children, like posts on eating disorders or suicide.
Snap has been in a rough spot lately for a variety of reasons, including some very dumb lawsuits. Apparently the company feels it needs to make a splash, even if laws like KOSA will do more to put kids in danger than to help them. But, of course, they felt the need to cave to Congressional pressure. Not surprisingly, the censors-in-chief are thrilled with their first scalp.
KOSA co-sponsors Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) applauded Snap’s endorsement. “We are pleased that at least some of these companies are seemingly joining the cause to make social media safer for kids, but this is long overdue,” they told POLITICO. “We will continue fighting to pass the Kids Online Safety Act, building on its great momentum to ensure it becomes law.”
Of course these two would cheer about this. Blackburn was the one who told a reporter how KOSA would be useful silencing “the transgender.” And Blumenthal simply hates the internet. He’s been pulling exactly this kind of shit since he was Attorney General in Connecticut and he forced Craigslist to close certain sections by fundamentally misrepresenting what Craigslist did. And that closure of parts of Craigslist has since been shown to have literally resulted in the deaths of women.
But Blumenthal has never expressed any concern or any doubt about his bills, even as he leaves a bloody trail in the wake of his legislating. KOSA will lead to much more harm as well, but its supporters have arm-twisted Snap into supporting it so that they get spared the worst of the nonsense on Wednesday.
