Google urges US lawmakers not to ban teenagers from social media.::San Francisco– Google has asked the US Congress not to ban teenagers from social media, urging lawmakers to drop problematic protections like age-verification technology. The tech giant released its ‘Legislative Framework to Protect Children and Teens Online’ that came as more lawmakers, like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), pushed for the Kids Online Safety Act, a …
This is a response to the very bad kids online safety act. See EFF’s post for details on why it is bad: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/kids-online-safety-act-heavy-handed-plan-force-platforms-spy-young-people
EFF’s article is better, but here are some of the details of why it is bad. The effect of kids online safety act will be censorship and tracking of kids online when research suggests that is counterproductive for the age group being added. Would require more detailed tracking of everyone, not just kids. Services likely would need to block certain content from everyone to reduce liability to a reasonable level. They would potentially be liable if kids got access to content even when it wasn’t for kids no matter how the kids got access (lying, using someone else’s account, bypassing filters, etc.). Content to be blocked is vague and open to be interpretation by the most conservative people in the US, which is obviously problematic. The previous COPPA needs updating, but the version of kids online safety act has so far been financially flawed.