UX helped MPs revise Child Online Safety Act so it ‘can’t be used to suppress speech’
The chiefs also announced on Saturday that they have made changes to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) with help from X to “strengthen the bill while protecting free speech on the Internet and ensuring that it is not used to suppress speech.” The Senate voted 91-3, but it is stalled in the House, and supporters want it passed before the end of the year. X CEO Linda Yaccarino also posted about the partnership, and called on Congress and the House to pass the bill.
“After working with the bill’s authors, I’m proud to share that we’ve made progress to continue to protect freedom of speech while keeping children safe online,” he wrote in a post on X shared by the two gangs. KOSA aims to protect children from “addictive” social media features and potentially harmful content by placing a “duty of care” on the companies that run the platforms. But critics have argued that it could lead to screening tests and other harm. New changes, according to , clarify the circumstances in which the duty of care can be forced and limit its use in relation to anxiety and depression, saying that they must be “objectively verified” and bound to “compulsory use.”
In their joint statement, Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and Blackburn (R-Tennessee) said:
These changes should immediately dispel the false narrative that this bill will be used by unelected officials to spy on the American people. Thank you to Elon and Linda for their courageous leadership and commitment to protecting children online and for helping us get this bill through this congress. We appreciate that this approval and revised document reflect their publicly stated goal of promoting free speech without fear of censorship. We reiterate X’s call to pass KOSA by the end of the year – it is clear that this legislation has strong support from Congress.
KOSA was first introduced in February 2022 and has faced opposition from groups including the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It has been updated many times.
Source link
