Elizabeth Warren, one of your Senators, recently signed on as a co-sponsor of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

We need you to write to Senator Warren and urge her to rescind her support of KOSA. There are better ways to ensure that children and adolescents are safe online while strengthening the privacy of all Americans.

Warren's support of KOSA contradicts the policy stances her constituents have come to expect from her. There is no question that the digital well-being of children is of utmost importance, but the methods KOSA proposes to achieve such a goal are an affront to everyone's privacy and free speech.

By co-sponsoring KOSA, Warren betrays the LGBTQ+ Americans she has previously stood by. She also tarnishes her prior support of privacy legislation and her stated opposition to surveillance expansion.

Below we explain what's at stake and why KOSA is a dangerous legislative proposal. We also explain why Warren may have made this decision, and why we still have a chance to change her mind.

What's KOSA?

S. 3663, or the "Kids Online Safety Act" (KOSA), was re-introduced this year by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). KOSA seeks to protect children's privacy and ensure their safety while they're online. However, its proposed means of achieving this goal are dangerous.

KOSA proposes to use invasive filtering, monitoring tools, techniques that jeopardize private and secure communications, and increased data collection of both children and adults to enforce its measures.

What's wrong with KOSA?

As Restore The Fourth has argued prior, KOSA's mandates are far too broad and overreaching. Section 3 of KOSA outlines a "Duty of Care" that all covered platforms, i.e. online platforms that connect to the internet and that are used or reasonably likely to be used by a minor, must abide by. A covered platform's duty of care includes "acting in the best interest of the minor," which means "taking reasonable measures in its design and operation of products and services to prevent and mitigate" harms associated with mental health disorders, online bullying, etc.

KOSA's prescriptions seem beneficial taken at face value. However, its broad mandates will incentive companies to over-sensor content to shield themselves from liability and hefty damages. KOSA would make the government pressure platforms to censor content and surveil children on behalf of the government. In turning the platforms into agents of the government, KOSA would mean that platforms would have to get a Fourth Amendment compliant warrant before searching or taking down content, which would paradoxically make it much harder for platforms to engage in sensitive, context-dependent content moderation.

As RT4 and other civil liberties groups have written previously, KOSA is ripe for abuse by those who have an interest in weaponizing anti-LGBTQ+ politics. Without clear specification of what content may be considered a threat to a child's health and safety, state Attorneys General have wide discretion to make this call. Given the troubling recent practices of book bans and eliminating curricula from public schools that deal with sexual identity and gender nonconformity, KOSA opens the door for actions that only hurt children in the long run.

If there is any doubt that KOSA is anti-LGBTQ+, one of its sponsors, Senator Blackburn, makes it abundantly clear in recent video footage what her intentions were when proposing the bill: "to protect minor children from the transgender in this culture." Warren has long positioned herself as an advocate for LGBTQ+ people. She will need to rescind her support of KOSA, or else fall into the trap of exploiting LGBTQ+ youth for "cheap political points."

Why would Warren support KOSA?

While it is near impossible to know our representatives' true intentions behind the policy they support, Senator Warren's previous positions indicate that she's open to changing her mind with enough pressure from her constituents.

Based on an analysis conducted by RT4, Warren has a strong voting record on NSA reform. She voted against reauthorizing the Patriot Act, against efforts to weaken the USA Freedom Act, and against cloture on a bill extending Section 702 mass surveillance powers. She is clearly concerned with the privacy rights of Americans.

We share many of Senator Warren's concerns about child safety and Big Tech's unchecked power. She has supported measures in the past that protect children without threatening Constitutional protections, such as the the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act. But those concerns have led her to support legislation that could help cement the dominance of big firms, while limiting what everyone can see or read on the Internet.

Concerned families are already pressuring Warren to make the right call - will you join them?