The royals coming after American free speech

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been hanging around Congress since 2022. Its biggest champions are Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, but outgoing President Joe Biden also supports the bill…

The bill also apparently has the support of Elon Musk — odd because the bill is based on the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s STAR policy framework. Musk notoriously sued CCDH over its attacks on Twitter early last year; he clearly views CCDH as a bad actor. Yet CCDH is a big booster of KOSA, most likely because the bill aligns nicely with CCDH’s objectives and methodology. CCDH may not care that X likely wouldn’t be KOSA-compliant as the bill is written…

As Shoshana Weissman of the R Street Institute noted, age verification will require parents to upload a combination of Social Security numbers, plus government IDs. Over the summer it was revealed the company X and TikTok used to verify identities, AU10TIX, left personal data exposed for over a year.