More than 30 state attorneys general urge Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act

In response to reporting that a bipartisan coalition of 32 state attorneys general sent a letter to Senate and House leadership urging Congress to pass the responsible safeguards in the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), Issue One’s Vice President of Technology Reform Alix Fraser provided the following statement:

“Social media platforms are dangerous by design, and there is near universal support among the American public for reigning in their addictive and toxic features. We are facing a youth mental health crisis unlike anything we have seen before and these platforms are at the center of it. We don’t need to continue to subject a generation to eating disorders, sexual extortion, pro-suicide content, and a flood of false or misleading information. While states should act, we also need a national baseline to protect children and teens from harm and ensure that they won’t fall through the cracks because of an inconsistent patchwork of laws. Congress needs to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) this year to ensure that the state a child lives in is not the determining factor in whether or not their lives and wellbeing are protected from the harms of social media. All children’s lives are equally valuable, and we must listen to the parents, young people, and the attorneys general and pass KOSA.”