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Comment by krona | Hacker News Reader

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krona·

S.1748 - Kids Online Safety Act[1] is working its way through and as I understand it has fairly broad support.

There may be significant differences between KOSA and OSA in their implementation but they are the same in essence.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/174...

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KOSA is one of those bills that gets introduced in every session (sometimes under different names) without any chance of passing.

Honestly from the summary this seems pretty.. reasonable?

If the limitations on conducting A/B tests on people under 13 are enforced, you will need a driver's license to connect to the internet, and you will need to show it to every website.

Companies don't need A/B tests to tell them that requiring a driver's license is going to hurt conversions more than no more A/B tests.

Surely a state ID is enough, right? I know at least 3 legal adults in my circles alone without a driver's license, though I believe they all have either a state ID or permit. (Not that I support requiring any sort of meatspace identification for acting in cyberspace).

But it's literally the same thing.

> This bill requires covered online platforms, including social media platforms, to implement tools and safeguards to protect users and visitors under the age of 17.

What is an "online platform", and how would they know the visitor is under 17?

What the summary leaves out is that elements of it like 'harm to minors' have loopholes you could drive a truck through. It's designed to allow arbitrary censorship of wrongthink with 'think of the children' as cover.

The devil is always in the detail.

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