KOSA isn't designed to help kids

[usonian]

Paywalled at medium.
https://zephoria.medium.com/kosa-isnt-designed-to-help-kids-335ab57cddae
https://archive.ph/w4aKc
danah boyd

The key arguments against such bills:

1. These “safety” bills are based on a faulty understanding of children’s mental health.

2. Bills like KOSA are predicated on the same technological solutionism [1] that makes the logics of the tech industry so infuriating.

3. Children are dying. They’re in crisis. And we’re not providing them with the support they most need.

4. Many aspects of the tech industry are toxic. It’s politically prudent to use children. But it doesn’t help children and it doesn’t address the core issues in tech.

Danah Boyd wrote a book "It’s Complicated: The Social Lives Of Networked Teens"

Here's the blurb from the book:

What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens’ lives? In this eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert danah boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers’ ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions. Yet despite an environment of rampant fear-mongering, boyd finds that teens often find ways to engage and to develop a sense of identity. Boyd’s conclusions are essential reading not only for parents, teachers, and others who work with teens but also for anyone interested in the impact of emerging technologies on society, culture, and commerce in years to come. Offering insights gleaned from more than a decade of original fieldwork interviewing teenagers across the United States, boyd concludes reassuringly that the kids are all right. At the same time, she acknowledges that coming to terms with life in a networked era is not easy or obvious. In a technologically mediated world, life is bound to be complicated.


Can tech solve the problems of kids? (beyond the problems that tech actually created)

What if, instead, we focused on what challenges young people are facing? What if we actually invested in addressing the issues at the core of their anxiety, depression, and suicidality? What if we invested in helping those who are most vulnerable?


Lots more at the link.

[1] There are many labels for the endemic problem in the tech industry: the “technological fix,” technological determinism, and technological solutionism. Each means slightly different things but the basic story is: people who are obsessed with tech think that it will solve all.the.things™ and they are fools.

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To add fuel to the fire:

As Congress Grandstands Nonsense ‘Kid Safety’ Bills, Senator Wyden Reintroduces Legislation That Would Actually Help Deal With Kid Exploitation Online
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/31/as-congress-grandstands-nonsense-kid-safety-bills-senator-wyden-reintroduces-legislation-that-would-actually-help-deal-with-kid-exploitation-online/

As we’ve discussed multiple times, all evidence suggests that the internet companies are actually doing an awful lot to stop child exploitation online, which involves tracking it down, reporting it to NCMEC, and putting in place tools to automate and block such exploitation content from ever seeing the light of day. The real problem seems to be that after the content is reported to NCMEC, nothing happens. Wyden’s bill aims to fix that part. The actual part where the system seems to fall down and fail to protect kids online. The part about what happens after the companies report such content, and NCMEC and the DOJ fail to take any action:

The Invest in Child Safety Act would direct more than $5 billion in mandatory funding to investigate and target the predators and abusers who create and share child sexual abuse material online. It also directs substantial new funding for community-based efforts to prevent children from becoming victims in the first place. The legislation would also create a new office within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to coordinate efforts across federal agencies, after the DOJ refused to comply with a 2008 law requiring coordination and reporting of those efforts.

“The federal government has a responsibility and moral obligation to protect children from exploitation online, but right now it’s failing in large part because of a lack of funding and coordination,” Wyden said. “It’s time for a new approach to find child predators, prosecute these monsters, and help protect children from becoming victims in the first place – and that’s why we are introducing the Invest in Child Safety Act.”

The bill includes a ton of pretty clear and obvious common sense approaches to helping deal with the actual crimes going on and to actually step in and protect children, rather than just grandstanding about it and magically pretending that if only Mark Zuckerberg nerded harder, he’d magically prevent child exploitation.