OPINION:
Virtually every American can agree that parents know what’s best for their children. While a vocal minority of the most progressive people in this country may disagree, the truth is that the government makes a pretty terrible parent. Indeed, the work of the liberty movement to which I’ve dedicated more than 20 years of my life has been focused on empowering individuals to make more and better-informed choices for themselves.
A bill before Congress, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), undermines that important effort. Instead of empowering parents, it empowers the government to take their place. Instead of allowing families to have the difficult conversations about what is and isn’t appropriate online behavior and how to stay safe, KOSA gives the government the power to make those decisions instead. That is a clear violation of individual privacy and would almost certainly make our children less safe, despite its stated intentions.
KOSA has died and been revived so many times throughout the legislative process of the past few Congresses that it is important to understand what animates it. While we believe this is a dangerous bill, most of its sponsors and cosponsors want what everyone wants: for kids to be safe online. That aim is absolutely to be commended. That said, sound policymaking is about outcomes rather than intentions.
As my colleagues at the Pelican Institute have written before, KOSA attempts to stake out federal standards of what is and is not appropriate for children to see online. It does this by creating a legal “duty of care” that would make it easier to sue companies unless they block certain content. Furthermore, to determine who is a minor for the purposes of enforcing these vague standards, companies would be forced to collect massive amounts of data on every user to confirm their identity and age. This would, in turn, infringe on private free speech (a protected right dating back to our founders) and put our data privacy at greater risk. That’s not even taking into account the absurd federal government council that would advise and guide decisions related to online speech. A speech commission stacked with bureaucrats and political cronies: what could go wrong?
Equally important to consider is what isn’t in the bill text. There are no resources for educational efforts to teach kids and parents how to safely use technology. There is no language to strengthen law enforcement responses to online abuse or funding for existing law enforcement efforts to combat exploitation. There is nothing not a single line of legislative text that directly addresses the kind of nefarious behavior that the government is actually empowered to defend our children against without stripping us of constitutional rights.
Raising kids in the digital age is hard. Really hard. My wife and I have four kids (including two teenagers), and it’s not for the faint of heart. That’s why one of the main arguments made by KOSA supporters goes like this: the difficulty of navigating a life online has reached a point that it has advanced beyond the capacity of parents to handle. This somehow justifies, they argue, the intervention of that “national nanny” in our parenting decisions. The truth is, there are few aspects of parenting that aren’t difficult, and kids don’t come with instruction manuals. Bringing up your children to have an active and fulfilling faith life has become a major challenge. So too has making sure your child’s education is one of quality that also conforms to your values. In each of those cases, those of us who strive for limited government and parental empowerment seek not to take those challenging duties away from parents but instead to allow them to make even more decisions for themselves and their families.
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School choice is a useful analogy to the principles at work in KOSA. In my home state of Louisiana, we’ve just won a hard-fought victory for education freedom. Many of the same conservatives who have dedicated decades to fighting for the rights of families to give their children an education that better reflects their needs are now being wooed to support KOSA. Make no mistake: this is the opposite of parental empowerment, choice, and responsibility. We already know that the path to better outcomes for our kids lies in the family, not the government. So why would free expression be any different? KOSA ostensibly aims to make things easier for parents by stripping them of responsibility. That’s pure folly. In reality, this is nothing more than a big government power play.
The idea that no government should dictate education or faith decisions to parents is a bedrock of conservative principles. It is not the government’s job to make our lives easier, especially as parents.
It is instead the government’s job to make us freer and to clear barriers to opportunity so that everyone has the chance to flourish according to each person’s priorities and values. KOSA may be well intended, but it is at odds with our system of constitutional rights, our values as limited-government conservatives, and our interests regarding the safety and well-being of our children. It should be opposed.
• Daniel J. Erspamer is the CEO of the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, which works to ensure every Louisianan has the opportunity to flourish.
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