EDITORIAL: Social media surveillance: Dangers of KOSA, Instagram teen accounts
It is indisputable that social media has changed the way the world works. No longer is one's reach and community limited to just a neighborhood, town or state — it is now global.
With this reach, there have been concerns about social media's impact on youth. Concerns about cyberbullying, exposure to explicit content and internet addiction have prompted major institutions in the U.S. to act.
In July, the U.S. Senate passed the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). This bill would give social media companies a duty of care, meaning that these organizations would have to take reasonable steps to ensure that harm does not happen to minors.
Additionally, the bill would allow minors to opt out of social media algorithmic recommendations and block access to harmful content, such as bullying, substance abuse and sexual exploitation.
As KOSA enters the House of Representatives, some social media companies have sought to get ahead of the law. On September 17, Instagram announced that users under the age of 18 will have their accounts converted into teen accounts.
This would make their accounts private, give parents greater control over their teens' accounts and limit access to sensitive content, such as violence and the promotion of cosmetics. While these efforts are commendable in creating a safer internet for minors, these policies have some deep problems.
Both of these policies would likely hinder free expression on the internet. If KOSA and Instagram require treating minors differently from adults on these platforms, there must be some way to distinguish between the two groups. The likeliest scenario would be some requirement to present identification to verify age. This could effectively deanonymize the internet and, as a result, create a chilling effect where people may avoid expressing their thoughts on these social media platforms.
Having an anonymous internet is beneficial. Social media is used as a vehicle to challenge authoritarian regimes and for marginalized groups to connect with each other without fear of repression. Deanonymizing the internet could potentially block the benefits of social media.
Given recent data breaches that happened to both governmental agencies and social media companies, it is not surprising that people would be highly skeptical of giving their personal information out.
Instagram's new policy has had negative impacts similar to those of KOSA. To verify who is a minor, Meta, the parent company of Instagram, announced that new users must submit a photo to Instagram and have artificial intelligence analyze how old they are.
This runs into similar issues of how these social media companies will manage this information, especially as they have been targets for data leaks in the past.
KOSA may also violate the First Amendment. In the 2011 case of "Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association," both liberal and conservative Supreme Court justices ruled that a California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors violated the First Amendment.
Former Supreme Court Justice and author of the majority opinion Antonin Scalia wrote, "A legislature cannot create new categories of unprotected speech simply by weighing the value of a particular category against its social costs and then punishing it if it fails the test."
This is what KOSA does. It tries to reframe certain forms of expression as unprotected speech by weighing the social costs.
What makes this law even more concerning is that it can limit information that young people can access. As mentioned before, since KOSA's duty of care requirement to social media companies is intended to prevent harm to minors, this would incentivize these organizations to become overly censorious.
After all, Meta and Snapchat probably do not want to incur the wrath of the Federal Trade Commission or any of the 50 state attorney generals, the primary enforcers of the bill.
The impact of this is that kids could lose access to important content regarding the LGBTQ+ community, safe injection sites or managing eating disorders. With state attorney generals willing to go after organizations that seem to be LGBTQ+ friendly, it would not be surprising if these attorney generals see KOSA as an opportunity to continue targeting marginalized groups.
Instagram's new policy also runs into this issue. With parents being able to monitor who their children are communicating with, it leads to similar problems with access to resources about topics like the LGBTQ+ community, which is incredibly important, as online communities can sometimes be the only places where teens can feel free to express themselves or gain knowledge about the topic.
Some may view these policies as just minor changes that may go unnoticed by the general public. This would not be the case.
KOSA's reach could end up being much more expansive than lawmakers intend. In the bill, the regulations listed would apply to any service "that connects to the internet and that is used, or is reasonably likely to be used, by a minor." This means that even small forums, a game of Call of Duty or a WhatsApp group chat could be regulated.
Similarly, Instagram's new policies are likely to affect millions of accounts. Up to 95 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds in the U.S. use social media, and 76 percent use Instagram. Since these regulations are not just going to apply to the U.S. but also to the U.K., Australia and Canada, the impact of this policy change is global.
The lawmakers and parents advocating for these policies are rightfully concerned about children and social media. Evidence from Generation Alpha (the so-called "iPad kids") demonstrates the concerns of unrestricted access to the internet at such a young age.
But KOSA and Instagram's teen accounts are not the way to address this issue. Parents must be proactive in talking to their children about social media's dangers and setting boundaries.
The Daily Targum's editorials represent the views of the majority of the 156th editorial board. Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
