America - The world is watching!

December 2024

In July of 2024, the Kids Online Safety Act Bill (KOSA) was passed by the US Senate. It was progressed with massive fanfare surrounding a "rare bipartisan vote of 93 to 3." The support of KOSA followed the January US Senate Hearing into Online Child Harm attended by the CEO's of 5 of the world's biggest Social Media giants, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, X and Discord, where they were heavily challenged by Committee members.

The Senate Judiciary Committee included no less than 22 US Senators (11 Democrats and 11 Republicans), all lining up to take their turn at tearing off some flesh from the Big Tech prey laid out before them. Many of them played wonderfully in front of the world's cameras, promoting how committed they were to the protection of children online. For more than three hours they feasted, roaring about their advocacy and determination to make Big Tech accountable. But since then and since the camera's were turned off, what has happened?

Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal in particular, as well as Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin are the only ones who appear to have actually continued their advocacy for the protection of children online, with Blackburn and Blumenthal responsible for submitting KOSA in July. As expected, legislative action which was so openly supported in the lead up to an election has now stalled and appears unlikely to be addressed until mid 2025.

A Bill which was so triumphantly supported by 93% of the US Senate, appears to some, now destined to spend it's life on the cutting room floor of the House of Representatives.

I do not wish to appear to contradict myself regarding rushed legislation. A couple of my recent articles have addressed the rushed 'Social Media Ban for Under 16s' here in Australia and the impact this may well have on children in this country and all Australians in general. My argument is the same with KOSA in the US. The KOSA Bill does appear to be well written, with due consideration to children using Social Media. The Bill has been adjusted since 2021 and has had a number of leading experts contribute to the draft submitted to the Senate in July. I am all for political debate over potential flaws in any proposed legislation and I agree with House Speaker Michael Johnson's caution in rushing legislation. But that is not what this article is about!

KOSA will push towards a 'Duty of Care' responsibility to the platforms for the protection of juvenile users. This shift in responsibility is causing Big Tech companies grave concern, because it directly impacts on their business models and could very well end the free reign they have had since 1996. The most popular and standard 'go-to' argument against legislation is the impact it will have on Free Speech. We are lead to believe laws governing the online world will result in dictatorial government censorship, after which we will all be marching around in the same drab uniform, bowing to our overlords!

The argument against an impact on free speech must be argued fairly with an immediate need to address the harms the unethical design of the online world is creating for children and society as a whole. So often, the Goliath which is "Right to Free Speech", is allowed to violently trample on a moderation seeking David, without any question whatsoever.

Since the introduction of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US in 1996, Big Tech have been allowed to build their online environments with immunity from prosecution for content posted on their platforms. Essentially, S230 supported the Free Speech principal for a rapidly flourishing internet and as a result, moderation was something which was not required. Fast forward 28 years, and we are now experiencing the damage that lack of accountability has created and continues to create.

As a society, we have allowed online environments to grow without the same rules we have in the real world. Many of these organisations are now global giants which have infiltrated our lives in massive ways. They have been allowed to evolve their environments without rules or accountability and the money they have made as a result of that immunity supports their ability to overcome government or legal intervention.

I wish to make it clear that I am not for Government censorship of the internet! We should have an online world which is free of political interference and manipulation. However, as a global society we must no longer accept the indifference BIG Tech has to the protection and safety of their users. We must immediately address the failures Big Tech have taken regarding the ethical design and the safety by design principals of their environments.

DOES FREE SPEECH TRULY MEAN YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT?

The US First Amendment is pretty clear regarding the censorship of free speech; "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech". That is a pretty self explanatory statement. But the simplicity of that statement has so often been manipulated by those with an agenda.

Moral censorship and moderation of the online world has failed monumentally because of the power the First Amendment holds in the US. Together with the protection S230 provides, these are the only reasons the vast majority of Big Tech and Social Media organisations are based in the US. This fact is not a coincidence. It is not an accident. As such, the US Governments failure to act proactively as the internet evolved has a great deal to do with the harms the entire planet is dealing with today.

Example - The Mother of a 14 year old girl who took her own life as a result of bullying, was seeking to have an Instagram post removed by Meta. The post included an image of her daughter, edited with a rope around her neck and the letters "LOL" above her head. The image was accompanied by the following text; "She deserved to die, you are better off without the little slut!"

Meta deemed this post, image and text was not in contravention of their 'Community Standards'. It remained on Instagram for 4 months, accompanied by a string of horrific posts and comments about a girl whose only 'crime' was chatting with a boy sitting next to her on her first day at a new school!

The questions here are simple;
   - Was the OP (original poster) exercising her right to Free Speech when she submitted that post to Instagram?
   - Was Meta well within their rights not to remove the post because the OP had the right to say it?
   - Did the Mother have the right to have the post removed because of the harm it was causing her and her family?
   - In reference to censorship, should the post have been allowed to go on in the first place?

If the standards of our community is to allow such speech without concern or question, then I will sadly concede defeat and end my fifteen years of advocacy for juvenile safety online here and now. But surely this Mother has an equal right to have the post removed. Does she not have the right to be heard by Meta, instead of being ignored? If she has made report after report, month after month and no-one, other than an uncaring AI bot has heard her cries for help, does she not deserve a duty of care?

People hold photos of their children during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online safety for children, Feb. 14, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.   Image - Associated Press

This is what myself and others are fighting for. Not for the end of the internet or the destruction of peoples rights. We are fighting for a level of responsibility to act on the removal of harm when it is requested. To give people a chance to be heard if they are going through hell. Hell which is profoundly exacerbated by Big Tech's failures to act on harm as it is occurring. It is these recurring failures which have been permitted by US legislation and enabled by government inaction.

Societies across the globe are seeking to introduce legislation such as KOSA because they have been forced to do so. Big Tech have failed to act proactively on the real-time protection of their users, instead only offering tokenistic responses to appear as though they care. For the past twenty years law enforcement, advocates, specialists, psychologists and others dealing with online harm have been ignored by legislators or beaten down by Big Tech CEO's pushing false narratives.

Most of the Western World has identified a clear need for change and their respective governments are responding accordingly. Yet, it is the US which continues to harbour organisations which place profit above morality and reject the ethical response the rest of the world is demanding.

In the late 1990's, initial US legislation in essence was designed to protect Big Tech from being sued. Politicians were lobbied, money was thrown in all directions and the 'free for all' design of the online world was born and raised in the US. S230 in reality, devolved the creators of online environments from taking responsibility for their platforms. Since then, any attempt to curtail that reckless approach has been met with ignorance, denial or even more money.

Money Talks;
    • Is it just a coincidence that US Senate Speaker Michael Johnson who refused to progress KOSA this year and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both from Louisiana, have accepted a $10 billion deal from Meta to build a Data Centre in their home state?
    • Is it a misunderstanding that 10 members of the House of Representatives have received payments of over one quarter of a million dollars from advocacy organisations opposing KOSA?
    • Have we all got it wrong that 15 additional members of the House of Representatives will benefit from $18 million worth of lobbying from Meta?
    • Is it mere scepticism that only nine months after President Elect Trump threatened Mark Zuckerberg with imprisonment if he interfered with the 2024 election, that the Meta boss donated $1 million to Trumps' inauguration fund?

In August of 2021, then Director of Policy Communications at Meta, Lena Pietsch made the following statement in response to the damning claims made by Frances Haugen to the US Congress earlier that month;
"It is time to begin to create standard rules for the internet. It has been 25 years (S230) since the rules for the internet have been updated, and instead of expecting the industry to make societal decisions that belong to legislators, it is time for Congress to act."

This was a clear challenge by Meta for the US Government to act. It was a "Do it, I dare you!" response from the worlds third richest man because he did not have the courage to act on protecting his users himself. Three years later that challenge has been met by a few Senators who have had the guts to actually stand up to Big Tech instead of accepting back handed payments. As such, KOSA, much like the Social Media Ban Bill in Australia are pieces of legislation which could very well change the online world as we know it. The next two years are going to be very crucial.

Over the past 50 years, our physical world has changed in so many positive ways. Society has evolved very successfully with rules, protections and laws which have been designed to make people safer or to protect them from harm. The real world has not imploded as a result of such regulation, in fact it has evolved and flourished with those who formally had no rights at all now having a voice which is protected.

It is time the Online World followed suit and those who have profited so long on the suffering of others be held to account for the environments they have created. Environments which have promoted a culture of harm and allowed the most evil of society to act with impunity and protection. How Big Tech choose to respond will be up to them!

Enough is Enough