EFFector Volume 38, Issue 2

✍️ The Bill to Hand Parenting to Big Tech

Welcome to an all-new EFFector, your regular digest on everything digital rights from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In our 837th issue: What to do when you hit an age gate online, why rent-only copyright culture makes us all worse off, and a proposal that would hand control over children’s online lives to Big Tech.

When you lose your rights online, you lose them in real life. Become an EFF member today!

Featured Story: Congress Wants to Hand Your Parenting to Big Tech

Lawmakers in Washington are once again focusing on kids, screens, and mental health. But according to Congress, Big Tech is somehow both the problem and the solution.

Supporters of a bill called the Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA) say it will protect children and “empower parents.” That’s a reasonable goal, especially at a time when many parents feel overwhelmed and nervous about how much time their kids spend on screens. But while the bill’s press release contains soothing language, KOSMA doesn’t actually give parents more control.

One of the main promises of KOSMA is simple and dramatic: it would ban kids under 13 from social media. Based on the language of bill sponsors, one might think that’s a big change, and that today’s rules let kids wander freely into social media sites. But that’s not the case. Every major platform already draws the same line: kids under 13 cannot have an account. The real question is how and why they get access.

If lawmakers picture under-13 social media use as a bunch of kids lying about their age and sneaking onto apps behind their parents’ backs, they’ve got it wrong. Studies that have looked at this all find the opposite: most under-13 use is out in the open, with parents’ knowledge, and often with their direct help. A 2022 study by the UK’s media regulator Ofcom, for instance, found that up to two-thirds of social media users below the age of thirteen had direct help from a parent or guardian getting onto the platform.

But this bill doesn’t just set an age rule. It creates a legal duty for platforms to police families. KOSMA contains no exceptions for parental consent, for family accounts, or for educational or supervised use. The vast majority of people policed by this bill won’t be kids sneaking around—it will be minors who are following their parents’ guidance, and the parents themselves.

Instead of respecting how most parents guide their kids towards healthy and educational content, KOSMA hands the control panel to tech companies. On our blog, we dive deeper into how this bill would take power away from parents, and hand it over to the platform that lawmakers say are the problem.

READ MORE…

‌EFF Updates

🪪 AGE GATES: Increasingly, people are being asked to verify their age online, despite prominent cases of sensitive data getting leaked in the process. Should you continue to use services that force you to verify your age? And, if so, how can you do it with the least risk to your personal information? Read our guide to navigating these decisions, including key questions to ask and how they apply to the most popular social media sites.

🪖 POLICE MILITARIZATION: Police in Baton Rouge, LA, have announced a surprising new acquisition: a straight-up military drone. This makes them one of the first local police departments in the U.S. to deploy an unmanned aerial vehicle with a history of primary use in foreign war zones—a dangerous escalation in the militarization of local law enforcement.

📣 PRESS FREEDOM: Government invasion of a reporter’s home, and seizure of journalistic materials, is exactly the kind of abuse of power the First Amendment is designed to prevent. Yet, that’s what happened to a Washington Post reporter when the FBI recently searched her home and took her phone, two laptops, and a Garmin watch. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has joined 30 other press freedom and civil liberties organizations in condemning the FBI’s actions.

©️ DIGITAL OWNERSHIP: In the Netflix/Spotify/Amazon era, many of us access copyrighted works purely in digital form—and that means we rarely have the chance to buy them. Instead, we are stuck renting them, subject to all kinds of terms and conditions. Our access to culture, from hit songs to obscure indie films, are mediated by the whims of major corporations. On our blog, we explain why rent-only copyright culture makes us all worse off.

Don’t Let Tyrants Co-opt Tech

Technology is supercharging the attack on democracy by making it easier to spy on people, block free speech, and control what we do. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s activists, lawyers, and technologists are fighting back.

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