The Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, is a bill meant to work in conjunction with COPPA. While COPPA mostly deals with data privacy for minors, KOSA targets the platforms that the user data interacts with.
“KOSA legislation is largely focused on platform design” says Irene Ly, policy counsel for Common Sense Media. “It imposes responsibility on technology companies to design their products and platforms with teen and child safety in mind. It also provides tools for parents to use to keep their children safe.”
Under KOSA, if an online platform design or its algorithms are harming minors, developers would need to take steps to address the harm.
“KOSA is trying to infuse more responsibility into the design process,” says Haley Hinkle, policy counsel for Fairplay. “It has measures on increased transparency, opening platforms up to research opportunities and adding more parental control tools.” This moves the responsibility for keeping minors safe to the platforms themselves rather than relying on the users to take those steps.
“Companies are developing features using A/B testing and neuroscience research to drive greater engagement, but minors are especially vulnerable to many of these features being used,” Hinkle says. “KOSA is trying to address this imbalance of power between platforms and minors.”