We write to you as the parents of transgender kids to ask you to please not put our children in further danger by advancing dangerous and misguided legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA.)
We love our kids more than anything in the world. Just like any other parent, we would do anything to keep them safe. We hold deep sympathy for parents whose kids have been harmed by Big Tech social media companies and their abusive business practices. Our kids have also been harmed by these companies’ greed: their addictive design, their intrusive surveillance, their failure to address online hate, bullying, and abuse.
But legislation like KOSA would make our kids less safe, not more safe. It would grant extraordinary new power to right wing state attorneys general to dictate what content younger users can see on social media, cutting our kids off from lifesaving online resources and community. These are the same attorneys general that are actively working to ban gender affirming health care that saves kids’ lives, criminalize drag performances, and label families that accept our children as “groomers” and “child abusers.”
KOSA would also incentivize Big Tech platforms to engage in even more intrusive data collection, which disproportionately puts trans kids and their families at risk as more and more states move to strip us of our rights and criminalize our kids’ health care, education, and very existence. A recent report from the US Surgeon General showed that access to social media and online community can be a “lifeline” for LGBTQ kids. We need to hold these companies accountable and regulate them, not cut our kids off from resources that can help them thrive.
Big Tech is hurting our kids. KOSA would hurt them even more. We agree there is tremendous urgency around holding social media giants accountable and cracking down on their abusive business practices. That’s why we are imploring you to abandon KOSA, which is deeply flawed and faces overwhelming opposition from human rights, LGBTQ, racial justice, and civil liberties organizations. Then we can work together to advance more thoughtful proposals, like privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic transparency legislation that can address the harms of Big Tech without throwing trans kids and human rights under the bus.
Please listen to us. Our kids’ lives are at stake.
AJ, New York
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