The Kids Online Safety Act isn’t a threat to free speech

Does the Kids Online Safety Act threaten free speech? As an ex-Google whistleblower who caught YouTube red-handed when it manually manipulated search results for abortion, I know a thing or two about threats to free speech. KOSA is not a threat to free speech.

What should we make of the “experts” who claim that KOSA threatens free speech? These people envision themselves as brave truth-tellers and whistleblowers, taking a bold and unpopular stance in defense of free speech. But let’s contrast my whistleblowing to their whistleblowing.

At a certain point, these ‘experts’ are re-enacting the Principal Skinner ‘out of touch’ meme from ‘The Simpsons.’ As people like Elon Musk and Jonathan Haidt throw their weight behind KOSA and KOSA passes the Senate on a 91-3 vote, perhaps the ‘experts’ should take a step back and ask if they’re out of touch.

If you want to whistleblow like I did, you simply cannot make hand-wavy claims about censorship. You need to prove it with specific evidence. Whistleblowing — even when done for the right reasons — entails major personal and career risks; it’s not as glamorous as many people think.

In my case, I found the “smoking gun”: the exact code change that altered YouTube’s search results for abortion. This change was made mere hours after a pro-choice writer for Slate sent an email to YouTube, complaining that the search results were too anti-abortion. (Ironically, this writer, April Glaser, now works as a tech journalist for NBC News.)

But what about these brave whistleblowers who oppose KOSA? First, many of them exist in a bubble where taking this stance would advance, not hinder, their career. But putting that aside, this actual whistleblower would ask a simple question: What specific evidence do you have? Where is your smoking gun?

You don’t have to do any sort of undercover investigation like I did. The legislative text of KOSA is publicly available; the evidence is in plain sight. To find that smoking gun, two things are required. First, you need to cite the specific part of the legislative text that threatens free speech. Second, you need to explain — in specific and practical terms — how that text would threaten free speech.

If you fashion yourself an “expert,” then what I’m asking should not be difficult. But many “experts” are simply not up to this task. After Elon Musk and X endorsed KOSA, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression accused X of supporting a “government takeover of online speech,” also referring back to FIRE’s past statement opposing KOSA.

In this statement, FIRE claimed that KOSA lets the government “enforce vaguely defined requirements for social media accounts that may belong to users under 17.” But what specific requirements in KOSA are vague? FIRE doesn’t say. There certainly is a vagueness issue here, but it’s not that KOSA is vague. FIRE’s criticism of KOSA is hopelessly vague. Ironic.

Other critics, like Shoshana Weissmann of the R Street Institute, claim that “KOSA will require age verification.” To understand the problem with that argument, you just need to read the bill. The legislative text explicitly says that nothing in KOSA “shall be construed to require … a covered platform to implement an age gating or age verification functionality.”

In the high-stakes environment of whistleblowing against Google, holes in my argument like that would have shattered my reputation and credibility. But I guess the low-stakes environment of being a tech policy “expert” in D.C. works differently.

(Some critics have instead argued that KOSA “effectively” requires age verification — as if the word “effectively” will magically fix the defects in that argument. Perhaps if we examined the emanations coming from the penumbras of KOSA, we could find this mythical requirement for age verification. Or, we could apply some common sense. If, for example, the Tide Pod challenge goes viral on social media, do you need to verify the age of every user to deal with that problem? Obviously not.)

At a certain point, these “experts” are re-enacting the Principal Skinner “out of touch” meme from “The Simpsons.” As people like Elon Musk and Jonathan Haidt throw their weight behind KOSA and KOSA passes the Senate on a 91-3 vote, perhaps the “experts” should take a step back and ask if they’re out of touch. No, it’s Elon Musk, Jonathan Haidt, and those 91 Senators who are wrong.

If the “experts” could have one legitimate claim to authority, it’s that — in theory at least — they would know the legislative text of KOSA better than Elon or Haidt. But what happens when they resort to punditry and fearmongering claims instead? At that point, it’s a question of whether people believe the “experts” or whether they believe Elon. And most people will believe Elon.