Education
As any student, parent, or educator knows well, kids’ education today relies on a vast array of online platforms and apps for learning, grading, scheduling, and more. Childrens’ education and development increasingly depends on their ability to engage and learn online. However, misguided legislation in Congress would cut off kids - and ultimately parents and educators - from the online platforms they need to learn and grow. Critical education technology tools could be shut down or forced to remove important functions in order to comply with new restrictive laws. Congress should prioritize kids’ online safety without cutting them off from educational tools, and instead empower educators and parents to teach children how to navigate the internet safely.
Kids, Teachers, and Parents Would Have Less Access to Education Tools Online. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and other bills like it would:
Force any online platform “reasonably likely to be used by a minor,” essentially any website or app connected to the internet, to implement broad and unclear content moderation standards. To comply, online platforms may stop hosting content young people use to learn about current events and history.
Stop educational apps from sending notification reminders about schoolwork, grading, attendance, and other information teachers use to communicate with children and parents.
Require online platforms to collect more personally identifiable information from kids and all internet users to enable age-verification, resulting in less privacy and more vulnerability to data breaches.
Jeopardize widely-used privacy tools like end-to-end encryption that educators, parents, and children use to communicate privately about sensitive education and health information.
Allow for the removal of basic student data from online platforms that schools use to determine funding levels, jeopardizing the resources schools need to serve their students.
Educational Resources That Could Be Negatively Affected
Legacy online news media
Online libraries and encyclopedias
Classroom and extracurricular management apps
More than 130 advocacy organizations - including the American Civil Liberties Union and Freedom to Learn Advocates - officially oppose some or all of the proposed bills that cut off children, parents, and teachers from commonly-used education tools.
Educators and Parents Know Safe Internet Access is Critical for Young People
“[KOSA] jeopardizes the privacy and safety of all internet users; effectively requires online services to use invasive filtering and monitoring tools, which will restrict users’ ability to access information and speak freely online; and creates disproportionate risks for already vulnerable children.” - Aliya Bhatia, Center for Democracy & Technology
“We need to hold these companies accountable and regulate them, not cut our kids off from resources that can help them thrive.” - Open letter from parents and Fight For The Future