WASHINGTON, DC (July 28, 2023) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) urges Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), in order to protect children from online harms. Under KOSA, tech platforms will be held accountable for child safety. KOSA advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on July 27.
“Children who are online are at risk of being exploited – in part, because predators have easy access through social media and other tech platforms, and because technology companies are not doing nearly enough to safeguard our children. The Kids Online Safety Act puts accountability on tech companies to prevent and mitigate specific dangers to minors – this accountability is lacking as demonstrated by the overwhelming rise in child sexual exploitation online,” said Dawn Hawkins, CEO, National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) creates accountability for tech platforms to keep children safe online by: establishing a legally actionable Duty of Care for platforms that are likely to be used by minors—meaning they must responsibly design their products to ensure children are protected; requiring platforms provide safeguards for children and tools for parents to protect children and youth from harmful content and predatory behavior; requiring transparency for researchers to learn more about the harms tech platforms products pose, and what they are doing to address them.
“Despite fabricated claims, KOSA applies to specific and tangible harms, including child sexual exploitation, suicide, online harassment, and eating disorders,” Hawkins said.
“Our kids are defenseless against predators and traffickers who use technology to lure them into creating sexual abuse material, into sex trafficking, and/or other dangerous situations. Congress must take online child protection seriously and pass KOSA, the EARN IT Act, and other measures to confront sexual exploitation,” Hawkins added.
NCOSE met with and visited every Senate office over the last month to trumpet the importance of this legislation.
About National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national non-partisan organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health harms of pornography.
