Age Verification: Sounds Good, Still Doesn’t Work
Plus KOSA, jawboning, and more . . .
Online Obscenity: The Advisory Opinions podcast hosted Ari (starting at 36:57) to discuss the First Amendment implications of age verification and the complexity of obscenity doctrine.
KOSA: Ars Technica quoted at length our letter about the Kids Online Safety Act’s duty of care provisions. It also quoted Berin saying, “Those who have no substantive response to critiques of legislative text fall back on impugning motives. That’s especially true when bills like KOSA haven’t been vetted properly in hearings.”
The letter was also quoted in the Orange County Register, and Ari was further mentioned in The Wall Street Journal (paywall), saying that, under KOSA, a “state attorney general could”—following a mass shooting—“file a lawsuit alleging that a platform failed to prevent ‘physical violence’ that might affect a young user.”
Jawboning: Reason mentioned Tech Policy Podcast episode 350, in which Corbin and Ari discuss the federal government’s interactions with social media companies and Missouri v. Biden.
Surprisingly not a real ID.