Ben Sperry Cited in Competitive Enterprise Institute Article on KOSA’s Age Verification Requirements
The Competitive Enterprise Institute cited Ben Sperry, ICLE Senior Scholar for Innovation Policy, in a piece examining the epistemological problems with the Kids Online Safety Act’s constructive knowledge standard. The article drew on Sperry’s analysis that KOSA’s liability framework creates de facto age verification requirements raising significant First Amendment concerns, even where the bill’s text does not explicitly mandate age verification.
Read the full piece here. Read the ICLE analysis here.
The risk will likely be so high that companies have little choice but to verify age using government IDs, regardless of the stipulations in the bills saying that age verification is not required. The bills create “de-facto age verification requirements” that raise significant First Amendment concerns, according to Ben Sperry, senior scholar and lead counsel at the International Center for Law & Economics. For the Senate version of KOSA, with its expansive “duty of care” obligations, companies may see banning all kids from their platforms as their only option for fear of liability.