What Does NetChoice v. Bonta Mean for KOSA and Other Attempts to Protect Children Online?
With yet another win for NetChoice in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California—this time a preliminary injunction granted against California’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC)—it is worth asking what this means for the federally proposed Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and other laws of similar import that have been considered in a few states. I also thought it was worthwhile to contrast them with the duty-of-care proposal we at the International Center for Law & Economics have put forward, in terms of how best to protect children from harms associated with social media and other online platforms.
In this post, I will first consider the Bonta case, its analysis, and what it means going forward for KOSA. Next, I will explain how our duty-of-care proposal differs from KOSA and the AADC, and why it would, in select circumstances, open online platforms to intermediary liability where they are best placed to monitor and control harms to minors, by making it possible to bring products-liability suits. I will also outline a framework for considering how the First Amendment and the threat of collateral censorship interacts with such suits.