cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1230279/us-house-passes-the-kids-internet-and-digital-safety-kids-act-which-would-basically-requ
This bill requires specified online platforms to establish safeguards for minors. The safeguards include (1) limiting access to specified sexual material, (2) providing parental controls on social media and online video game platforms, and (3) requiring artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to disclose certain information to users who are minors.
First, publicly available online platforms on which more than one-third of the content is considered sexual material harmful to minors under the bill must adopt technology to identify minors and prevent them from accessing such material.
Next, social media platforms must (1) implement default settings for minors that limit compulsive usage features and the ability of other users to communicate with minors, and (2) provide tools for parents to manage the privacy and account settings of a minor. Social media platforms may not allow ephemeral messaging features for minors.
The bill also requires online video game platforms to provide tools that allow parents to (1) limit communication between a minor and other users of the platform, and (2) restrict purchases by a minor on the platform.
Further, providers of AI chatbots must disclose to users who are minors (1) that the chatbot is an AI system and not a human, and (2) suicide and crisis intervention hotline information.
Finally, the bill requires specified studies and reports about the effects of social media platforms on minors and provides for enforcement of the bill’s requirements by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general.
I would highly recommend actually reading the full text of the bill. It is a lot more than what is in the body of the post.
It is not clear to me whether a site would need to be hosted in the US to fall under this law or if they would just need to be accessible in the US.
I would post the definitions but there are 7 titles under this law and 5 of them each have their own definition.
Edit: just to be clear. I hate this law too. ID requirements will kill many platforms or people will use vpns to circumvent.
Why would someone from another country follow U.S. law. Not their problem.
If they want to do business in the US then it follows that they would need to follow us law when conducting that business. It is the same reason that valve has to follow California law despite not being headquartered in California.
If that weren’t the case then businesses would just move to international waters and claim to only need to follow maritime law.