There are a lot of moms like me who had kids at a young age and then after an extended gap had more kids later in life.

Raising my two older kids in the early 2000s had its fair share of difficulties, but there is no question raising my two younger kids in the current digital age presents some unprecedented challenges.

As much as I would like to be able to monitor everything my kids see and do online, the truth is I can’t be there 24 hours a day; seven days per week. It is impossible. I trust my kids, but I don’t share that same trust of the online community.

We need Congress to act to help parents take on the challenges of the digital age, but whatever action is taken must be done in a responsible manner.

One bill still under consideration in Congress is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). While the push to add new protections for kids online is a movement that many, including me, proudly stand behind, several debilitating flaws in the bill’s construction were overlooked. 

One central concern with KOSA is its “duty of care” provision. The duty of care calls on social platforms to regulate content considered “harmful to minors.” Yet rather than provide further details to explain its vague criteria, it leaves the authority to the platforms themselves and the FTC, which can take legal action against companies that refuse to take down content they consider “harmful.” As platforms seek to avoid these legal battles, they are likely to take any content that could be deemed harmful by KOSA’s enforcers, which essentially puts regulators in charge of what kinds of content my kids see.

Moreover, the FTC is not the only regulator that stands to gain tremendous authority to restrict content online through KOSA. In its current state, the legislation also empowers state attorneys general to wield it in coordination with state law to take action against platforms hosting content from individuals and organizations with whom they disagree.

The last thing we need in the effort to protect kids is to have political bias interjected in the rules governing kids’ ability to access online content. Access to the Internet is part of everyday life for kids. Kids need access to the Internet to do even basic things like getting their school assignments.

Too often, well-intentioned laws end up doing more harm than good because our leaders in Congress want to do something even if that something might not actually solve the problem.

I hope that Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski and her colleagues will take the time to get KOSA right. Doing something for the sake of doing something is not a real solution. We must protect kids online and prioritize their safety, but we must also ensure KOSA cannot be used as a political weapon.

Taunya Madden is an emergency room nurse at Memorial Hospital in Springfield.