The culture wars are coming for kids’ online safety

The latest onslaught of child internet safety bills is upon us as expected, and it may soon intersect with America’s ongoing culture war.

As more evidence emerges that internet platforms can harm children and either can’t or won’t do anything to protect their users, the government has understandably felt the need to step in. States are proposing and even passing laws that restrict what children can access online, up to banning certain services entirely. On the federal level, several recently introduced bipartisan bills run the gamut from giving children more privacy protections to forbidding them from using social media at all.

Some of them also try to control the content that children can be exposed to. That comes with another set of concerns over censorship, especially now that some administrations have politicized ideas about what’s appropriate for kids to see. We’re already getting a glimpse of what various factions in this country think the internet should look like. We might be getting a much better look soon.