Gautam Hans

Associate Clinical Professor of Law

Gautam Hans, associate clinical professor of law and associate director of the First Amendment Clinic at Cornell Law School, says pausing the bill makes sense.

Hans says:

“Given the concerns about potential censorship and the possibility of minors’ lacking access to vital information, pausing KOSA makes eminent sense. While protecting children remains an important policy goal, minors should also have access to information important to them – such as information about political issues, social activism, and racial justice. KOSA, in my view, didn’t properly strike that balance. But given the bipartisan interest in enacting this law, I suspect other proposals will follow – with hopefully more extensive safeguards against potential censorship by the state.”

Tracy Mitrano

Visiting Professor

Tracy Mitrano, a visiting professor of information science at Cornell University, expects the bill will change.

Mitrano says:

“In my prognostication, the House will pick it up in the next session and by then it will be quite different – principally with the private ‘right to action’ removed and altogether a much easier path for tech companies. The focus will be on an administrative process for authenticating users’ ages, which must be initiated by parents, and therefore the burden will fall on them, not the tech companies.”