Regulators, Industry Ponder How to Integrate Online Safety Laws

Gabby Miller is staff writer at Tech Policy Press. Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) founder and CEO Stephen Balkam interviewing the Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and Ofcom Group Director of Online Safety Gill Whitehead. Image courtesy of FOSI. On Monday, Nov. 13, hundreds of “parents and professionals” gathered at the Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, DC to attend the Family Institute for Online Safety’s annual conference. This year, the event was focused on “New Frontiers in Online Safety,” such as content moderation, privacy policies and practices, and more around issues like AI, online safety, and parenting.  The conference took place during a busy time for global online safety and digital rights legislation. Just a few weeks ago, the UK passed its Online Safety Act, which covers a wide range of illegal content that platforms must address over what their users, and particularly children, will see online. Then, less than two weeks ago, designated Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines were compelled to publish their first transparency reports in accordance with the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). And while there was renewed hope at the start of this week that the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) might face a Senate floor vote, Congress is no closer to moving the bill along than it was last week.  While the US, as it stands, is currently a vacuum for both online safety legislation and federal privacy protection laws, what’s happening elsewhere will undoubtedly impact how platforms behave globally.  This was the…Regulators, Industry Ponder How to Integrate Online Safety Laws