A blueprint for digital censorship in the US?

Internal documents from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), as revealed by digital censorship journalist Matt Taibbi, showed that the group’s primary focus throughout much of 2024 was to “Kill Musk’s Twitter.” The NGO may not have been successful in squashing Elon Musk or X ahead of the US election, but elected representatives looking to preserve free speech stateside may find another of the group’s priorities problematic.

Taibbi’s reporting shows that “progress towards change in the USA and support for STAR” was ranked fourth on CCDH’s monthly agenda throughout the past year. The STAR framework from CCDH consists of four elements: “Safety by design,” “Transparency,” “Accountability to democratic and independent bodies,” and “Responsibility for companies and their senior executives.”

The group has already successfully used that framework to influence policy, shaping the UK’s Online Harms Act and the EU’s Digital Services Act. Those laws have since been used, among other things, to target Elon Musk’s social media platform X for hosting “hate speech” and “misinformation.”

Happily, the First Amendment presents constitutional hurdles to implementing the CCDH’s STAR framework here in the US. But that might not have stopped some from trying. 

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is a bill pending in Congress that would create a “duty of care” for online platforms, put the Federal Trade Commission in charge of enforcement, and likely trigger age verification for all users, not just minors. Advocates of the measure say it will keep children safer online, while opponents worry it will have harmful consequences for free speech. KOSA passed the Senate with overwhelming support earlier this year. Its companion bill is still making its way through the House, with questionable chances for success.

But before the House takes further action on the bill, lawmakers should know that much of CCDH’s STAR framework could have been the blueprint for KOSA.

In a side-by-side analysis of the CCDH’s STAR framework and the House version of KOSA, the similarities are remarkable. Not only do the two documents share similar content in their recommendations, but they also present those recommendations and requirements in the same order.

Perhaps the STAR framework was merely the inspiration for KOSA, but it’s not unreasonable to conclude that STAR might have been the specific structural blueprint for KOSA. Either way, it’s easy to imagine that KOSA will be used to suppress speech in the same ways that other laws built on the STAR framework have been used in other countries to suppress speech. 

Keeping kids safe online is a noble and important goal but giving government bureaucrats control over speech is not the American way. US lawmakers would be wise to consider how similar schemes have been used in other countries before voting for versions of them here.

STAR Framework and KOSA side-by-side