Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online

Taylor Lorenz argues that proposed child online safety laws, including the Kids Online Safety Act, would effectively end anonymity on the internet for everyone. She writes that no platform can reliably verify a user's age without collecting identifying information, so the laws would link users' offline identities to their online behavior. Citing Electronic Frontier Foundation senior counsel David Greene and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression lead counsel Ari Cohn, the article warns that such systems could expose whistleblowers, protesters, and LGBTQ+ users to government surveillance and punishment.