Charlie Jane Anders discusses KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act).
If you’re in the US, https://www.stopkosa.com/ makes it easy to contact your Senators and ask them to oppose KOSA.
"A new bill called the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, is sailing towards passage in the Senate with bipartisa>n support. Among other things, this bill would give the attorney general of every state, including red states, the right to sue Internet platforms if they allow any content that is deemed harmful to minors. This clause is so vaguely defined that attorneys general can absolutely claim that queer content violates it — and they don’t even need to win these lawsuits in order to prevail. They might not even need to file a lawsuit, in fact. The mere threat of an expensive, grueling legal battle will be enough to make almost every Internet platform begin to scrub anything related to queer people.
The right wing Heritage Foundation has already stated publicly that the GOP will use this provision to remove any discussions of trans or queer lives from the Internet. They’re salivating over the prospect.
And yep, I did say this bill has bipartisan support. Many Democrats have already signed on as co-sponsors. And President Joe Biden has urged lawmakers to pass this bill in the strongest possible terms."
American here, and I am totally OK with a tiny bit of extra latency if people & companies want to move their servers to some place in Europe that actually respects freedom and people.
Though I suspect that if you’re a US company with servers located abroad, they will still make the law apply to you since you control it.
it’s pretty horseshit that if you buy a digital copy of a movie, they can just revoke that licence whenever they want, under the guise of “well, we don’t have the licence anymore”.
Attent #452625 at destroying the Internet and counting.
They only need to succeed big once or small a couple of times. They already succeeded small big many times so yeah. Enjoy the internet while it lasts, 5 years from now it will be unrecognizeable and a fraction of what we have now.
But at least the kids are safe because THAT is why we are doing this, right? RIGHT?
Not really surprising to me. Gay (and now trans) people have long been accused of grooming and/or queerifying children
The first openly gay senator is probably hyper-aware of this, and I’d guess is probably very hawkish on anything protecting children
The other aspect is congressmen don’t understand shit outside (sometimes) politics or the law. On its surface, this has a very compelling description - hold websites responsible if they let children access NSFW content.
It’s not until you ask how (interpreted by the community as providing identifiable information to “prove” your age) that the first flaw comes up - this provides a way to collect data on online use, as social media is considered potentially NSFW by the nature of user submission
Then you get to the things most people without a technical background wouldn’t see
The second flaw - companies are terrible at securing data. Get ready for every scammer under the sun to be able to find your ID numbers.
The third, this won’t work. As a young teen, I blazed past parental controls, because there’s a ton of porn out there and there’s no way to hold back someone determined to find it. If you want this to work, we need to make a child Internet of known safe content and parental controls to keep you there… But just like finding or stealing a Playboy, the fact it exists means kids are going to be stealing passwords or IDs and probably sharing them. If we instead had sites declare content ratings and locked down at the device level, they need to go through a lot of work or get a secret device - it would give parents powerful tools to actually enforce this through Apple, Google, or Microsoft accounts
And finally, this won’t work because it’s inconvenient. Make password requirements too strict, and users write them down. Make content moderation too strict, and people will find shortcuts. People will find ways around this that will likely both end up in the hands of children, but also probably make everyone less safe
Vocalized support in favor of it and asked for it to be passed, so it seems. About as far as he can go until it’s on his desk, so it’s understandable to expect he would sign it if it does.
“Republicans and Democrats, Unite Against Big Tech Abuses
Congress can find common ground on the protection of privacy, competition and American children.”
He’s a corporate piece of shit. I have to vote for him every time but he’s absolutely on the wrong side and if America burns I will consider him like Nero having done nothing but played his fiddle to the tune of the screams of his constituents as he refuses to change things that might upset his benefactors.
Truly a waste of a presidency and a failure of those in power to try and make things better instead of hiding and playing passive line holders to fascists at the gate.
This is what gets me about conservatives trying to shit on Biden and expecting a rise out of us. Motherfuckers, we know he’s mid lmao. Better than the alternative though
Some of my last days on reddit every bad thing I said about Biden triggered some dem true believer to tell me how actually Biden is the most progressive president in history. I get they don’t want to acknowledge bidens conservative leaning in fear it might hurt him at the polls. What they dont realize for every one person you’re telling don’t believe your own eyes you’re maybe only keeping one person from straying from party line. But that person you just showed the dems true colors to, for them, you’ve tainted the party forever.
Oh it’s pretty obvious with an internal perspective too as long as you don’t fall for their propaganda about being to the left and instead look at their policies
Nope. Not yet. The right-wingers thought they could install overt fascism without the help of liberals - they thought wrong. They tried to win the streets - antifa beat booted them off it. They got their Great Orange Fuhrer into the Waffle House - liberal disdain isolated him and booted him out. What needs to happen is liberals being frightened to such an extent of working class revolt that the violence fascists offers becomes the “lesser evil” - and a good first step is to find hysteria “hot button” issues that liberals are too ignorant and naive to see through… like above-mentioned “protect the children” trope.
Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.
just so we’re all clear on the purpose of this bill.
The problem is where? The EU is trying to apply similar censorship via the DSA, Russia we all know is LGBTphobic and not truly for free speech, Canada is a joke, and China is lol. Not even sure if Japan is viable.
The arguments presented are so terrible and devoid of any meaninful substance
The first one was “China lol”
Then the one I replied to in support of “China lol” said “autocratic state” which is absolutely false unless all of your knowledge about China’s governance system comes from reading CNN headlines and skimming Reuters articles written by a dude with a bachelor’s in journalism that doesn’t speak Chinese
They also said “well known to” which implies it’s a special case when every state exerts overwhelming control and censorship over the media that occurs within their country
Isn’t the CCP given explicit power and privilege in the Chinese government and isn’t the CCP’s officially headed by a permanent leader as it’s “core”? I’ve been trying read about the political structure and it’s hard to not argue that it seems very autocratic.
Your whataboutism isn’t really useful here, I’m just responding to the question about China. The point of his response was that there isn’t really any place left to go. And even if your response was relevant it would be laughable, the censorship that the Chinese government perpetrates puts most other countries to shame.
Your reading comprehension is pretty low. My original comment was specifically in response to another individual questioning why the idea of hosting servers in China to escape censorship was “lol”. That’s it.
What don’t you understand about it? How has it ever affected you? Can you name a single time it has?
China does not care unless you live within its borders, and even there it only really cares when it is someone of influence, such as the rich capital owners or the celebrities.
My friend, read the thread. You’re getting triggered over someone laughing at the idea of westerners hosting web content in China to escape censorship.
I just didn’t understand the way your question was worded because it was garbled. I don’t have any reason to host a data server and I don’t live in China, so you got me, I’ve never been personally impacted by Chinese government censorship and repression. Obviously that means it doesn’t exist, QED.
But oh, as long as I make sure not to upset anyone rich or in power I would be fine, don’t worry. Do you ever read what you type?
Why are you automatically blaming China for that? How do you know that decision wasn’t made by the film directors/company? Unfortunately, propaganda runs deep and people easily believe whatever they want to believe
Claiming that China is actively repressing this while literally employing and front-facing transgender people is absurd. Where are the famous transgender TV personalities employed by the BBC? Britain’s state owned media.
China is visibly trying to improve things for trans people compared to the country I’m currently in (the UK) and your absurdness about it is obviously built on racism because you don’t behave this way about white countries. You only behave this way about non-white countries. Where is your equal criticism? Where is this behaviour when it’s all the white countries that behave this way? You’re american right? Where is it for YOUR country which is currently illegalising trans people, undergoing state sanctioned murder against trans people and having an internal refugee crisis because of it. Where the fuck are the federal protections to prevent this genocide being perpetrated by red states? Non existent. Because democrat support for trans people is performative.
So excuse me but fuck off about criticising China on trans people. You’re a shit.
China isn’t censoring their internet because you’re a trans person who lives in the UK, BBC doesn’t have trans personalities, and certain US politicians are attacking trans rights? Wow, what an argument.
Also I’m racist for pointing out authoritarianism from an authoritarian government?
You’re doing a terrible job with your concern trolling. Put in some effort at least.
There’s freedom of speech in the USSR: In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, “Down with Ronald Reagan,” and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, “Down with Ronald Reagan,” and you will not be punished.
The Internet is still mostly connected, the law enforcement is not as much. Many businesses exist only because of this. You are free to host (produce, store, distribute) your content where it is legal and access it from where it is not.
Access to foreign resources may eventually be outlawed or the access itself restricted. This is already the case in EU, Russia, China, etc. - but for now Internet is mostly connected.
In what way is Canada a joke? Like, I’m not saying it isn’t, but our online freedom is pretty good. We don’t actually have a state sponsored censorship campaign, VPNs are legal, TOR is legal, all we legislate is that you aren’t inciting violence or calling for the extermination of a protected group of people or doing shady dark web shit. Pretty much everything else is good to go.
which, considering that the U.S considers accessing a server based in the U.S grounds to extradite a person from the otherside of the world and try them for a capital crime might not be such a bad thing.
I emailed my senators, both Democrats. One wrote me back telling me how proud they were of co-sponsoring the bill. The other told me how important it is to protect kids from the dangers of social media. WTF.
WTF indeed. But, thanks for emailing them – they track how much email they get in each direction, and if there’s enough they may rethink their position.
Unfortunately this is just ONE of MANY bad internet bills currently up for consideration and with bipartisan support. Help fight all of them at https://badinternetbills.com
You should have seen Biden and the Dems unite w Republicans to make gay marriage and gay military service illegal the first time and they’ll keep doing it too
Actual progressives caucus with them because what choice do we have? Refusing to do so effectively gives control of the most powerful nation in the history of the world to a psychotic doomsday cult who never met a minority that they didn’t hate with all of their Christian hearts™.
Kinda makes me wonder if we’ll ever have a proper left-wing party in this country since, at this point, saying that poor people should be given a 30 second head start before being hunted by their social betters is considered by Conservatives to be radical Marxism.
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American here, and I am totally OK with a tiny bit of extra latency if people & companies want to move their servers to some place in Europe that actually respects freedom and people.
Though I suspect that if you’re a US company with servers located abroad, they will still make the law apply to you since you control it.
Also adding on to this, buy physical media.
Cloud storage is just someone else’s computer.
Buy 8 tb hard drives and fill them up. It’s cheaper than streaming even if you managed to fill one every year.
it’s pretty horseshit that if you buy a digital copy of a movie, they can just revoke that licence whenever they want, under the guise of “well, we don’t have the licence anymore”.
Relative to this new proposal from the US gov…um yeah. The EU is far more free online. No Patriot Act or NDAA either.
I was going to say something about giving it to gypsies and you could probably literally see European fervor to ban something. Lol
Clearly you don’t know “Europeans” and have never net a gypsy.
Censor slurs or use the actual name for Roma people
Attent #452625 at destroying the Internet and counting.
They only need to succeed big once or small a couple of times. They already succeeded small big many times so yeah. Enjoy the internet while it lasts, 5 years from now it will be unrecognizeable and a fraction of what we have now.
But at least the kids are safe because THAT is why we are doing this, right? RIGHT?
I’m shocked that the first openly gay senator Tammy Baldwin is a co-sponsor for the bill. You bet I’m writing her.
Not really surprising to me. Gay (and now trans) people have long been accused of grooming and/or queerifying children
The first openly gay senator is probably hyper-aware of this, and I’d guess is probably very hawkish on anything protecting children
The other aspect is congressmen don’t understand shit outside (sometimes) politics or the law. On its surface, this has a very compelling description - hold websites responsible if they let children access NSFW content.
It’s not until you ask how (interpreted by the community as providing identifiable information to “prove” your age) that the first flaw comes up - this provides a way to collect data on online use, as social media is considered potentially NSFW by the nature of user submission
Then you get to the things most people without a technical background wouldn’t see
The second flaw - companies are terrible at securing data. Get ready for every scammer under the sun to be able to find your ID numbers.
The third, this won’t work. As a young teen, I blazed past parental controls, because there’s a ton of porn out there and there’s no way to hold back someone determined to find it. If you want this to work, we need to make a child Internet of known safe content and parental controls to keep you there… But just like finding or stealing a Playboy, the fact it exists means kids are going to be stealing passwords or IDs and probably sharing them. If we instead had sites declare content ratings and locked down at the device level, they need to go through a lot of work or get a secret device - it would give parents powerful tools to actually enforce this through Apple, Google, or Microsoft accounts
And finally, this won’t work because it’s inconvenient. Make password requirements too strict, and users write them down. Make content moderation too strict, and people will find shortcuts. People will find ways around this that will likely both end up in the hands of children, but also probably make everyone less safe
What the hell?
This is exactly the bullshit policy Biden sticks his dick into everytime. I really don’t want to hate the guy but what a fucking idiot.
Biden being anything but conservative lite is just the fucking truth.
Did Biden introduce this bill or vote on it?
Vocalized support in favor of it and asked for it to be passed, so it seems. About as far as he can go until it’s on his desk, so it’s understandable to expect he would sign it if it does.
Biden is the President, head of the executive branch and does not have the power to introduce bills or vote on them.
He can only sign the bill into law or veto the bill.
Looks like he’s in full support
In the Wall Street journal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/unite-against-big-tech-abuses-social-media-privacy-competition-antitrust-children-algorithm-11673439411?page=1
Welp, guess my next allocation for a gaming PC will be spent on books and camping gear.
Fuck it.
Well if it becomes law then he will have. Do you have reason to think he will veto?
It’s because of what they named the bill I reckon but it’s still bullshit like “citizens united” or “the patriot act” aka not what the bills intent is
He’s a corporate piece of shit. I have to vote for him every time but he’s absolutely on the wrong side and if America burns I will consider him like Nero having done nothing but played his fiddle to the tune of the screams of his constituents as he refuses to change things that might upset his benefactors.
Truly a waste of a presidency and a failure of those in power to try and make things better instead of hiding and playing passive line holders to fascists at the gate.
This is what gets me about conservatives trying to shit on Biden and expecting a rise out of us. Motherfuckers, we know he’s mid lmao. Better than the alternative though
Some of my last days on reddit every bad thing I said about Biden triggered some dem true believer to tell me how actually Biden is the most progressive president in history. I get they don’t want to acknowledge bidens conservative leaning in fear it might hurt him at the polls. What they dont realize for every one person you’re telling don’t believe your own eyes you’re maybe only keeping one person from straying from party line. But that person you just showed the dems true colors to, for them, you’ve tainted the party forever.
From my outside perspective the whole democratic party is conservative lite.
Oh it’s pretty obvious with an internal perspective too as long as you don’t fall for their propaganda about being to the left and instead look at their policies
Ooooh… the liberals are about to hand the fascists the keys to the tanks.
We did the same in 2016. I forget what happened as I lapsed into a 4 year alcohol fueled amnesia. But I can’t imagine that it was too bad. /s
Nope. Not yet. The right-wingers thought they could install overt fascism without the help of liberals - they thought wrong. They tried to win the streets - antifa beat booted them off it. They got their Great Orange Fuhrer into the Waffle House - liberal disdain isolated him and booted him out. What needs to happen is liberals being frightened to such an extent of working class revolt that the violence fascists offers becomes the “lesser evil” - and a good first step is to find hysteria “hot button” issues that liberals are too ignorant and naive to see through… like above-mentioned “protect the children” trope.
part 2 of this bill:
just so we’re all clear on the purpose of this bill.
All the fascist hentai guys on 4chan are about to commit mass suicide or a mass shooting
The guys who run 4chan are going to be facing life in jail.
What the heeell? (can’t get a more productive comment after reading that, sorry)
Wtf
Wha… What the fuck!?!
The internet is about to move to the rest of the world if this passes, no one will host a web server in the US after this.
The problem is where? The EU is trying to apply similar censorship via the DSA, Russia we all know is LGBTphobic and not truly for free speech, Canada is a joke, and China is lol. Not even sure if Japan is viable.
What do you mean by China is lol?
Seems pretty clear from context, China is an autocratic state well known to engage in censorship when it fits the party’s desires.
And which governments don’t engage in censorship when it fits their desires lol
Which is his point,right? Like where else would you go to host if all governments engage in this BS
The arguments presented are so terrible and devoid of any meaninful substance
The first one was “China lol”
Then the one I replied to in support of “China lol” said “autocratic state” which is absolutely false unless all of your knowledge about China’s governance system comes from reading CNN headlines and skimming Reuters articles written by a dude with a bachelor’s in journalism that doesn’t speak Chinese
They also said “well known to” which implies it’s a special case when every state exerts overwhelming control and censorship over the media that occurs within their country
Isn’t the CCP given explicit power and privilege in the Chinese government and isn’t the CCP’s officially headed by a permanent leader as it’s “core”? I’ve been trying read about the political structure and it’s hard to not argue that it seems very autocratic.
Your whataboutism isn’t really useful here, I’m just responding to the question about China. The point of his response was that there isn’t really any place left to go. And even if your response was relevant it would be laughable, the censorship that the Chinese government perpetrates puts most other countries to shame.
this is a thread about the US though? Who whatabouts the whatabouter?
Your reading comprehension is pretty low. My original comment was specifically in response to another individual questioning why the idea of hosting servers in China to escape censorship was “lol”. That’s it.
Whataboutism, checkmate tankie
I mean, you are a tankie. You sub to hexbear. China isn’t an autocratic state hahaha okayyyyy surrrrre. Just a single party “democracy” right?
And that has affected you outside China operating a server based there when?
I don’t understand, please rephrase your question.
What don’t you understand about it? How has it ever affected you? Can you name a single time it has?
China does not care unless you live within its borders, and even there it only really cares when it is someone of influence, such as the rich capital owners or the celebrities.
My friend, read the thread. You’re getting triggered over someone laughing at the idea of westerners hosting web content in China to escape censorship.
I just didn’t understand the way your question was worded because it was garbled. I don’t have any reason to host a data server and I don’t live in China, so you got me, I’ve never been personally impacted by Chinese government censorship and repression. Obviously that means it doesn’t exist, QED.
But oh, as long as I make sure not to upset anyone rich or in power I would be fine, don’t worry. Do you ever read what you type?
Didn’t a lesbian kiss get edited out of Star Wars Rise of Skywalker for the Chinese release? Just as one example
Why are you automatically blaming China for that? How do you know that decision wasn’t made by the film directors/company? Unfortunately, propaganda runs deep and people easily believe whatever they want to believe
“Authorities in Dubai and in Singapore’s media regulatory board, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), threatened Disney and Lucasfilm to either cut a brief lesbian kiss from the end of Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker or else lose their film’s PG-13 rating … While Chinese censors allowed the kiss to stay, an R rating in Singapore would’ve made the film inaccessible to its younger fans, hurting its financial success abroad.”
It was the first Google search result
Disney and Lucasfilm are the ones to blame for chasing profit
many such cases
Don’t know about the kiss, but they basically edited out John Boyega almost entirely for the overseas release.
I consider that an absolute win for queers. Corporate pandering can eat shit.
If we’re using anecdotes, one of China’s most famous TV personalities (Jin Xing) is openly transgender
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This is like saying, “I’m not a racist I have a black friend”
I’m trans. No it isn’t.
Claiming that China is actively repressing this while literally employing and front-facing transgender people is absurd. Where are the famous transgender TV personalities employed by the BBC? Britain’s state owned media.
China is visibly trying to improve things for trans people compared to the country I’m currently in (the UK) and your absurdness about it is obviously built on racism because you don’t behave this way about white countries. You only behave this way about non-white countries. Where is your equal criticism? Where is this behaviour when it’s all the white countries that behave this way? You’re american right? Where is it for YOUR country which is currently illegalising trans people, undergoing state sanctioned murder against trans people and having an internal refugee crisis because of it. Where the fuck are the federal protections to prevent this genocide being perpetrated by red states? Non existent. Because democrat support for trans people is performative.
So excuse me but fuck off about criticising China on trans people. You’re a shit.
Lol
China isn’t censoring their internet because you’re a trans person who lives in the UK, BBC doesn’t have trans personalities, and certain US politicians are attacking trans rights? Wow, what an argument.
Also I’m racist for pointing out authoritarianism from an authoritarian government?
You’re doing a terrible job with your concern trolling. Put in some effort at least.
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I’m sure tech company’s could just stick their servers in the Virgin Islands or some other fucking tax haven.
There’s some wisdom in the old soviet anecdote
The Internet is still mostly connected, the law enforcement is not as much. Many businesses exist only because of this. You are free to host (produce, store, distribute) your content where it is legal and access it from where it is not. Access to foreign resources may eventually be outlawed or the access itself restricted. This is already the case in EU, Russia, China, etc. - but for now Internet is mostly connected.
How is the DSA in any way similar to this?
Japan has terrible international peering.
In what way is Canada a joke? Like, I’m not saying it isn’t, but our online freedom is pretty good. We don’t actually have a state sponsored censorship campaign, VPNs are legal, TOR is legal, all we legislate is that you aren’t inciting violence or calling for the extermination of a protected group of people or doing shady dark web shit. Pretty much everything else is good to go.
In the way that there are MAGAs up north. Like, come on bois, there’s no need for that shit.
which, considering that the U.S considers accessing a server based in the U.S grounds to extradite a person from the otherside of the world and try them for a capital crime might not be such a bad thing.
It is why more need to support the decentralized movement as then there is not centralized group you can choke to get your draconian ways.
I emailed my senators, both Democrats. One wrote me back telling me how proud they were of co-sponsoring the bill. The other told me how important it is to protect kids from the dangers of social media. WTF.
WTF indeed. But, thanks for emailing them – they track how much email they get in each direction, and if there’s enough they may rethink their position.
Unfortunately this is just ONE of MANY bad internet bills currently up for consideration and with bipartisan support. Help fight all of them at https://badinternetbills.com
[email protected] is tracking all the bad internet bills … right now KOSA’s where the most action is.
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‘Free Speech’ mfs really do like their blasphemy laws.
Yeah, no, it was always the second one.
Horrifying to see Biden and the Dems unite with the Republicans on an anti-LGBT+ bill.
In a few years, if you’re not willing to vote with a brick and a molotov, then your vote doesn’t count.
most US dems have the stance of “compromise at all costs” which always just means the conservatives get what they want.
US dems are just conservatives with people pleaser syndrome.
Well, they sure aren’t pleasing me.
It is incredibly typical.
My reaction to the sponsor list would be the shocked Pikachu meme.
You should have seen Biden and the Dems unite w Republicans to make gay marriage and gay military service illegal the first time and they’ll keep doing it too
Biden and the Dems are right-leaning centrists.
Actual progressives caucus with them because what choice do we have? Refusing to do so effectively gives control of the most powerful nation in the history of the world to a psychotic doomsday cult who never met a minority that they didn’t hate with all of their Christian hearts™.
Kinda makes me wonder if we’ll ever have a proper left-wing party in this country since, at this point, saying that poor people should be given a 30 second head start before being hunted by their social betters is considered by Conservatives to be radical Marxism.
“The internet is about to get a lot worse (US focused)” uhh
spoiler
everyday is the same but slightly worse