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."
The real issue here isn't the internet...
The real issue is that this creates a new weapon of mass distraction that both Dems and reps can and will use against their opposition in the political fuck fuck games of the future.
Might be reps are gonna jump on it to go after the alphabet soup kids today (no objection to there being an acronym, but fucking pick one...), but invariably, the people who are bitching about how this will be weaponised by "the other guys" are 100% within a decade going to be firing rounds off using the exact same gun and think it's totally ok suddenly because the other guys are the target.
They probably already know what they'll be shooting at with it, because both sides are supporting it.
Indeed. I have a feeling it'll be used to basically sanitize what we're allowed to see, furthering the assholes' control over the American people. If this passes, VPNs and encryption will be right around the corner, because now they're 'circumvention' devices kids and 'bad actors' use to skirt the law.
Haha soon there will be Tiktok video tutorials of how to setup TOR.
The issue with Tor is exit nodes is that they're routinely targeted for takedown due to CP
People that show any signs of class solidarity.
as an aside, there might not be much fuck fuck after KOSA gets enacted. won't somebody please think of the children!