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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."

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[-] nicktron@kbin.social 142 points 1 year ago

More of them “freedoms” that you yanks are always going on about?

[-] cantsurf@lemm.ee 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, no, it's "free dumbs". As in, they were giving away stupidity for free, so we each took as much as we could carry.

[-] Fazoo@lemmy.ml 42 points 1 year ago

Experiencing a protracted regression of sanity, similar to Brexit.

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[-] Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml 131 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ah yes.. forever and again, the siren song of children being used as an excuse for draconian, rights eroding legislation.. its amazing how much responsibility parents have shirked to the state as they replace babysitters with cellphones and tablets.

[-] GarfieldYaoi@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

grillman: "You REALLY want little Billy to read a tweet that makes him think he's not perfect because he's white!? YOU MONSTER! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to relentlessly stalk and then bully this freak I found on KiwiFarms for the crime of not being a good normal like me!"

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[-] Disgusted_Tadpole@lemmy.ml 99 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, children security. Of course.

[-] SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de 89 points 1 year ago

And then everybody slaps a "Only for 18+, fill in your birth day" on their site and nobody can legally claim it's harming children.

[-] Kikkertje@aussie.zone 75 points 1 year ago

And suddenly everyone was born on Jan 1st, 2000

[-] sunbytes@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

I'm not doing maths to keep it at 18 each year.

I do 1900 lol

[-] Supermuff@feddit.de 28 points 1 year ago

You still live in 2018?

People born in 2000 are 23

[-] sunbytes@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

I didn't say I was going to do maths for you either ;)

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[-] wagoner@infosec.pub 47 points 1 year ago

Which you will need to prove by sending your personal identification to a commercial third party provider. Who will eventually get hacked and your data will be leaked.

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[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 42 points 1 year ago

This is how it works on YouTube now, the rules for kids content are draconic and you risk your account, so everybody just says "this is not for kids" on all videos.

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[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 85 points 1 year ago

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

[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.sdf.org 28 points 1 year ago

!bad_internet_bills@lemmy.sdf.org is tracking all the bad internet bills ... right now KOSA's where the most action is.

[-] anon232@lemm.ee 82 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Sleazy_Albanese@hexbear.net 53 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] Madison_rogue@kbin.social 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’m shocked that the first openly gay senator Tammy Baldwin is a co-sponsor for the bill. You bet I’m writing her.

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[-] spez@sh.itjust.works 57 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know how American voters can stand for this, how can you re-elect people who cause your children to get shot in schools and believe the same people have set out to protect them with things like these?

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[-] silentdon@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago

Why would you oppose this? Don't you want children to be safe online? Won't anybody please think of the children? /s

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[-] GarfieldYaoi@hexbear.net 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

frothingfash in 2014: "Stupid SJWs, my rights don't end where your feelings begin."

frothingfash now: "Stupid SJWs, your rights end where my ego begins."

'Free Speech' mfs really do like their blasphemy laws.

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[-] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 44 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately I live in a backwards, ignorant red state represented by complete idiots. The last time I wrote to my representatives asking them to oppose something like this they wrote back saying "the agree fully" and then went on to explain that they would definitely support it and thanked me for backing them... Then went on to show a complete lack of understanding of the bill in question.

And I've been on his email list ever since despite clicking unsubscribe probably 30 times. The crusty sock puppet probably thinks that means "show me more" based on how he responded to my initial email.

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[-] Daft_ish@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] Gawanoh@feddit.de 26 points 1 year ago

From my outside perspective the whole democratic party is conservative lite.

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[-] Zink@programming.dev 42 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] richietozier4@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago

Knowing this will probably be passed like

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[-] Salix@sh.itjust.works 39 points 1 year ago

"Think of the children" is such a dumb excuse that people keep using in the US to pass laws that restricts citizens and are anti-privacy.

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[-] Antiwork@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago
[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 35 points 1 year ago

For fucking what? This is bipartisan!

[-] Kuori@hexbear.net 42 points 1 year ago

don't worry, they're making fun of liberals who claim voting will cure all societal ills

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[-] HowMany@lemmy.ml 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I would appreciate governments, especially the American government, refraining from passing laws "for the children". They never are. They never work. They are a scam that gives the appearance of being beneficial to all while only benefiting a few. They accomplish nothing the scam indicates it will and instead turns out to be another overreach of government power.

No more "for the children" nonsense from any government - it's not about them and you know it.

You want to pass something for the good of the children? GET RID OF THE GODDAM GUNS.

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[-] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

Why would a state attorney generally have any oversight over the content of the internet? That seems way out of scope for their job

[-] M68040@hexbear.net 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I hang around a bunch of artists who make money through NSFW art...or shit, they just draw it for fun. This isn't gonna be great for them. Why should me and my friends' thirty year old asses have to hold back so Little Timmy doesn't see a boob or something? Shouldn't their parents be the ones making sure that doesn’t happen?

[-] silent_water@hexbear.net 33 points 1 year ago

part 2 of this bill:

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.

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[-] Bizarroland@kbin.social 30 points 1 year ago

I don't know if I'm in the right here but I'm practically at the point where I'm just like fuck it, let them ruin the internet.

I want to hear them scream when because of their own actions they have tanked the companies that their retirements are depending on.

Let's see how fast they can fix shit when they have 35 million angry retirees that hold 78% of the wealth in the country mad at them and telling them to fix it.

[-] skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 59 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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[-] Fazoo@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 year ago

"would give the attorney general of every state, including red states, the right to sue"

What a weird distinction to make. I know they're getting squirrelly, but they still technically count in the "every state" column.

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[-] masquenox@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 year ago

Ooooh... the liberals are about to hand the fascists the keys to the tanks.

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[-] faerydaes@midwest.social 27 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A bill like this has merit if it's targeted at real problems, like the sources of fascist growth and propaganda that have existed on the internet for decades.

As per usual the US isn't interested in going after the fascists though. This will absolutely be used against already marginalised people and the left, by which I mean socialists. There's a reason it has bipartisan support.

[-] silent_water@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago

yeah, Rs have already been bragging that they're going to use this to go after queer communities online.

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[-] rothaine@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago
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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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