KOSA, the “Kids Online Safety Act”, sounds good. Who doesn’t want to keep kids safe? But as over 90 LGBTQ and human rights organizations said last year, KOSA would harm LGBTQ+ youth especially, and could be weaponized by Attorneys General to censor online resources and information for queer and trans youth, people seeking reproductive healthcare, and more.
And it’s not just a hypothetical concern! This article from a couple months ago includes a screenshot of a Heritage Foundation tweet talking about how they’ll KOSA to attack trans-related content – because after all, they think that censoring trans-related content is “protecting kids”.
So if you’re in the US, please contact your Senators and ask them to oppose KOSA.
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if you prefer the phone, you can call the US Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. The bill number is S. 1409. Your message doesn’t have to be fancy: “KOSA won’t keep kids safe” is enough if they’re Republicans; if they’re Democrats you can add “and it will harm LGBTQ+ teens”.
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or, https://resist.bot/ lets you contact your legislators by texting or using Messenger, Apple Messages, WhatsApp .
The EFF form is very easy to fill out and use! Please do take a minute of your time to fill it in.
I am so fucking sick of these ancient Democratic lawmakers supporting an awful proposal because they do not fundamentally understand the internet. We constantly have to fight shit like this back.
Also, the Heritage Foundation just going mask off and basically laughing about it… they know that their overall perception doesn’t matter, and they can get away with it because their base eats this up. I wish them all the worst.
As an elderly person who has been online 30+ years, I am so unbelievably exhausted by the endless sea of power hungry technophobes that somehow float to the top of government.
I hate to go for the tired old saw of ‘no more old people’, especially since we have a fresh crop of younger (under 50) people who are just as stupid, venal and completely lost around anything more technologically complex than a cup of water… but maybe we should stop electing and re-electing people who are old enough to have considered retirement in the private sector a decade or two prior?
As for the Heritage Foundation. Other than the very small handful of ‘reasonable’ conservative groups (aka those being targeted by the GQP as a whole such as Log Cabin Republicans), they’re all going mask off. And have been since 2016.
I dont know why people in congress even try to directly regulate the internet anymore, we figured this out a long time ago. For example the law that makes CP illegal is a broad law that applies generally and includes the internet. Like if we want a practice to be illegal it should he broadly illegal. KOSA is awful and 100% misguided. We need a privacy bill not KOSA
Totally agree that we need a good privacy bill – and if the proposed ADPPA consumer privacy moves forward again this year, we’ll need to get involved on that to push to strengthen it (because last year’s version had huge loopholes, including some that left LGBTQ+ people’s personal data at risk).
