Finally my plansJul 29, 2023
Yoko's Asterisk 🏳️‍⚧

This is the best explanation I've found of how terrible the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is. It's probably worse than you thought, even in its amended form. Please call your reps now!

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/kids-online-safety-act-still-huge-danger-our-rights-online

The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online

Are you a young person fighting back against bad bills like KOSA? Become an EFF member at a new, discounted Neon membership level specifically for you--stickers included! Congress has resurrected the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that would increase surveillance and restrict access to...

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Jul 26, 2023 at 5:02pmWeb
Show threadaustin, not your sweet babooJul 26, 2023
@charliejane to deliberately ignorant and hateful dinguses, the biggest threats to children are not starvation (one in five children in america suffer malnutrition and lack of food), but the idea that kids might self-express or think about self expression after reading.
Show threadAccordionBruceJul 26, 2023

@charliejane
Thanks for the kick in the pants đź‘–

Sent letters!

Favorite bit:

“It seems like it will give attorneys general of the states an impossible job. Each one of them will have the role of deciding what the Internet will be in each state

“In places like China that has taken a significant amount of infrastructure. I can’t imagine how each office of the Attorneys General is going to take on that role

“Much less how it’s going to end up working as far as censorship in each state”

Show threadAccordionBruceJul 26, 2023

@charliejane
Seriously, how is each individual state going to afford to censor the fucking Internet?

They can and will drag themselves down doing harm, but damn

Some prove themselves capable of taking away plenty of rights while having the lowest standards of living

Maybe that’s how they afford it

Show threadtoxtethogradyJul 26, 2023
@charliejane There is no reason to approve a Kids Online Safety Act unless it is applied immediately and retroactively to Marjorie Taylor Greene for waving Hunter Biden's penis in front of C-SPAN cameras and the general public...
Show threadDario LandazuriJul 26, 2023
@charliejane It might be spitting into the wind, but I just tried tagging George Takei on Twitter with this link and asked him to spread the word.
Show threadOro reincarnateJul 27, 2023
@kuoirad @charliejane he's also on the fediverse at @georgetakei :)
Show threadDario LandazuriJul 27, 2023
@orodoeshavetwoos @charliejane @georgetakei I know, but it seems like he's more active over on Twitter, and I figured he still had a bigger reach over there. Hoping he/his team can look it over and hopefully post something in the next day or two?
Show threadJohn LutherJul 26, 2023
@charliejane If you live in the US, Resistbot makes it very easy to write to your representatives in Congress and the White House to protest this kind of nonsense. Text 'resist' to ‭50409‬
Show threadAri CohnJul 26, 2023
@charliejane It got worse yesterday, with a substitute amendment: https://techfreedom.org/kosa-still-poses-a-grave-threat-to-first-amendment-rights/
Show threadmybarkingdogsJul 27, 2023

@charliejane Honestly the combined press for KOSA + the healthcare erasure feels a whole lot like how other countries' LGBTQIA+ communities got shoved back into the closet

the far right has playbooks for this stuff. It's used and is using them in Russia, Poland, Hungary, now Italy...

Show threadChris (He/Him)Jul 27, 2023

@charliejane I suspect that this bill keeps getting put forward because there isn't an adequate way to alleviate parents concerns about what their kids see online, but it won't stop representatives from serving up some dangerous options so they can say they tried to fix the issue.

The fact of the matter is that trying to hold platforms responsible for the content users post is just going to make user-generated content too dangerous to host for most sites. It's not even going to solve the problem anyway because, like we all know, seek and you shall find. It's just going to push users into less secure parts of the internet to find what may be deemed controversial in their area. This better not gain any traction or the web is toast.

Show threadJoe HelfrichJul 27, 2023
@charliejane If it passes, I hope the EFF will take my case to challenge it, because a censored internet makes me anxious and depressed.
Show threadkytynJul 27, 2023
@charliejane When I wrote my red-state senators I pointed out that blue-state attorneys general could use the “dangers of guns to kids” as an excuse to ban the NRA website. Since they both get money from the NRA hopefully it will get them to consider the repercussions.
Show threadspheruliticJul 29, 2023
@charliejane and yet the things that will actually make us safe online — data protection regulations, enforcing antitrust law, taxing corporations and building a civil society — aren’t even on the table. Great job, morons.