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."

  • SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de
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    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.

    • wagoner@infosec.pub
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      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.

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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      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.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        YouTube music will not let you put a “for kids” marked song on a playlist! It kind of sucks for putting my KID’s favorite goofy songs on my KID’s playlist. The kid’s playlist that is composed entirely of content not marked “for kids” because that’s all that is possible.

      • SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        I’m curious how that’s going to work in international context. Everything to do with the queer community suddenly has a link to .ca or .mx domain and server park outside the country where this doesn’t apply for example. Or reddit suddenly checks with the authorities in Zimbabwe if the ID is valid.

            • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              the US controls the international money supply. the loopholes employed by those companies are very easily closed as is the ability of companies headquartered outside the US to operate within its borders. companies will fall in line. and any support granted by other countries are easily neutered by shocking the money supply.