KOSA is dead. Now it’s time to unite to take on Big Tech for real.
www.fightforthefuture.org
The controversial and unconstitutional Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is officially dead in the House of Representatives. Reporting indicates that there was significant opposition to the bill within the Republican caucus, and it faced vocal opposition from prominent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL). Digital rights group Fight for the Future, […]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/20332183

Fight for the Future writes:

“The controversial and unconstitutional Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is officially dead in the House of Representatives. Reporting indicates that there was significant opposition to the bill within the Republican caucus, and it faced vocal opposition from prominent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL).”

Evan Greer:

"KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe. I am so proud of the LGBTQ youth and frontlines advocates who have led the opposition to this dangerous and misguided legislation. It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief. It’s infuriating that Congress wasted so much time and energy on a deeply flawed and controversial bill while failing to advance real measures to address the harms of Big Tech like privacy, antitrust and algorithmic justice legislation. "

Thanks to everybody who took action ove the last year to stop this bill!

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Article doesn’t say why republicans opposed it, but I guess this is one of those “broken clock” moments where they were accidentally right but for the wrong reasons.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          The condensed version is that it creates a lot of avenues for a very loose definition of “keeping kids safe” that could easily include “information about dealing with bigoted family” being called “dangerous” at the discretion of an executive branch appointee who thinks that lgbtq identity is “unsafe”.

          It also provides more avenues for the government to remove otherwise legal speech from the Internet entirely on the grounds that they have asserted that it’s “bad for children”.
          This is literally the long running joke about how you pass draconian laws, and would only be made more on the nose if it was “keeping patriotic kids online safe for the future tax cuts of American freedom”

          In general, the government should not be able to silence speech that isn’t immediately and unambiguously harmful.

          • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.todayEnglish
            01·
            5 months ago

            Well the text does very specifically state it would trigger investigation of things that have caused harm, but yeah it’s not worth the risk if the FTC decides what harm is.

  • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.ggEnglish
    01·
    5 months ago

    It’s a weird day when I’m happy the Republicans teamed up with progressives to stopped a bipartisan bill.

    I’m pretty irritated with Sherrod Brown on this one for voting for it in the senate.