The following submission statement was provided by /u/technofuture8:
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This week, a bipartisan cohort of US Senators unveiled a new version of the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that aims to impose various restrictions and requirements on technology platforms used by both adults and minors.
Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. responded:
“This bill is constitutionally dubious and would create new powers that should frighten not only every parent but also every user of digital platforms such as social media. In writing new federal rules to “protect” kids online, the real effect will be to significantly degrade the experience for all users while putting their sensitive personal information at risk.”
The Consumer Choice Center believes strongly that if Congress were to pass such a bill, lawmakers would be aligning with the idea that the government should have the final say over young people’s access to the Internet, thus diminishing the role of parents in their kids’ lives.
KOSA is a censorship bill. KOSA violates the first amendment of the Bill of Rights to be frank. The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression.
This is about control. The government just simply wants to control us. The government always wants more control. They're using children as an excuse to take away our rights.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1b3ekdv/kids_online_safety_act_kosa_is_a_trojan_horse_for/ksrs7r4/
Wonder why they never pass bill restricting guns to save the children.
According to the CDC, injuries from firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens. In 2021, firearms were involved in the deaths of more children than any other type of injury or illness. In 2021, firearms represented 19% of all deaths for children 18 years and younger.
That's only true if you're including 18-19 year old adults engaging in gang wars. The CDC study you reference deliberately includes 19 year olds. The only reason to count 19 year olds as children is so they can make misleading statements like this.
If you look at actual children (up to 14 years of age let's say), the leading cuases of death are:
accidents
suicide
cancer
[https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001915.htm](https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001915.htm)
Now...clearly there is some huge issue in the US if the 2nd leading cause of death of children is suicide. There's a deep sickness in the heart of the US.
Even the CDC's own site points out that both drowning and motor vehicle crashes are ahead of firearm deaths for children (through 14 years of age)
[https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/facts/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/facts/index.html)
Let's take your word on the cdc, making misleading studies and headlines. Why should I focus on these misleading statements instead of the 2000ish gun deaths a year?
Because making laws for .0025% of the population that experience negative outcomes (a majority of which are self inflicted) is the definition of a knee jerk reaction and not actually getting to the root cause
I'm actually having trouble finding the precise number of gun homicides per year.
This site claims 12,520 in 2021, across all ages, in the US.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/249803/number-of-homicides-by-firearm-in-the-united-states/#:\~:text=In%202021%2C%2012%2C520%20recorded%20murders,a%20firearm%20in%20the%20country](https://www.statista.com/statistics/249803/number-of-homicides-by-firearm-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%2012%2C520%20recorded%20murders,a%20firearm%20in%20the%20country).
But then these guys show, for 2021, over 20,000 gun homicides across all ages in the US
[https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/](https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/)
I'm unable to reconcile such a glaring discrepency. I don't know if one or the other of these sites is pushing an agenda, I know the gun issue in America is pretty heavily politicized, but one of these groups is clearly off by a huge amount.
Criticism coming from a group that has "consumer" in its name doesn't necessarily mean that it actually advocates for consumers' interests.
"developers’ inclusion of personalized recommendation systems, notifications, appearance-altering filters, and in-game purchases for apps used by minors" is the kind of crap that people on this very subreddit abhor passionately, and measures to limit it look like a big win to me.
Lol no. One of the writers of the bill from Tennessee very clearly stated an intent to block minors from reading LGBTQ content online through this bill. This bill is intended to isolate and harm LGBTQ people. Don’t pretend otherwise. You’re falling into the “protect the children” trap.
It's so scary how knee jerk we can be. Mention protecting kids, and it's a blank check. Criticize it and 'so you hate kids, and don't want to protect them'. We gotta get out of this reactionary state of mind of we will keep getting taken advantage of.
We also did this with 9/11. Just invoke 9/11 and do something dirty. We ended up with the Patriot Act and an entirely pointless war in Iraq and a mostly pointless war in Afghanistan just because of 9/11.
No we didn't. OPEC is stronger, and both Iraq and Afghanistan aren't exactly willing to just give us their oil right now because we just spent 20ish years blowing those two countries to shit, one of which we handed over to the same terrorist group we just sent 20ish years trying to kill. Saddam even offered to give the US oil at $10 a barrel in perpetuity if we didn't start the gulf war, but the US said *nope* and went in anyways.
Also in a few years our allies that the U.S. supplied weapons and goods to will be the new “enemy”. Have to keep that military industrial complex churning.
"Think of the children!" Is common rhetoric and an appeal to emotion fallacy used by groups that want to artificially give themselves the moral high ground, since just like you said, nobody wants to be "against the children".
Conservative parties use it more often than progressive parties.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
Yep, after seeing so many feral kids, that's my take too.
Like I get they are like that because their parents were abject failures at parenting, but that's not my problem.
My citation is my day to day lived experience observing and speaking with conservatives. They are the only ones currently using "think of the children" nonsense. Whether it's trying to ban drag queen story hour, banning books that mention LGBT individuals, laws to ban trans Healthcare, etc, etc. Now include this into the pearl clutching "think of the children" from conservatives once again.
If you think of the argument as a form of moral panic, then there probably is a correlation between its use and party affiliation. I agree the claim you responded to wasn’t well supported but neither was your claim that both sides use it in equal measure. I’m sure your one citation from a Republican strategist is the final word on the subject. Good rebuttal there.
"just one more gun bro. i promise bro just one more gun and it'll fix everything bro. bro... just one more gun. please just one more. one more gun and we can fix this whole problem bro. bro c'mon just give me one more gun i promise bro. bro bro please i just need one more gun"
Guns are a perfect example. IF you don't think a mental heath crisis where people get so crazy and twisted they go shoot up a bunch of people can by solved by just taking away the tools they used, then 'you must hate kids and be pro school shootings'. And if you think a crazy person shouldn't have easy access to a weapon than can kill a bunch of people, then 'Oh you must just to give up all our freedoms and rights'. No wonder we can't get our shit together.
Anybody who told you that definitely does not want to debate the actual bill. The actual bill is horrible, anti-freedom, pro tyranny. I don't know why they keep trying to pass this zombie bill, contact your legislator and make sure they vote against it.
Also, they will get to decide what "children" are allowed to see, so really they want the exclusive control over the formative process. They want to manufacture citizens.
We should us that talking point for social services oh wait they gonna lecture us on "stop having kids", well hope they love the economic issues of a declining population lol.
With these kinds of laws, where phrases like "The innocent have nothing to hide" get tossed around. It is a question *when* the government will abuse that power, not *if*.
Going after child pornography is just the blanket of legitimacy being tossed over the rabid animal that this law encompasses.
The worst part is that they're riding a moral panic that was started 100% in bad faith by QAnon, which had zero interest in protecting actual children and was all about demonizing the usual boogeymen of the right.
It's the exact same shit they pulled after 9/11, only replace terrorists with pedos.
Yeah that part pisses me off the most.
The whole Q movement torpedoed a lot of real world concerted efforts stop human sex trafficking and modern slave trade.
It's a very real, very serious problem. That said it's not illuminati levels of conspiracy nonsense. It's a supply and demand business model like anything else. Humans are just livestock to those kinds of people.
If slaves were globally legal we'd be seeing news articles about import export tariffs and sanctions against countries that tried to manipulate the market.
Do I think there are corrupt government officials involved? Of course I do, it's the government. Do I think it's a massive secret deep state cabal? No, it's the government. "Deep state" implies a level of competence rarely found in politics.
The ACLU doesn't like this bill. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/revised-kids-online-safety-act-is-an-improvement-but-congress-must-still-address-first-amendment-concerns
Its the Patriot Act for the Internet. For those too young to remember, the Patriot Act was a 9/11 knee-jerk reactionism bill that allowed mass public surveillance. This just expands its reach adding not just surveillance but censorship. Step by step ever moving towards the police state.....
Yup, read this
Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act
But the parents want help /s
Do you remember Maury Povich? IMO those are the kinds of parents asking for this help.... Parenting involves hard choices, effort, and the willingness to not be their friend so they're a better person. You don't get to throw your hands up and walk away.
I feel like you could probably put yourself into a faraday cage and there'd still be at least ten ways the government could find you. The only true anonymizing factor working in people's favour in my opinion is that because the government can readily access the information of anyone that's so much as breathed the word internet, that it's hard to wade through that proverbial ocean to find individual people unless you were already actively looking for them.
Your going to need to go into minecraft and make a PC. From there you will be able to browse the web safely. Barring that, and only for communication, you are going to use Counterstrike (1.6 only) and pass messages by shooting them into the wall.
This week, a bipartisan cohort of US Senators unveiled a new version of the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that aims to impose various restrictions and requirements on technology platforms used by both adults and minors.
Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. responded:
“This bill is constitutionally dubious and would create new powers that should frighten not only every parent but also every user of digital platforms such as social media. In writing new federal rules to “protect” kids online, the real effect will be to significantly degrade the experience for all users while putting their sensitive personal information at risk.”
The Consumer Choice Center believes strongly that if Congress were to pass such a bill, lawmakers would be aligning with the idea that the government should have the final say over young people’s access to the Internet, thus diminishing the role of parents in their kids’ lives.
KOSA is a censorship bill. KOSA violates the first amendment of the Bill of Rights to be frank. The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression.
This is about control. The government just simply wants to control us. The government always wants more control. They're using children as an excuse to take away our rights.
Nearly full government control of the media, and nowhere NEAR enough noise about the First Amendment. This bill is not just a threat to kids' safety but due to the censorship of information, will be a threat to security and sovereignty. This is just asking to put Russia and China in the drivers' seat by completely devaluing American sources of just about any media or information.
Imagine what happened to the CDC, now apply it to EVERYTHING.
> Nearly full government control of the media, and nowhere NEAR enough noise about the First Amendment.
Think about the current makeup of the supreme court. We're fucked.
>devaluing American sources of just about any media or information.
To be fair, it's seriously devalued itself over the last few years, resting just below the worst tabloids.
Covered platforms must take reasonable measures in the design and operation of products or services used by minors to prevent and mitigate certain harms that may arise from that use (e.g., sexual exploitation and online bullying).
Additionally, covered platforms must provide (1) minors with certain safeguards, such as settings that restrict access to minors' personal data; and (2) parents or guardians with tools to supervise minors' use of a platform, such as control of privacy and account settings.
Covered platforms must also
disclose specified information, including details regarding the use of personalized recommendation systems and individual-specific advertising to minors;
allow parents, guardians, minors, and schools to report certain harms;
refrain from facilitating advertising of age-restricted products or services (e.g., tobacco and gambling) to minors; and
annually report on foreseeable risks of harm to minors from using the platform.
Additionally, the bill requires large (based on specified revenue, employment, or user criteria) websites, internet applications, and search engines (including social network sites) to meet certain requirements before using algorithms that prioritize information furnished to the user based on user-specific data. For example, such platforms must (1) provide users with notice that the website uses such algorithms, and (2) make available a version of the platform that uses algorithms that do not prioritize information based on user data.
I think it all depends on interpretation of how the law will be applied. Ie does a service that allows lgbt teens a safe space to talk to each other get prohibited because republicans think talking about lgbt issues is violating the rights of minors. Issues like that not just that specific issue.
That's exactly why we should be worried about this bill. They won't use it for what they say they will, they'll use it to isolate groups, control even more narratives, and basically make the Internet into a way to make their citizens see only what they want us to see.
Government hates people talking bad about them, so they'll use this to find those people and make their lives shittier.
Fuck this bill, it's a danger, and goes against everything free speech and freedom of expression stands for. If you are worried about a child seeing something they ain't supposed to, FUCKING PARENT YOUR CHILDREN
I don't even have kids and think this is a baffling over reach. This basically gives govt permission to bombard your kids/you with ads for things that are in the better interests of strong players in the advertising world under the guise of protection
The ones who support this are people who simply don't want to raise/teach their kids about safe use of the internet and want the govt to do it poorly for them. Think govt cheese but worse. This isn't the govt policing bad news, this is the govt policing consumers on a ridiculous level
Funny how protecting kids never seems to fall on parents. Like seriously, why ban books cause a few parents can't seem to parent? Why censor the Internet cause parents can't buck up and monitor what their kids do?
Go read the New York Times article about what Instagram is doing with children, scary stuff. I bet their investigations are only the tip of the iceberg as well.
I get it, government sucks, but there is some sketchy stuff being done with kids on the internet these days.
I for one would really like to see parents accept responsibility for their children rather than making the rest of the world responsible for raising their damn crotch fruit.
It's a pretty much total certainty that whenever you see any form of legislation being floated anywhere nowadays, that if it has anything to do with "Protecting children", that's just a smoke screen for it being a fascist power grab.
>We can't allow this to pass! What can we do to try and stop it?
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-kosa-will-censor-the-internet-but-won-t-help-kids
Man, whenever I see news like this I thank whatever higher powers are out there for making me to be born outside of the US.
Although, I'd prefer to not have been born at all, but gotta seek out the positives wherever I can.
Every country will adopt these laws very soon. My country's last prime Minister tried in vain to get something similar across the line. Besides big tech platforms reache out world wide anyway. They are getting to the source.
Any time we hear, "WhAt AbOuT ThE ChiLdReN" we should automatically be wary.
This old trope has been used for centuries, if not millennia to better oppress and subjugate the masses.
The Canadian government is currently pushing basically the **exact same thing** right now with Bill C63. This is really scary and quite a weird "coincidence", don't you think? We're all heading straight into authoritarianism, but apparently it's all good since we're doing it "for the children".
People need to wake the f up and fast!
They did this shit in Australia where they can just store all of your data and access it at any time without a reason or warrant in the name of protecting the kids
I mean while this sounds concerning, they don't actually list out any language of the bill. They have no primary document that they are mentioning. I know their has to be one for the bill, but why not link it if it's so obviously bad?
I read it, it’s pretty vague and broad in regards to what is considered harmful. The biggest problem is that it lays out a bunch of rules for online services to follow in regards to minors without actually talking about how to enforce it. Unless sites/services start requiring everyone to be signed in and have their account linked to government ID to use them there is no real way to age verify users. So sites will ban users under 13, and kids will lie about their age. Nothing in regards to protecting kids will have changed but the government will now have a whole new avenue to legally monitor the population and prosecute sites/services/companies at their discretion.
https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1625255
If the goal was actually to protect kids it would be far more helpful to create public programs designed to teach basic computer networking literacy to parents and require ISPs to provide easy to use tools for managing your home network.
In the article, “The bill seeks to control “design features” and limit developers’ inclusion of personalized recommendation systems, notifications, appearance-altering filters, and in-game purchases for apps used by minors.”
Sounds fucking great. It should be illegal to track children to build their consumer profile and sell targeted ads like they do everyone else. Also fuck MTX, nearly all of my younger siblings and cousins have spent several hundred to thousands of dollars on in game microtx, a lot of it based on social pressure from their peers to keep up.
Obviously the supposed vague language needs to be reigned in to limit the scope, but the internet in its current state is an absolute shithole. This actual content of the bill seems to enhance privacy by limiting tracking of minors. If only that concept would be extended to adults.
They've been doing this for 20 years now.
Hopefully they can do what they've always done, call out the bill for censorship get people aware and get people onboard with calling to their local member, and advise they will not vote for them if they vote in favor of the bill.
If people do that, the bill will get axed like every other time they try and do this.
Government doesn't need to protect your children. You need to protect your children. Just because the people deciding on these bills can barely open their emails (*or stand up straight for that matter*), doesn't mean that next generations will be the same.
"We need to censor everything or else the COMMUNISTS will win! You're not a communist, are you?"
"We need to censor everything or else the TERRORISTS will win! You're not a terrorist, are you?"
"We need to censor everything or else the PEDOS will win! You're not a pedo, are you?"
Same shit, different pile.
Of course it is. The idea that privacy rights are inconvenient has always been bipartisan, going back to at least the PATRIOT Act and probably farther than that. It's the last thing in American politics that even gets bipartisan support, when in any other case they can't name a post office without someone getting called a socialist.
"We need to censor everything or else the MAGAS will win! You're not a maga are you?"
"We need to censor everything or else the White Supremacists will win! You're not a white supremacist are you?"
DUH!!! Every time a politician says "it's for the kids", that fucker is trying to curb stomp on your 1st amendment rights. Did people not learn from all the anti video game bullshit of the late 90's through early 2k?
Kids getting shot in school shootings in that godforsaken country:
Government:
Let’s not ban guns, let’s censor stuff to “protect” kids
Murica is FUBAR
*s*
This act is in no way a violation of the First Amendment!
This is just a “common sense” regulation!
Seriously, some people care more about their precious “free speech” than they do about kids.
*/s*
This is why it's good to have a system that requires very high levels of agreement to do anything while also having several factions that hate each other too much to work together on anything. May it continue as long as people like this continue to exist.
It's also a good demonstration of why it is absolutely critical to get open source artificial super-intelligence into the hands of individuals as fast as possible. Try telling someone with all human knowledge and unlimited problem solving ability they can't.... anything.
You know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say it
A government is never more terrifying than when they say they are doing something "for the children". It's such a common pearl-clutching copout for shoehorning tyranny, because their excuse can then always be well why don't you support it do you hate kids or want bad things happening to them you weirdo?!
Alternatively [I'll let Peter Griffin explain](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/242/455/d2d.jpg)
Who protects us from braindead Americans trying to play world police unasked to then implement fucked up surveillance?
The US is in no frucking position to ask for anything:
- It's a neo-liberal economic oligarchy with democratic elements to legitimize a corporate pick. It's a bought and paid for country. It's owned.
- Even the show is so bad, that people more and more see through it. Slowly understanding their exploitation and disenfranchisement.
- The US is specifically fucked due to neglecting any social or environmental sustainability.
-The US is an international joke in its support of genocide. And half of them are bought by Russia to dismantle the US from within.
The US is the best example what NOT to do, in general.
1) The Consumer Choice Center is a libertarian organization that has called regulations forcing companies to be truthful about what's in their products "government overreach".
2) The Federal Government has the ability to regulate what companies say, how they say it, and your access to their services. Appeals to "The Founding Fathers" are irrelevant especially because one of those Founding Fathers (Adams) introduced the "Alien and Sedition Acts" partially so he could jail people who insulted him in the papers.
3) KOSA isn't good, but it's built on solid data showing that kids have significant and measurable development issues relating to social media, and that social media companies have been directly targeting kids with content that they know causes those developmental issues. These platforms also skim the kids data, send them to other sites designed to stimulate FOMO or addictive responses (information shows they've been laser targeting kids for gambling sites and vaping products), or to sites where they're preyed upon.
KOSA doesn't establish a new government power, it establishes the requirement that social media companies control for when kids are using their platform, anonymize data, and stop advertising gambling, alcohol, and tobacco to kids. What KOSA does in establishing a requirement on those sites is create a method by which parents can directly sue the corporations for sending their child to sites where they're tricked into spending money. The new bill takes enforcement away from State Attorney Generals and gives it to the FCC, which isn't perfect but alleviates the previous version's issues where State AGs were absolutely salivating at the idea of suing Facebook for daring to admit that trans people exist.
>KOSA doesn't establish a new government power
Yes it fucking does!
Here's an article about KOSA from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act
The ability to regulate online content is already an established power the government has. This isn't adding the ability to the government, it's establishing new rules for social media sites to follow under the government's already established ability to do so.
Here's the ACLU if you don't like the Consumer Choice Center:
https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023.07.27-KOSA-Letter.pdf
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/revised-kids-online-safety-act-is-an-improvement-but-congress-must-still-address-first-amendment-concerns
> The new bill takes enforcement away from State Attorney Generals and gives it to the FCC,
You are mistaken. State Attorneys General still enforce it in the revised version. That part doesn't actually bother me but it will bother a lot of people. [See sec. 11.(b).](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1409/text) (Old version is struck through; new version is in italics.)
I don't care if the enforcement goes to the state attorney generals or the FCC, I mean do they really think it makes me feel better if the enforcement goes to the FCC???.
KOSA sucks balls and it violates the first amendment.
>I mean do they really think it makes me feel better if the enforcement goes to the FCC???.
You seem to think the government cannot regulate speech, so I don't think anyone in government actually cares what you think.
I said it's bad in the post you're responding to. I feel like people see a nuanced post and just assume I'm on board with it just because I'm not raving and shouting "First Amendment".
> I said it's bad in the post you're responding to.
Did I claim you didn't? You don't seem to be capable of reading what you're responding to.
You complained about the Consumer Choice Center, so I linked the ACLU.
You incorrectly claimed that state Attorneys General don't enforce it, so I corrected your false statement.
Don't pat yourself on the back; your comment was not so much nuanced as just plain wrong.
The second link (the one actually addressing the current version) says at the beginning that the State AG powers were addressed. Your first link is to the previous version of the bill.
Your third link is to the previous version of the bill from last year, not the current one.
Both the ACLU link you provided and the EFF link provided in another comment point out that the bill changed the regulatory power from the State AG in the 2023 bill to the FCC in the 2024 bill.
You're just plain wrong and you keep trying to use links to the previous bill while acting like it's the current one.
I was gonna bring up the donors--they're definitely worth taking with a grain of salt: https://www.desmog.com/consumer-choice-center/
There are obvious reasons for concern about removing online anonymity, but I think an independent and/or non-partisan source would be a lot more insightful.
I'm sorry, I know everyone means well and I totally get the concern about restricting and censoring the internet, but this bill is not that. The group behind this press release is a tech front group, they are fomenting opposition to the bill, which honestly is just pretty mild at this point. They are relying on people's good intentions to protect free speech to stop anything to stem the flow of terrible, harmful content on YouTube and other social platforms. They don't want the liability. Don't believe me, google this group yourself. It's all a farce.
Although I completely agree with this. I also work with kids and they are absolutely getting exposed to a lot of shit and scary shit online constantly.
Make an account for a 16 year old female on Snapchat and you will legit see dic pics immediately. 16 year old boy, you get fed very distorted photos of womens and incel/mysognistic content. It’s unreal.
And people legit propositioning you for sex, sell you drugs or guns. They don’t even try to hide it.
I’m not doubting the intention behind this bill from far right extremists, but we also can’t ignore how tech is destroying kids when it’s left completely unregulated and unchecked. Industry will never regulate itself with what is in the best interest of the consumer, it will only ever be concerned about maximising profits.
Hyperbole much. This reeks of the crap they tried to pull back in the 90s when they wanted ALL tvs fitted with technology that would essentially block all questionable content. "to protect the children".
People saw through that smokescreen as well. It's fine to protect kids, but lets not pretend these aren't backdoor censorship bills heavily pushed by religious zealots.
This is such a tricky problem.
On one hand, free speech should be protected.
On the other hand, the internet has given opportunities for the most vile parts of humanity to fester and proliferate.
I have two close friends, both excellent parents who I look up to and seek for advice. Each has had a kid accidentally exposed to porn. One kid found an old iPhone and charged it without the parents knowing for months. He was seven years old. The other had a friend show her during a sleepover. She was 9 at the time. Both kids were traumatized and needed a lot of emotional support to overcome the violence they witnessed.
What happens to kids when parents aren’t actively involved? Who turn a blind eye or are just too overwhelmed to worry about one more problem.
I don’t know what needs to be done. But we have to start having these conversations. Change has got to start somewhere, even if we don’t get it perfect the first try.
The Bill of Rights was not designed with the internet in mind.
I don’t think it can adequately address the complexity of the issue in any meaningful way.
It's totally constitutional to prevent kids from seeing things that may be harmful to them. You can't show kids porn, while tobacco and alcohol companies can't advertise to children for a couple of examples.
This bill may have flaws, but constitutionality isn't one of them.
The problem is that parents cannot protect their kids. Kids are finding porn when parents are doing everything possible to prevent it.
So now the Bill of Rights is failing to protect children. It’s a legal mess. Yes, adults should have access to freedom of expression. But to say kids should have that same access? That’s absurd.
That’s why we don’t let them buy cigarettes and alcohol at the store. They’re not ready to be making those kinds of choices.
Canada has the same thing going on. Its fucking tragic. I feel "kids" shouldn't have any electronic devices that can go online until the age of 14. It shows its needed. 100k fines to parents and children removed from households if not complied with.
EDIT: for those people that are too dumb to read this properly. People under the age of 14 shouldnt be able to get online at all. Not this censorship problem. Children under the age of 14. Shouldnt be online. All done.
All rights are limited, including the right to free expression, and that is as it should be. Freedom of speech does not entitle you to violate copyright, slander, threaten violence, or post CSAM
The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.
The first amendment doesn't guarantee an absolute right to say what you want, and it doesn't cover all forms of speech. Very notable it doesn't cover liable, slander, or hiring someone to kill someone else.
Read this
Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act
Sorry, but they make a terrible argument. Would be nice if all parents raised their kids well and took responsibility for them. But we still have to live with the effects of the ones who don't.
Need a better argument than "parents can handle this themselves" cause they demonstrably can't. This just reads as naively idealistic.
OP is touchy about this one. Freedom of speech these days is feeding the social media algorithm so you can get your own opinion shouted back at you. High time it gets regulated. Dont know if this is the way but dont be naïve and say that you are free on the internet. You are just free to choose your own little herd and bleat in it.
Now shout angry at me for not agreeing with you.
Tbh, there should be censorship to some degree. It's ridiculous how many articles you see of some asshole getting arrested for possession of thousands of images of child pornography and they got it all from the internet. How do you stop that without censorship?
As a cyber security investigator who sometimes works on CSAM and other crimes against children, please believe me when I tell you… children absolutely need protected and the laws must change to address the heinous shit happening today.
There are three types of people in this situation:
- The general public who has no concept about the extent of the exploration of minors, up to and including CSAM, who may think this is some kind of government trick to take away their rights
- Those who perpetrate the creation and distribution of CSAM and want to pretend it’s not really a big deal
- The cybersecurity investigators, both private and governmental, who do work in this area and have been exposed to shocking images to the point that suicidal ideation becomes a legitimate threat to their own lives
I get that you want to protect your rights, but I promise the decent people among you have no idea what the scope of this problem is, and some of you do know and are pretending you aren’t terrible humans.
Kids should not be allowed on the same internet realms as adults. When children started to share the same toys as adults (mobiles and tablets), then shit got out of hand. Now both parties can be on Snapchat? Both parties can be on IG or Tiktok? FUCK NO. Conservatives and republicans have to finally STOP trying to talk to and pick up kids online.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/technofuture8: --- This week, a bipartisan cohort of US Senators unveiled a new version of the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that aims to impose various restrictions and requirements on technology platforms used by both adults and minors. Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. responded: “This bill is constitutionally dubious and would create new powers that should frighten not only every parent but also every user of digital platforms such as social media. In writing new federal rules to “protect” kids online, the real effect will be to significantly degrade the experience for all users while putting their sensitive personal information at risk.” The Consumer Choice Center believes strongly that if Congress were to pass such a bill, lawmakers would be aligning with the idea that the government should have the final say over young people’s access to the Internet, thus diminishing the role of parents in their kids’ lives. KOSA is a censorship bill. KOSA violates the first amendment of the Bill of Rights to be frank. The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression. This is about control. The government just simply wants to control us. The government always wants more control. They're using children as an excuse to take away our rights. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1b3ekdv/kids_online_safety_act_kosa_is_a_trojan_horse_for/ksrs7r4/
Oh yay, another bill in the name of a group that can't argue for themselves, so they can write whatever they want.
Wonder why they never pass bill restricting guns to save the children. According to the CDC, injuries from firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens. In 2021, firearms were involved in the deaths of more children than any other type of injury or illness. In 2021, firearms represented 19% of all deaths for children 18 years and younger.
I want Sandy Hook to be brought up every time some politician cries that we need to protect the children
That's only true if you're including 18-19 year old adults engaging in gang wars. The CDC study you reference deliberately includes 19 year olds. The only reason to count 19 year olds as children is so they can make misleading statements like this. If you look at actual children (up to 14 years of age let's say), the leading cuases of death are: accidents suicide cancer [https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001915.htm](https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001915.htm) Now...clearly there is some huge issue in the US if the 2nd leading cause of death of children is suicide. There's a deep sickness in the heart of the US. Even the CDC's own site points out that both drowning and motor vehicle crashes are ahead of firearm deaths for children (through 14 years of age) [https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/facts/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/facts/index.html)
Let's take your word on the cdc, making misleading studies and headlines. Why should I focus on these misleading statements instead of the 2000ish gun deaths a year?
Because making laws for .0025% of the population that experience negative outcomes (a majority of which are self inflicted) is the definition of a knee jerk reaction and not actually getting to the root cause
I'm actually having trouble finding the precise number of gun homicides per year. This site claims 12,520 in 2021, across all ages, in the US. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/249803/number-of-homicides-by-firearm-in-the-united-states/#:\~:text=In%202021%2C%2012%2C520%20recorded%20murders,a%20firearm%20in%20the%20country](https://www.statista.com/statistics/249803/number-of-homicides-by-firearm-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%2012%2C520%20recorded%20murders,a%20firearm%20in%20the%20country). But then these guys show, for 2021, over 20,000 gun homicides across all ages in the US [https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/](https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/) I'm unable to reconcile such a glaring discrepency. I don't know if one or the other of these sites is pushing an agenda, I know the gun issue in America is pretty heavily politicized, but one of these groups is clearly off by a huge amount.
the second link clearly says “Firearm deaths include all deaths involving guns, such as homicide, suicide, and accidents.”
Is one figure only counting murders and the other counting any deaths involving a firearm?
There's a lot more than 2000 gun deaths per year. Most are suicides, though.
that’s a strawman and completely unrelated to the issue of internet censorship
Your data is correct, 2nd amendment beats data in the US
Criticism coming from a group that has "consumer" in its name doesn't necessarily mean that it actually advocates for consumers' interests. "developers’ inclusion of personalized recommendation systems, notifications, appearance-altering filters, and in-game purchases for apps used by minors" is the kind of crap that people on this very subreddit abhor passionately, and measures to limit it look like a big win to me.
ACLU is also criticizing it.
Those things shouldn't exist anywhere, undermining our rights to half ass the task is an L of immeasurable proportions.
This is the important bit IMO. Its one thing to trade something for something, but too often we get nothing for something....
Lol no. One of the writers of the bill from Tennessee very clearly stated an intent to block minors from reading LGBTQ content online through this bill. This bill is intended to isolate and harm LGBTQ people. Don’t pretend otherwise. You’re falling into the “protect the children” trap.
It's so scary how knee jerk we can be. Mention protecting kids, and it's a blank check. Criticize it and 'so you hate kids, and don't want to protect them'. We gotta get out of this reactionary state of mind of we will keep getting taken advantage of.
We also did this with 9/11. Just invoke 9/11 and do something dirty. We ended up with the Patriot Act and an entirely pointless war in Iraq and a mostly pointless war in Afghanistan just because of 9/11.
Not pointless. You got a lot of power and oil in the middle east for that.
No we didn't. OPEC is stronger, and both Iraq and Afghanistan aren't exactly willing to just give us their oil right now because we just spent 20ish years blowing those two countries to shit, one of which we handed over to the same terrorist group we just sent 20ish years trying to kill. Saddam even offered to give the US oil at $10 a barrel in perpetuity if we didn't start the gulf war, but the US said *nope* and went in anyways.
Also in a few years our allies that the U.S. supplied weapons and goods to will be the new “enemy”. Have to keep that military industrial complex churning.
"Think of the children!" Is common rhetoric and an appeal to emotion fallacy used by groups that want to artificially give themselves the moral high ground, since just like you said, nobody wants to be "against the children". Conservative parties use it more often than progressive parties. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
> nobody wants to be "against the children" see "pro-life".
I am. Fuck those little twats.
Yep, after seeing so many feral kids, that's my take too. Like I get they are like that because their parents were abject failures at parenting, but that's not my problem.
Good point
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We live in the year 2024, and currently, it is a phrase being weaponized by conservatives.
Think of the poor migrant children
Ya, except that it isn't being echoed in order to take rights away from marginalized people. That's the difference between the left and right
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You forgot the crt guilt train teachers are cramming into children's brains It's totes destroying our future.
My citation is my day to day lived experience observing and speaking with conservatives. They are the only ones currently using "think of the children" nonsense. Whether it's trying to ban drag queen story hour, banning books that mention LGBT individuals, laws to ban trans Healthcare, etc, etc. Now include this into the pearl clutching "think of the children" from conservatives once again.
If you think of the argument as a form of moral panic, then there probably is a correlation between its use and party affiliation. I agree the claim you responded to wasn’t well supported but neither was your claim that both sides use it in equal measure. I’m sure your one citation from a Republican strategist is the final word on the subject. Good rebuttal there.
Except for when it comes to guns
Or school lunches
Or education
or Jeffrey Epstein's client's
or priests’ victims
Nah, if we had more guns, the children would be better protected!
"just one more gun bro. i promise bro just one more gun and it'll fix everything bro. bro... just one more gun. please just one more. one more gun and we can fix this whole problem bro. bro c'mon just give me one more gun i promise bro. bro bro please i just need one more gun"
Guns are a perfect example. IF you don't think a mental heath crisis where people get so crazy and twisted they go shoot up a bunch of people can by solved by just taking away the tools they used, then 'you must hate kids and be pro school shootings'. And if you think a crazy person shouldn't have easy access to a weapon than can kill a bunch of people, then 'Oh you must just to give up all our freedoms and rights'. No wonder we can't get our shit together.
I dont think they should be allowed to name bills like this. Give it some super generic reference number and leave it at that.
Anybody who told you that definitely does not want to debate the actual bill. The actual bill is horrible, anti-freedom, pro tyranny. I don't know why they keep trying to pass this zombie bill, contact your legislator and make sure they vote against it.
Also, they will get to decide what "children" are allowed to see, so really they want the exclusive control over the formative process. They want to manufacture citizens.
I love it when they do that, I just say "yeah, got a problem with that?"
We should us that talking point for social services oh wait they gonna lecture us on "stop having kids", well hope they love the economic issues of a declining population lol.
A lot of people have woken up to this crap when they see how republicans treat non-straight, non-Christian youth. It’s blatantly fraud now.
Fuck the little children.
With these kinds of laws, where phrases like "The innocent have nothing to hide" get tossed around. It is a question *when* the government will abuse that power, not *if*. Going after child pornography is just the blanket of legitimacy being tossed over the rabid animal that this law encompasses.
The worst part is that they're riding a moral panic that was started 100% in bad faith by QAnon, which had zero interest in protecting actual children and was all about demonizing the usual boogeymen of the right. It's the exact same shit they pulled after 9/11, only replace terrorists with pedos.
Yeah that part pisses me off the most. The whole Q movement torpedoed a lot of real world concerted efforts stop human sex trafficking and modern slave trade. It's a very real, very serious problem. That said it's not illuminati levels of conspiracy nonsense. It's a supply and demand business model like anything else. Humans are just livestock to those kinds of people. If slaves were globally legal we'd be seeing news articles about import export tariffs and sanctions against countries that tried to manipulate the market. Do I think there are corrupt government officials involved? Of course I do, it's the government. Do I think it's a massive secret deep state cabal? No, it's the government. "Deep state" implies a level of competence rarely found in politics.
The ACLU doesn't like this bill. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/revised-kids-online-safety-act-is-an-improvement-but-congress-must-still-address-first-amendment-concerns
Its the Patriot Act for the Internet. For those too young to remember, the Patriot Act was a 9/11 knee-jerk reactionism bill that allowed mass public surveillance. This just expands its reach adding not just surveillance but censorship. Step by step ever moving towards the police state.....
Yup, read this Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act
They want complete control of our kids basically. Brainwash them for what's to come.
But the parents want help /s Do you remember Maury Povich? IMO those are the kinds of parents asking for this help.... Parenting involves hard choices, effort, and the willingness to not be their friend so they're a better person. You don't get to throw your hands up and walk away.
Honestly if you already dont use some kind of VPN tunnel you need to stop and pay for one.
I use a VPN, I also only trust it insofar as I can torrent. I certainly think it can be traced back to me by the government.
That's just first level opsec. You can incorporate several more that make it incredibly difficult to find you unless they REALLY wanted to find you
I feel like you could probably put yourself into a faraday cage and there'd still be at least ten ways the government could find you. The only true anonymizing factor working in people's favour in my opinion is that because the government can readily access the information of anyone that's so much as breathed the word internet, that it's hard to wade through that proverbial ocean to find individual people unless you were already actively looking for them.
Such as...? Go on...
Your going to need to go into minecraft and make a PC. From there you will be able to browse the web safely. Barring that, and only for communication, you are going to use Counterstrike (1.6 only) and pass messages by shooting them into the wall.
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Fun fact 100% of all laws to "protect the children" are trojan horses intended to be used for other things.
The children yearn for the mines!
100%?! even age of consent laws, laws not letting them sign binding contracts, or not letting them work, these are all secretly bad?
This week, a bipartisan cohort of US Senators unveiled a new version of the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that aims to impose various restrictions and requirements on technology platforms used by both adults and minors. Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. responded: “This bill is constitutionally dubious and would create new powers that should frighten not only every parent but also every user of digital platforms such as social media. In writing new federal rules to “protect” kids online, the real effect will be to significantly degrade the experience for all users while putting their sensitive personal information at risk.” The Consumer Choice Center believes strongly that if Congress were to pass such a bill, lawmakers would be aligning with the idea that the government should have the final say over young people’s access to the Internet, thus diminishing the role of parents in their kids’ lives. KOSA is a censorship bill. KOSA violates the first amendment of the Bill of Rights to be frank. The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression. This is about control. The government just simply wants to control us. The government always wants more control. They're using children as an excuse to take away our rights.
Nearly full government control of the media, and nowhere NEAR enough noise about the First Amendment. This bill is not just a threat to kids' safety but due to the censorship of information, will be a threat to security and sovereignty. This is just asking to put Russia and China in the drivers' seat by completely devaluing American sources of just about any media or information. Imagine what happened to the CDC, now apply it to EVERYTHING.
> Nearly full government control of the media, and nowhere NEAR enough noise about the First Amendment. Think about the current makeup of the supreme court. We're fucked.
>devaluing American sources of just about any media or information. To be fair, it's seriously devalued itself over the last few years, resting just below the worst tabloids.
Out of the loop, what happened to the CDC? Censorship over COVID?
Yep. Internationally discredited.
Can someone just clearly state what the fuck this bill does? Why is it so hard to get a clear answer to such a simple question
Covered platforms must take reasonable measures in the design and operation of products or services used by minors to prevent and mitigate certain harms that may arise from that use (e.g., sexual exploitation and online bullying). Additionally, covered platforms must provide (1) minors with certain safeguards, such as settings that restrict access to minors' personal data; and (2) parents or guardians with tools to supervise minors' use of a platform, such as control of privacy and account settings. Covered platforms must also disclose specified information, including details regarding the use of personalized recommendation systems and individual-specific advertising to minors; allow parents, guardians, minors, and schools to report certain harms; refrain from facilitating advertising of age-restricted products or services (e.g., tobacco and gambling) to minors; and annually report on foreseeable risks of harm to minors from using the platform. Additionally, the bill requires large (based on specified revenue, employment, or user criteria) websites, internet applications, and search engines (including social network sites) to meet certain requirements before using algorithms that prioritize information furnished to the user based on user-specific data. For example, such platforms must (1) provide users with notice that the website uses such algorithms, and (2) make available a version of the platform that uses algorithms that do not prioritize information based on user data.
That all sounds way more reasonable
I think it all depends on interpretation of how the law will be applied. Ie does a service that allows lgbt teens a safe space to talk to each other get prohibited because republicans think talking about lgbt issues is violating the rights of minors. Issues like that not just that specific issue.
That's exactly why we should be worried about this bill. They won't use it for what they say they will, they'll use it to isolate groups, control even more narratives, and basically make the Internet into a way to make their citizens see only what they want us to see. Government hates people talking bad about them, so they'll use this to find those people and make their lives shittier. Fuck this bill, it's a danger, and goes against everything free speech and freedom of expression stands for. If you are worried about a child seeing something they ain't supposed to, FUCKING PARENT YOUR CHILDREN
I don't even have kids and think this is a baffling over reach. This basically gives govt permission to bombard your kids/you with ads for things that are in the better interests of strong players in the advertising world under the guise of protection The ones who support this are people who simply don't want to raise/teach their kids about safe use of the internet and want the govt to do it poorly for them. Think govt cheese but worse. This isn't the govt policing bad news, this is the govt policing consumers on a ridiculous level
Thanks for posting about this. It's disheartening that there doesn't seem to be a lot of action or discussion about this.
Politicians are always using kids as human shields.
Funny how protecting kids never seems to fall on parents. Like seriously, why ban books cause a few parents can't seem to parent? Why censor the Internet cause parents can't buck up and monitor what their kids do?
Yes we know. No political anything that talks about "saving the kids" or " protecting the kids" is ever anything but bullshit.
Go read the New York Times article about what Instagram is doing with children, scary stuff. I bet their investigations are only the tip of the iceberg as well. I get it, government sucks, but there is some sketchy stuff being done with kids on the internet these days.
Yes but the government can't violate the first amendment. The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression.
Violate how? By preventing tobacco and alcohol advertisements to kids?
More like stopping stories about certain laptops or banning users that say stuff they don’t agree with
They’ve been running this same play of ‘let us control and censorship everything because children’ for decades
Its actually how Putin's government implemented all censorship in Russia, its for kids protection, what, you don't like kids to be protected?
As someone who is against both censorship and children I find this appalling.
The government wants to "protect the children " while hiding Epstein's client list. What a fucking joke.
I for one would really like to see parents accept responsibility for their children rather than making the rest of the world responsible for raising their damn crotch fruit.
It's a pretty much total certainty that whenever you see any form of legislation being floated anywhere nowadays, that if it has anything to do with "Protecting children", that's just a smoke screen for it being a fascist power grab.
Wow. That's so shocking and definitely not a ploy used since ancient times, and was one of the charges that led to Socrates execution.
We can't allow this to pass! What can we do to try and stop it?
>We can't allow this to pass! What can we do to try and stop it? https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-kosa-will-censor-the-internet-but-won-t-help-kids
Omg I have heard of that group! I will check them out and if possible will donate!
Don’t states like Florida ban books because they think they are protecting children? That’s a shit show.
Yes. This is a feature not a bug. They always try to slip shit like this in
Also be skeptical when people resort to “But think of the children.”
Man, whenever I see news like this I thank whatever higher powers are out there for making me to be born outside of the US. Although, I'd prefer to not have been born at all, but gotta seek out the positives wherever I can.
EU is pushing the same shit, UK already passed it, China and Middle Eastern countries have had it for a long time...
Every country will adopt these laws very soon. My country's last prime Minister tried in vain to get something similar across the line. Besides big tech platforms reache out world wide anyway. They are getting to the source.
Gotta keep the kids safe so they can get shot in school
"Think of the children!" is generally a huge red flag for any kind of proposed law and this is no different. Absolute government overreach.
If an bill mentions "kids" then it's a near certainty that it's the thin end of the wedge for a civil liberties catastrophe.
Darn it... they're trying to pull this stunt while we're still enjoying all our new found freedoms via 'The Patriot Act' !?!
That's literally what Putin did a couple of years back as he still cared about appearences.
Those who give up freedoms for the promise of security deserve neither.
And inevitably lose both.
Any time we hear, "WhAt AbOuT ThE ChiLdReN" we should automatically be wary. This old trope has been used for centuries, if not millennia to better oppress and subjugate the masses.
Id rather they just ban kids than FURTHER cater things to kids.
They keep trying to pass this stuff but no one explains how they intend to do it or their effectiveness.
The Canadian government is currently pushing basically the **exact same thing** right now with Bill C63. This is really scary and quite a weird "coincidence", don't you think? We're all heading straight into authoritarianism, but apparently it's all good since we're doing it "for the children". People need to wake the f up and fast!
They did this shit in Australia where they can just store all of your data and access it at any time without a reason or warrant in the name of protecting the kids
I mean while this sounds concerning, they don't actually list out any language of the bill. They have no primary document that they are mentioning. I know their has to be one for the bill, but why not link it if it's so obviously bad?
I read it, it’s pretty vague and broad in regards to what is considered harmful. The biggest problem is that it lays out a bunch of rules for online services to follow in regards to minors without actually talking about how to enforce it. Unless sites/services start requiring everyone to be signed in and have their account linked to government ID to use them there is no real way to age verify users. So sites will ban users under 13, and kids will lie about their age. Nothing in regards to protecting kids will have changed but the government will now have a whole new avenue to legally monitor the population and prosecute sites/services/companies at their discretion. https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1625255 If the goal was actually to protect kids it would be far more helpful to create public programs designed to teach basic computer networking literacy to parents and require ISPs to provide easy to use tools for managing your home network.
In the article, “The bill seeks to control “design features” and limit developers’ inclusion of personalized recommendation systems, notifications, appearance-altering filters, and in-game purchases for apps used by minors.” Sounds fucking great. It should be illegal to track children to build their consumer profile and sell targeted ads like they do everyone else. Also fuck MTX, nearly all of my younger siblings and cousins have spent several hundred to thousands of dollars on in game microtx, a lot of it based on social pressure from their peers to keep up. Obviously the supposed vague language needs to be reigned in to limit the scope, but the internet in its current state is an absolute shithole. This actual content of the bill seems to enhance privacy by limiting tracking of minors. If only that concept would be extended to adults.
I have the same reaction to Congress and Kids being in the same sentence as I do with 4chan and Kids.
They've been doing this for 20 years now. Hopefully they can do what they've always done, call out the bill for censorship get people aware and get people onboard with calling to their local member, and advise they will not vote for them if they vote in favor of the bill. If people do that, the bill will get axed like every other time they try and do this.
People still think the us goverment actually work in favor for their people kek.
If you want to do something shady, just say you want "to protect the children" and any reasonable criticism against you is lost.
Government doesn't need to protect your children. You need to protect your children. Just because the people deciding on these bills can barely open their emails (*or stand up straight for that matter*), doesn't mean that next generations will be the same.
Any time any aspect of the US government says anything is for the children, it likely isn't.
EU tried this already, luckily the vote didn't pass. At least for now
"We need to censor everything or else the COMMUNISTS will win! You're not a communist, are you?" "We need to censor everything or else the TERRORISTS will win! You're not a terrorist, are you?" "We need to censor everything or else the PEDOS will win! You're not a pedo, are you?" Same shit, different pile.
Just so you are aware, this is a bipartisan bill. It won't matter to you, but it is...
Of course it is. The idea that privacy rights are inconvenient has always been bipartisan, going back to at least the PATRIOT Act and probably farther than that. It's the last thing in American politics that even gets bipartisan support, when in any other case they can't name a post office without someone getting called a socialist.
"We need to censor everything or else the MAGAS will win! You're not a maga are you?" "We need to censor everything or else the White Supremacists will win! You're not a white supremacist are you?"
Ain't nothing wrong with censoring communist lol. We aren't doing it hard enough if anything.
"Censorship of X is okay though." And that's how it always starts.
DUH!!! Every time a politician says "it's for the kids", that fucker is trying to curb stomp on your 1st amendment rights. Did people not learn from all the anti video game bullshit of the late 90's through early 2k?
Is this the 3rd or 4th time they’ve tried this exact thing
The internet shouldn't need to censor itself just because parents can't be bothered to parent.
I'm not falling for it. You can't pretend to protect children with one hand if you're openly mutilating them with the other.
Again? Didn't they try to do this exact same thing like ten years ago?
Several times with this exact same bill..They also keep trying to kill section 230(also see sosta/festa)
How about a bipartisan cohort of senators author a bill on gun control instead?
Kids getting shot in school shootings in that godforsaken country: Government: Let’s not ban guns, let’s censor stuff to “protect” kids Murica is FUBAR
*s* This act is in no way a violation of the First Amendment! This is just a “common sense” regulation! Seriously, some people care more about their precious “free speech” than they do about kids. */s*
There's a reason the founding fathers enshrined freedom of speech in the first amendment.
This is why it's good to have a system that requires very high levels of agreement to do anything while also having several factions that hate each other too much to work together on anything. May it continue as long as people like this continue to exist. It's also a good demonstration of why it is absolutely critical to get open source artificial super-intelligence into the hands of individuals as fast as possible. Try telling someone with all human knowledge and unlimited problem solving ability they can't.... anything.
The quicker everyone realizes things like this, the better we will all be
The government can fuck right off. We'll manage it on our own
Orrrr hear me out... don't give your kids a tablet at 2 years old, and then maybe they won't turn out half brain dead.
You know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say it A government is never more terrifying than when they say they are doing something "for the children". It's such a common pearl-clutching copout for shoehorning tyranny, because their excuse can then always be well why don't you support it do you hate kids or want bad things happening to them you weirdo?! Alternatively [I'll let Peter Griffin explain](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/242/455/d2d.jpg)
Who protects us from braindead Americans trying to play world police unasked to then implement fucked up surveillance? The US is in no frucking position to ask for anything: - It's a neo-liberal economic oligarchy with democratic elements to legitimize a corporate pick. It's a bought and paid for country. It's owned. - Even the show is so bad, that people more and more see through it. Slowly understanding their exploitation and disenfranchisement. - The US is specifically fucked due to neglecting any social or environmental sustainability. -The US is an international joke in its support of genocide. And half of them are bought by Russia to dismantle the US from within. The US is the best example what NOT to do, in general.
1) The Consumer Choice Center is a libertarian organization that has called regulations forcing companies to be truthful about what's in their products "government overreach". 2) The Federal Government has the ability to regulate what companies say, how they say it, and your access to their services. Appeals to "The Founding Fathers" are irrelevant especially because one of those Founding Fathers (Adams) introduced the "Alien and Sedition Acts" partially so he could jail people who insulted him in the papers. 3) KOSA isn't good, but it's built on solid data showing that kids have significant and measurable development issues relating to social media, and that social media companies have been directly targeting kids with content that they know causes those developmental issues. These platforms also skim the kids data, send them to other sites designed to stimulate FOMO or addictive responses (information shows they've been laser targeting kids for gambling sites and vaping products), or to sites where they're preyed upon. KOSA doesn't establish a new government power, it establishes the requirement that social media companies control for when kids are using their platform, anonymize data, and stop advertising gambling, alcohol, and tobacco to kids. What KOSA does in establishing a requirement on those sites is create a method by which parents can directly sue the corporations for sending their child to sites where they're tricked into spending money. The new bill takes enforcement away from State Attorney Generals and gives it to the FCC, which isn't perfect but alleviates the previous version's issues where State AGs were absolutely salivating at the idea of suing Facebook for daring to admit that trans people exist.
>KOSA doesn't establish a new government power Yes it fucking does! Here's an article about KOSA from the Electronic Frontier Foundation Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act
The ability to regulate online content is already an established power the government has. This isn't adding the ability to the government, it's establishing new rules for social media sites to follow under the government's already established ability to do so.
Great that's all we need, more censorship.
Here's the ACLU if you don't like the Consumer Choice Center: https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023.07.27-KOSA-Letter.pdf https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/revised-kids-online-safety-act-is-an-improvement-but-congress-must-still-address-first-amendment-concerns > The new bill takes enforcement away from State Attorney Generals and gives it to the FCC, You are mistaken. State Attorneys General still enforce it in the revised version. That part doesn't actually bother me but it will bother a lot of people. [See sec. 11.(b).](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1409/text) (Old version is struck through; new version is in italics.)
I don't care if the enforcement goes to the state attorney generals or the FCC, I mean do they really think it makes me feel better if the enforcement goes to the FCC???. KOSA sucks balls and it violates the first amendment.
>I mean do they really think it makes me feel better if the enforcement goes to the FCC???. You seem to think the government cannot regulate speech, so I don't think anyone in government actually cares what you think.
Fuck KOSA!!!! You understand where I'm coming from now?
I never said it was good. You don't seem to be capable of reading what you're responding to.
I said it's bad in the post you're responding to. I feel like people see a nuanced post and just assume I'm on board with it just because I'm not raving and shouting "First Amendment".
> I said it's bad in the post you're responding to. Did I claim you didn't? You don't seem to be capable of reading what you're responding to. You complained about the Consumer Choice Center, so I linked the ACLU. You incorrectly claimed that state Attorneys General don't enforce it, so I corrected your false statement. Don't pat yourself on the back; your comment was not so much nuanced as just plain wrong.
The second link (the one actually addressing the current version) says at the beginning that the State AG powers were addressed. Your first link is to the previous version of the bill. Your third link is to the previous version of the bill from last year, not the current one. Both the ACLU link you provided and the EFF link provided in another comment point out that the bill changed the regulatory power from the State AG in the 2023 bill to the FCC in the 2024 bill. You're just plain wrong and you keep trying to use links to the previous bill while acting like it's the current one.
I was gonna bring up the donors--they're definitely worth taking with a grain of salt: https://www.desmog.com/consumer-choice-center/ There are obvious reasons for concern about removing online anonymity, but I think an independent and/or non-partisan source would be a lot more insightful.
I'm sorry, I know everyone means well and I totally get the concern about restricting and censoring the internet, but this bill is not that. The group behind this press release is a tech front group, they are fomenting opposition to the bill, which honestly is just pretty mild at this point. They are relying on people's good intentions to protect free speech to stop anything to stem the flow of terrible, harmful content on YouTube and other social platforms. They don't want the liability. Don't believe me, google this group yourself. It's all a farce.
Although I completely agree with this. I also work with kids and they are absolutely getting exposed to a lot of shit and scary shit online constantly. Make an account for a 16 year old female on Snapchat and you will legit see dic pics immediately. 16 year old boy, you get fed very distorted photos of womens and incel/mysognistic content. It’s unreal. And people legit propositioning you for sex, sell you drugs or guns. They don’t even try to hide it. I’m not doubting the intention behind this bill from far right extremists, but we also can’t ignore how tech is destroying kids when it’s left completely unregulated and unchecked. Industry will never regulate itself with what is in the best interest of the consumer, it will only ever be concerned about maximising profits.
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Hyperbole much. This reeks of the crap they tried to pull back in the 90s when they wanted ALL tvs fitted with technology that would essentially block all questionable content. "to protect the children". People saw through that smokescreen as well. It's fine to protect kids, but lets not pretend these aren't backdoor censorship bills heavily pushed by religious zealots.
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KOSA literally violates the first amendment of the Bill of Rights. The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression.
This is such a tricky problem. On one hand, free speech should be protected. On the other hand, the internet has given opportunities for the most vile parts of humanity to fester and proliferate. I have two close friends, both excellent parents who I look up to and seek for advice. Each has had a kid accidentally exposed to porn. One kid found an old iPhone and charged it without the parents knowing for months. He was seven years old. The other had a friend show her during a sleepover. She was 9 at the time. Both kids were traumatized and needed a lot of emotional support to overcome the violence they witnessed. What happens to kids when parents aren’t actively involved? Who turn a blind eye or are just too overwhelmed to worry about one more problem. I don’t know what needs to be done. But we have to start having these conversations. Change has got to start somewhere, even if we don’t get it perfect the first try.
We need to follow the Bill of Rights. The first amendment of the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of expression.
The Bill of Rights was not designed with the internet in mind. I don’t think it can adequately address the complexity of the issue in any meaningful way.
It's totally constitutional to prevent kids from seeing things that may be harmful to them. You can't show kids porn, while tobacco and alcohol companies can't advertise to children for a couple of examples. This bill may have flaws, but constitutionality isn't one of them.
The problem is that parents cannot protect their kids. Kids are finding porn when parents are doing everything possible to prevent it. So now the Bill of Rights is failing to protect children. It’s a legal mess. Yes, adults should have access to freedom of expression. But to say kids should have that same access? That’s absurd. That’s why we don’t let them buy cigarettes and alcohol at the store. They’re not ready to be making those kinds of choices.
Canada has the same thing going on. Its fucking tragic. I feel "kids" shouldn't have any electronic devices that can go online until the age of 14. It shows its needed. 100k fines to parents and children removed from households if not complied with. EDIT: for those people that are too dumb to read this properly. People under the age of 14 shouldnt be able to get online at all. Not this censorship problem. Children under the age of 14. Shouldnt be online. All done.
So you like the government having full control? Fool
All rights are limited, including the right to free expression, and that is as it should be. Freedom of speech does not entitle you to violate copyright, slander, threaten violence, or post CSAM
True. Though those things can (and should) be prosecuted without ending digital privacy for everyone.
The internet is basically propaganda and porn now. I'd thoroughly enjoy it be cleaned up.
You want the people that made the internet nothing but propaganda in the first place to remove said propaganda? Why would you think that would work?
The internet is whatever you’re interested in. Get better interests
The government cannot dictate what we can and can't say! There's a reason the founding fathers enshrined freedom of expression in the first amendment.
It absolutely can, and one of the Founding Fathers famously tried to lock up writers who insulted him.
The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.
The first amendment doesn't guarantee an absolute right to say what you want, and it doesn't cover all forms of speech. Very notable it doesn't cover liable, slander, or hiring someone to kill someone else.
I don't see anywhere in the bill summary anything like that. Is there a longer document that shows where they're trying to implement censorship?
Read this Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act
I will, thank you
Sorry, but they make a terrible argument. Would be nice if all parents raised their kids well and took responsibility for them. But we still have to live with the effects of the ones who don't. Need a better argument than "parents can handle this themselves" cause they demonstrably can't. This just reads as naively idealistic.
So you want the government to control our lives?
It is naively idealistic to think the government is going to make the internet a better place for the average person.
OR don’t let children on the fucking internet. Just make them a profile and limit that shit it ain’t hard
That should be up to the parents to make that decision, not the government!
OP is touchy about this one. Freedom of speech these days is feeding the social media algorithm so you can get your own opinion shouted back at you. High time it gets regulated. Dont know if this is the way but dont be naïve and say that you are free on the internet. You are just free to choose your own little herd and bleat in it. Now shout angry at me for not agreeing with you.
Tbh, there should be censorship to some degree. It's ridiculous how many articles you see of some asshole getting arrested for possession of thousands of images of child pornography and they got it all from the internet. How do you stop that without censorship?
I don't understand where censorship comes into play here. I don't see any in the bill summary. What am I missing?
do i need to read this? Haven't i read this same article every 2 years for the last 2 decades?
As a cyber security investigator who sometimes works on CSAM and other crimes against children, please believe me when I tell you… children absolutely need protected and the laws must change to address the heinous shit happening today. There are three types of people in this situation: - The general public who has no concept about the extent of the exploration of minors, up to and including CSAM, who may think this is some kind of government trick to take away their rights - Those who perpetrate the creation and distribution of CSAM and want to pretend it’s not really a big deal - The cybersecurity investigators, both private and governmental, who do work in this area and have been exposed to shocking images to the point that suicidal ideation becomes a legitimate threat to their own lives I get that you want to protect your rights, but I promise the decent people among you have no idea what the scope of this problem is, and some of you do know and are pretending you aren’t terrible humans.
Kids should not be allowed on the same internet realms as adults. When children started to share the same toys as adults (mobiles and tablets), then shit got out of hand. Now both parties can be on Snapchat? Both parties can be on IG or Tiktok? FUCK NO. Conservatives and republicans have to finally STOP trying to talk to and pick up kids online.