this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would censor the internet and would make government officials the arbiters of what young people can see online. It will likely lead to age verification, handing more power, and private data, to third-party identity verification companies like Clear or ID.me. The government should not have the power to decide what topics are "safe" online for young people, and to force services to remove and block access to anything that might be considered unsafe for children. This isn’t safety—it’s censorship.

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[–] MiscreantMouse@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Lol, ok, I'm sorry it's so difficult. Anyway, it's included in the link I provided above, but the ACLU, EFF, GLAAD and over 90 organizations have sent an open letter to congress outlining the dangers in this bill, so those 'claims' shouldn't be too hard to verify.

[–] Calcharger@kbin.social -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was referring to the link here:

Every hyperlink in that article just links back to it's own website, which makes it hard to verify the claims it is making.

The letter you provided from the ACLU, et al is a response to an older version of the bill, located here:

I do not have time to review the older bill and compare it to the newer bill, but I think it's safe to say that because the previous bill was met with dissatisfaction that it was rewritten to address their concerns.

[–] MiscreantMouse@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Do you think that's safe to say? Here's what some of the experts say about the rewrite. Spoiler alert: the problems were not addressed.

It's really hard to take you seriously when you're very optimistic about the bill's authors, but very doubtful about all the first amendment lawyers explaining the legal consequences of the bill.

[–] Calcharger@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The bill's authors are elected Senators who has a 96% Progressive Lifetime Score, and lawyers misrepresent the truth. It's their job. Politicians do the same. Which is why it's important for conversations like these to be talking about the text of the bill, instead of just linking to what other people have to say. I'm not gonna tell you how to conduct yourself but it's hard to take you seriously when all you've contributed is what other people have said. Not to mention the sources of the articles that you've shared so far could be problematic.

TechDirt and TechFreedom are think tanks. These articles are agenda-based reporting. TechFreedom gets money from Google and Meta according to Influence Watch. Take a look at TechDirt's sponsors, search for their portfolios. Automattic literally owns tumblr. Ask if they have a financial incentive to amplify this. The people who stand to lose the most here are the tech companies. The content is not going away, just the ability to drive the content to people who probably shouldn't be seeing it anyway.

I dunno about you, but I think we are at an impasse. I'm not going to convince you to tHiNk CrItIcAlLy (god I sound like a flat earther), and I'm really losing interest in your condescending remarks. So, until we meet again, DubiousRat

[–] MiscreantMouse@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Neat how you blithely ignore that aside from Blumenthal, a 75 year-old who has been trying to eliminate the open internet for ages, the other author is Marsha Blackburn, a racist tea party republican who kept asking for Obama's birth certificate and doesn't believe in climate change... yep no issues there.

JFC, the tech companies, especially Google and Meta, would love to have a government ID for all their users, they don't make their money on content, they make their money selling advertising, and tracking their users across the internet is a big part of that.

If you're this lost in the woods, and refuse to believe the overwhelming consensus of legal experts regarding the consequences of this legislation, or even the GOP's open admission of their intent to misuse the bill, then yes, I guess there's no getting through to you. Good luck with those critical thinking skills.