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."

  • flan [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago
    • Topic of this thread: USA introducing draconian anti-privacy laws
    • Some other person1: Muh China
    • You: China bad
    • Some other person2: Other governments are bad too
    • You: Whataboutism!

    like first of all whataboutism is bullshit, second if you cared at all about “whataboutism” you’d realize that it had already happened and you were participating in it because this fucking thread is about the USA.

    Honestly the thing that kills me most about people calling stuff whataboutism is it’s usually just someone contrasting the same or a similar situation in two countries (like you just did with China), which is absolutely not whataboutism. I hate even talking about this shit because it’s so goddamn stupid and juvenile. I wish that word could be erased.