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."
Unfortunately this is just ONE of MANY bad internet bills currently up for consideration and with bipartisan support. Help fight all of them at https://badinternetbills.com
[email protected] is tracking all the bad internet bills … right now KOSA’s where the most action is.
Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.
just so we’re all clear on the purpose of this bill.
All the fascist hentai guys on 4chan are about to commit mass suicide or a mass shooting
The guys who run 4chan are going to be facing life in jail.
Wtf
What the heeell? (can’t get a more productive comment after reading that, sorry)
Knowing this will probably be passed like
This is how it feels like to not be American and seeing decisions like this. They affect the whole Internet since so much stuff relies on US Internet infrastructure, yet you can only watch as the citizens of Burgerland drive the 'net into the ground.
the whole Internet
It will not affect the whole Internet. American-centered English-speaking “Internet” yes, but there’s lots and lots of infrastructure and content elsewhere. Many Chinese-, Japanese-, Russian-, and German-centric resources exist almost independently from the rest of the world. Some of them are free to completely ignore the “bad internet bills”, copyright, IP, GDPR, and any other regulation you can think of.
I was exaggerating a little, but it is still a huge swath of the Internet. And the Chinese and Russian parts of the 'net have enough of their own problems.
Guess I am learning German or Japanese because Canada is also on a train to censoring the Internet piece by piece.
The internet is about to move to the rest of the world if this passes, no one will host a web server in the US after this.
which, considering that the U.S considers accessing a server based in the U.S grounds to extradite a person from the otherside of the world and try them for a capital crime might not be such a bad thing.
The problem is where? The EU is trying to apply similar censorship via the DSA, Russia we all know is LGBTphobic and not truly for free speech, Canada is a joke, and China is lol. Not even sure if Japan is viable.
What do you mean by China is lol?
Seems pretty clear from context, China is an autocratic state well known to engage in censorship when it fits the party’s desires.
And which governments don’t engage in censorship when it fits their desires lol
Your whataboutism isn’t really useful here, I’m just responding to the question about China. The point of his response was that there isn’t really any place left to go. And even if your response was relevant it would be laughable, the censorship that the Chinese government perpetrates puts most other countries to shame.
Whataboutism, checkmate tankie
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this is a thread about the US though? Who whatabouts the whatabouter?
Your reading comprehension is pretty low. My original comment was specifically in response to another individual questioning why the idea of hosting servers in China to escape censorship was “lol”. That’s it.
Which is his point,right? Like where else would you go to host if all governments engage in this BS
The arguments presented are so terrible and devoid of any meaninful substance
The first one was “China lol”
Then the one I replied to in support of “China lol” said “autocratic state” which is absolutely false unless all of your knowledge about China’s governance system comes from reading CNN headlines and skimming Reuters articles written by a dude with a bachelor’s in journalism that doesn’t speak Chinese
They also said “well known to” which implies it’s a special case when every state exerts overwhelming control and censorship over the media that occurs within their country
Isn’t the CCP given explicit power and privilege in the Chinese government and isn’t the CCP’s officially headed by a permanent leader as it’s “core”? I’ve been trying read about the political structure and it’s hard to not argue that it seems very autocratic.
And that has affected you outside China operating a server based there when?
I don’t understand, please rephrase your question.
What don’t you understand about it? How has it ever affected you? Can you name a single time it has?
China does not care unless you live within its borders, and even there it only really cares when it is someone of influence, such as the rich capital owners or the celebrities.
I just didn’t understand the way your question was worded because it was garbled. I don’t have any reason to host a data server and I don’t live in China, so you got me, I’ve never been personally impacted by Chinese government censorship and repression. Obviously that means it doesn’t exist, QED.
But oh, as long as I make sure not to upset anyone rich or in power I would be fine, don’t worry. Do you ever read what you type?
My friend, read the thread. You’re getting triggered over someone laughing at the idea of westerners hosting web content in China to escape censorship.
Didn’t a lesbian kiss get edited out of Star Wars Rise of Skywalker for the Chinese release? Just as one example
If we’re using anecdotes, one of China’s most famous TV personalities (Jin Xing) is openly transgender
This is like saying, “I’m not a racist I have a black friend”
I’m trans. No it isn’t.
Claiming that China is actively repressing this while literally employing and front-facing transgender people is absurd. Where are the famous transgender TV personalities employed by the BBC? Britain’s state owned media.
China is visibly trying to improve things for trans people compared to the country I’m currently in (the UK) and your absurdness about it is obviously built on racism because you don’t behave this way about white countries. You only behave this way about non-white countries. Where is your equal criticism? Where is this behaviour when it’s all the white countries that behave this way? You’re american right? Where is it for YOUR country which is currently illegalising trans people, undergoing state sanctioned murder against trans people and having an internal refugee crisis because of it. Where the fuck are the federal protections to prevent this genocide being perpetrated by red states? Non existent. Because democrat support for trans people is performative.
So excuse me but fuck off about criticising China on trans people. You’re a shit.
Lol
China isn’t censoring their internet because you’re a trans person who lives in the UK, BBC doesn’t have trans personalities, and certain US politicians are attacking trans rights? Wow, what an argument.
Also I’m racist for pointing out authoritarianism from an authoritarian government?
You’re doing a terrible job with your concern trolling. Put in some effort at least.
Why are you automatically blaming China for that? How do you know that decision wasn’t made by the film directors/company? Unfortunately, propaganda runs deep and people easily believe whatever they want to believe
It was the first Google search result
Disney and Lucasfilm are the ones to blame for chasing profit
lemmy poster can’t do a google search
many such cases
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I consider that an absolute win for queers. Corporate pandering can eat shit.
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In the way that there are MAGAs up north. Like, come on bois, there’s no need for that shit.
There’s some wisdom in the old soviet anecdote
There’s freedom of speech in the USSR: In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, “Down with Ronald Reagan,” and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, “Down with Ronald Reagan,” and you will not be punished.
The Internet is still mostly connected, the law enforcement is not as much. Many businesses exist only because of this. You are free to host (produce, store, distribute) your content where it is legal and access it from where it is not. Access to foreign resources may eventually be outlawed or the access itself restricted. This is already the case in EU, Russia, China, etc. - but for now Internet is mostly connected.
Japan has terrible international peering.
How is the DSA in any way similar to this?
It is why more need to support the decentralized movement as then there is not centralized group you can choke to get your draconian ways.
Ooooh… the liberals are about to hand the fascists the keys to the tanks.
We did the same in 2016. I forget what happened as I lapsed into a 4 year alcohol fueled amnesia. But I can’t imagine that it was too bad. /s
We did the same in 2016
Nope. Not yet. The right-wingers thought they could install overt fascism without the help of liberals - they thought wrong. They tried to win the streets - antifa beat booted them off it. They got their Great Orange Fuhrer into the Waffle House - liberal disdain isolated him and booted him out. What needs to happen is liberals being frightened to such an extent of working class revolt that the violence fascists offers becomes the “lesser evil” - and a good first step is to find hysteria “hot button” issues that liberals are too ignorant and naive to see through… like above-mentioned “protect the children” trope.
I emailed my senators, both Democrats. One wrote me back telling me how proud they were of co-sponsoring the bill. The other told me how important it is to protect kids from the dangers of social media. WTF.
WTF indeed. But, thanks for emailing them – they track how much email they get in each direction, and if there’s enough they may rethink their position.
Ah yes… forever and again, the siren song of children being used as an excuse for draconian, rights eroding legislation… its amazing how much responsibility parents have shirked to the state as they replace babysitters with cellphones and tablets.
: “You REALLY want little Billy to read a tweet that makes him think he’s not perfect because he’s white!? YOU MONSTER! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to relentlessly stalk and then bully this freak I found on KiwiFarms for the crime of not being a good normal like me!”
More of them “freedoms” that you yanks are always going on about?
No, no, it’s “free dumbs”. As in, they were giving away stupidity for free, so we each took as much as we could carry.
Experiencing a protracted regression of sanity, similar to Brexit.
Thank you for noting the US focus in the title <3
So often I see sweeping headlines like this that are actually only about a single country, and the country is always named (as it’s a key piece of information about the story) unless it’s the USA, at which point they just assume you must be in the USA too and so being up front about what country they’re talking about isn’t a priority xD
Unfortunately this is about the first time, I’d (almost) disagree with you. If the US bans something on, or makes a law about, the internet it almost always affects the rest of the world. The only difference is the rest of the world has no say in the matter :(
Can you elaborate how this act could affect me in Germany?
Do you visit any websites that are hosted in the United States? It doesn’t matter where you’re located, it matters where the site you’re accessing is hosted.
As an American, GDPR has affected me. Many sites have chosen, rather than deal with Europe and the rest of the world separately, to just make a version of their site that is GDPR-compliant. I’ve sent GDPR erasure requests to services and they don’t bother checking if I’m actually a European citizen, they just remove my data because it’s easier. I’d argue that GDPR was a net good even for America and other countries.
This is the same thing but in reverse. If KOSA makes Pornhub unable to operate in America, they may very well shut down due to the loss of revenue. If KOSA makes companies paranoid about allowing, for example, NSFW pictures, or LGTBQ or abortion information, or similar, then those companies may disallow it on their services altogether even if they have servers in Europe because setting up the infrastructure for, for example DailyMotion, to have totally separate databases of content in different regions is just too much.
This can affect you. Not as much as people in the US, sure. But unless you use sites and applications made only by European companies, it can absolutely affect you.
You make a good point! It’s too early in the morning for me to think about solutions to the issue, they mainly affect platforms used globally but hosted in a specific country like the USA (Facebook for example).
Though, it’s not like we have no say entirely, so there is hope :-)
For example, a major platform like Facebook banning/restricting gay/trans content would be seen as a pretty major case of discrimination and would certainly land Facebook in court over here, with their access to our market eventually closed should they not comply with our equality laws.
So sure, they could keep running in the USA, but their access to global markets would be reduced and fractured depending on how evil and draconian the USA continues to get, and how much freedom other countries have internally in their societies, to better protect from discrimination.
Which I’d say in a way is a good thing, allowing for local rivals to jump up to fill the gap and bring back some of the innovation and joy of the internet of 20 years ago! :-D
But there’s down sides too, it distances us from others, making it harder for us to connect with and understand other nations and cultures. I think having a platform that everyone can use, run by a monopoly or not, is a very beneficial thing for us all.
Anyway, just a few extra thoughts there. It’s a very complex and difficult topic, and I’m not even “armchair expert” level 😅
I hang around a bunch of artists who make money through NSFW art…or shit, they just draw it for fun. This isn’t gonna be great for them. Why should me and my friends’ thirty year old asses have to hold back so Little Timmy doesn’t see a boob or something? Shouldn’t their parents be the ones making sure that doesn’t happen?
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American here, and I am totally OK with a tiny bit of extra latency if people & companies want to move their servers to some place in Europe that actually respects freedom and people.
Though I suspect that if you’re a US company with servers located abroad, they will still make the law apply to you since you control it.
Also adding on to this, buy physical media.
Buy 8 tb hard drives and fill them up. It’s cheaper than streaming even if you managed to fill one every year.
Cloud storage is just someone else’s computer.
it’s pretty horseshit that if you buy a digital copy of a movie, they can just revoke that licence whenever they want, under the guise of “well, we don’t have the licence anymore”.
if people & companies want to move their servers to some place in Europe that actually respects freedom and people.
implying the EU respects freedom
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I was going to say something about giving it to gypsies and you could probably literally see European fervor to ban something. Lol
Censor slurs or use the actual name for Roma people
Clearly you don’t know “Europeans” and have never net a gypsy.
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Conservatism: An idea so good it has to make alternatives ILLEGAL.
A bill like this has merit if it’s targeted at real problems, like the sources of fascist growth and propaganda that have existed on the internet for decades.
As per usual the US isn’t interested in going after the fascists though. This will absolutely be used against already marginalised people and the left, by which I mean socialists. There’s a reason it has bipartisan support.
yeah, Rs have already been bragging that they’re going to use this to go after queer communities online.
You really can’t pick and choose. There’s really no such thing as ‘good’ government censorship of the internet, you have to block all of it or you’re getting the bad stuff.
Yes there is. And yes you can. The only people that say this absurd fucking bullshit are literally nazis who don’t want to be targeted.
“Hurr hurr you have to block lgbt with the fascists or you have to accept them both” is a fucking stupid thing to say and you should be ashamed of yourself and the general state of your life leading you to say this stupid shit.
Legal principles preventing government censorship are simple and effective. If you erode those, you have not a lot protecting you from shit like the OP bill. Nothing stupid about that, just how it works.
Legal principles preventing sex are simple and effective. If you erode those, you have not a lot protecting you from shit like having sex with children. Nothing stupid about that, just how it works.
You and your libertarian brain
Preventing how? Clearly these principles don’t work because the government that’s supposed to be following them can just choose not to.
As evidenced by the myriad of “human rights” abuses done by a state founded on the idea of “civil rights”.
The rights of man are predicted on power. Otherwise it’s just talk.
It is a mistake to think of a government making choices in the same way an individual might make choices. A government is not a person, and a collection of people is not equivalent to a single individual in its ability to have coherent values and act on them. Instead, some framework for cooperation and compromise must be used. If your framework sucks, if it’s especially wishy-washy and subjective, power seeking assholes will be more able to twist it around and abuse it. Civil rights don’t always work perfectly, but they work better than the alternatives (like hoping a dogmatic ideology will be able to seize absolute power, agree with itself, and maintain sane values all at once).
It seems obvious to me that if free speech protections are eroded in the United States, that opens the door to the right in particular suppressing the sort of speech they clearly want to suppress and are actively trying to suppress. They have control of state governments, they get in power federally and pass laws on a regular basis. Is there any reason to think that wouldn’t happen? This bill seems to be a perfect example: bipartisan legislation giving both sides censorship and intimidation powers.
As for whether the approach works in practice, and can avoid being a bare expression of the power of whoever is in charge at the time, here is a summary of historical supreme court cases related to Free Speech. I don’t think all of these are necessarily for the best, but it seems clear that for the most part (with some notable exceptions) they are not egregious deviations from the principle, and are not expressions of the whims of whoever is in power at the time. It represents an actual restraint on those who would like to exercise power over others.
Since you seemed to reply in earnest, I’ll link this and highly suggest you watch it. Even if you don’t end up agreeing, I think it lays out the crux of the issue with human rights as an idea in a clear concise manner. It’s only 20 minutes long and it’s well put together.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AhRBsJYWR8Q (I dunno how to do the in line text link)
I’d go point by point through your post (which I did read) but I’m swamped with work and shit.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=AhRBsJYWR8Q
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
There is a lot here I agree with. I’ve seen stuff from this channel before and it’s pretty good. Human rights are somewhat arbitrary, and are influenced by what makes a convenient compromise between power interests. However I don’t think that necessarily contradicts what I am saying, because what I am arguing against is not the rejection of civil rights as a concept, but the catastrophe that would come from the dismantlement of this particular one in this particular way given the context of our present society.
From the video:
Let me be clear here: I’m not saying that all these problems will be fixed if we simply stop adhering to the doctrine of human rights. Human rights are an outcome. A symptom of a specific social and political configuration, and you don’t fight the symptom, you fight the disease. If we recognize the problem with human rights, it is the social and political configuration that produces them that we have to change. So long as we live under capitalism and the liberal political paradigm, rights are absolutely necessary.
So, what would need to be done in order to establish a society that no longer produces or depends on the ideology of human rights? It would have to be a society in which the significance of community has been restored.
So removing rights is not by itself a solution, and can do harm. We do not exist in a society where the fabric holding it together is “significance of community”. The spirit of discourse I see from authoritarians is very far from suggesting a way to reorder our world around “significance of community”. Rather on all sides it seems to be rage manifesting as a desire to silence and dominate their enemies, with the consequences only an afterthought, that can or should not be seriously considered. Even while claiming mutual hatred, they pursue this shared objective together, and things like this bill show that they aren’t even very committed to hiding it. The reasons why the success of one means the success of the other in this case are obvious; the loss of the right of Free Speech in this context means the empowerment of people who want to use censorship as a weapon, and weapons don’t discriminate.
If you learn more about political science you’ll find that there is more nuance, it’s not so simple as all or nothing.
How so?
You’ll have to go and learn to find out! Can’t do any harm.
You can also ask pi for an introduction https://pi.ai/talk
I was more prompting you in case you wanted to elaborate on your argument. If you wanted to cite relevant passages from that book to support it I would read and consider them and maybe read the rest, but as it is I can’t help but interpret your intent as being snidely condescending. Am I wrong about that? You’re citing the entire field of political science, throwing a book at me that may or may not have anything to do with the internet or the erosion of legal rights, and linking to an AI chatbot.
I keep making the mistake of commenting on things that I have no desire to dig into. Apologies if I was rude. It really is an interesting area if you find yourself curious about it one day.
in 2014: “Stupid SJWs, my rights don’t end where your feelings begin.” now: “Stupid SJWs, your rights end where my ego begins.”‘Free Speech’ mfs really do like their blasphemy laws.
Yeah, no, it was always the second one.
