So, what are these bills?

tl;dr on KOSA and SCREEN: these bills seek to make the internet safer for children by imposing restrictions that will, ultimately, lead to our internet access in the states being limited in much the same way it has been in the UK under the hugely unpopular OSA law.

which means: you will need to provide either a video of your face or your ID to any website the government deems potentially harmful to children.

Do you read or write fanfic? Draw or enjoy fanart? RP? Keep up with the news? ID please.

This is, obviously, a huge breach of privacy as well as a potential security nightmare given how many data leaks occur any given week.

Furthermore, our current FTC is partisan. This is bad news for anyone queer, neurodivergent, or politically active in a way our current administration doesn't like.

tl;dr on IODA: this is basically reintroducing the Hays Code and the comic book censorship of the 90s on a broader scale.

So! What can we do about it? Call your reps. Email them. Send them snail mail letters. BE LOUD. Especially folks with Dem reps that have cosponsored KOSA (Jon Ossof in Georgia I am looking directly at you)

Here's some resources:5 Calls

Censorship Does Not Keep Kids Safe

Stop KOSA

Fight for the Future statement on the Kids Online Sa...

I have made my plurk public, so if any folks with a broader reach than I have could replurk this, please do!! In a world that feels like it's on fire and a new crisis is popping up every day, we need a free internet more than ever.

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me sitting here going "I've been screaming about KOSA for over two years now and my california senators have just said 'that's nice. we understand your concerns but they promi it will protect children so I voted for it <3'"

I also cannot believe that anyone is allowing that obsessed freak mike lee to advance IODA. absolutely fucking absurd

basically this will effectively ban pornography. you know how it's been said before "yeah porn falls under first amendment AS LONG AS it doesn't violate obscenity laws"

well this would expand it so ANY pornographic act is considered obscene

an article here

though it says "we don't expect it to muster support this time either" you never know

it's not as though anyone on either side cares about sex workers

anyway sorry for my yammering but yeah. folks, replurk this. make the calls. especially make the calls for me since fucking padilla and schiff are IMPOSSIBLE to reach on their goddamned lines

Thank you for the additional info!! I've been gathering what I can but this shit is exhausting.

(reporting back in from my public plurk) YEAH I know. it's so exhausting and they never fucking stop with the lies and the censorship despite how many times we tell them "no."

they try to guilt trip going "are you saying you WANT children to die???"

of course not. but I know YOU certainly don't give a shit about the lives of children or else a whole lot of shit YOU passed wouldn't have come to be

Oh, also... I forgot to mention that youtube is soft launching AI determining your age based on your watch history and requiring video of your face/ID/credit card to prove you're an adult if the AI flags your account. So that's fun, and another thing to yell about

that started today here in the US

YEP, I hate it

yeah funny that!!! sure seems like something that any RED BLOODED REPUBLICAN wouldn't approve of huh! some big tech company demanding my credit card number to prove I'm an adult???

you'd think lol

the shittiest part is I've read tech safety reports. giving them your credit card digits is the SAFEST option as far as protecting your privacy is concerned

jesus christ

it's all just opening the floodgates for censorship

and it's the fucking british empire's fault for starting this as usual

(tongue in cheek I'm aware that republicans have been trying to censor the everything and anything forever)

the stuff with the youtube ai age verification might be because their "made for kids" determination isn't very successful

I feel really bad for my friends in the UK, they've got over half a million signatures on the petition to have OSA debated and their government is basically saying "lol no"

you have brainrotting kiddy videos that still have ads/COPPA violations attached and people playing Roblox while dropping slurs/etc marked as "made for kids"

and also fixing their algorithm that sends people down hate loop rabbit holes isn't profitable

which I'm gonna be honest I totally expect to be the result here too

well, it's been beaten back plenty of other times

fingers crossed

and if the visa/mastercard shit has proven anything, there are enough people to call and make them nervous

it's not like trump is hugely on the censorship as you'd think, he and vance both actually criticized OSA

for folks living in red states lean HARD on the libertarian style talking points when you call your senators

shockingly.

shockingly lmao

oh that reminds me I do need to start calling visa/mastercard

darkly chuckling at the thought of anyone trying to ban porn under mike "I watch porn with my son" johnson's watch

for any folks that want to join in here's a link with all their contact info: Protect Queer Creators and Sex Workers - Tell Paymen...

sorry I'll stop yammering in here

it's all good!

re: calling payment processors

but yeah for anyone that has a red rep (like I do), lean on freedom of speech

"why should THE GOVERNMENT tell ME what I can look at on the internet? this is OVERREACH that is controlled by the DEEP STATE" etc

"what if some LIB WEBSITE bans me for being CHRISTIAN?"

be forewarned, there have been reports of reps at their call centers being pretty unpleasant. Don't hesitate to request escalation to their supervisors, if they hang up call back, and the best strategy is to play the "concerned idiot"

yeah stripe has admitted with their actual mouths "we don't allow LGBT content" which HOO BOY DID SOMEONE SAY DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT

lmfao ironic considering they're the payment processor for dreamwidth

I live in a dem state but have an R congressional rep for my district so I sent an email like why should BIG GOVERNMENT get to tell me how to raise MY CHILDREN blah blah my FREEDOMS as an AMERICAN blah blah

haven't heard back yet

heyyyy dem state but red rep buddies

I fucking looooove the coward tom mcclintFUCK

like why are you here. we're blue. go to Texas or something you anti-queer weirdo nobody likes your ass

don't worry guys. trump is busy rambling about grass and awarding himself for doing nothing again

but I will nevertheless use Republican-sounding language to appeal to him

some of these senators are up for re-election (again, looking at you Jon Ossof, who I am particularly disappointed by because I've been dealing with your youtube ads begging for "just $5" for months) so do with that what you will

heres everyone who cosponsored it so far - check if your senator is on there

lots of dems unfortunately

yeah like I said, loving throwing sex workers under the bus and not wanting to be caught as not voting for the "protect the children" bill is a partisan thing

you'd think, now more than ever, they should know better than to work with or trust republicans on ANYTHING

no one cares about swers is the thing (cries myself to sleep)

Alsobrooks is the junior senator and barely won her seat. This is going to sink her.

I'm going to make sure none of my friends vote for her again

Chris Murphy? WTF

it's a coinflip whether chris murphy is gonna be a dipshit at any given moment from what i've seen

none of my senators have cosponsored it, and yet, they are dipshits about it and gave me the same automated message of "but they promised they fixed it so we voted yes <3"

they are FULLY aware of the ways it can be used for censorship

the fascists know the perfect set of words are "think of the children," you can't argue against that one (if you're a coward with no backbone anyway)

Goddamnit angela alsobrooks

I grew up in new hampshire and that fact gets more embarrassing by the year

The Fight for Internet Freedom Starts With YouTubeThis guy has a good video on it and I feel like he's a good dude who deserves more traffic

someone needs to tell them "you sure fucking aren't" straight to their face
i deeply wish that would happen even if it wasn't the play

Moxana: Time to vote her out

Also I highly recommend now that people get a VPN

it's always "think of the children" until you start talking about healthcare, food, shelter...

it's not even about the predators either, because y'all cape for those mfers too.

you don't even ask questions.

gun control lol

listen we need to protect the children from evil libsex not like. dying. ok??

# murrca

nothlir: yeah. Is there a promising encumbent yet talking about running?

my daughter needs to be able to attend her purity ball without the evil influences of the internet confusing her and making her think she deserves better

Right? How DARE anyone ever consider freedom more valuable than purity!

skiesonfire: in my ideal dream world a lot of leftists would read this and go "huh, actually when you put it like that it sounds dumb"

she cant find the resources to escape--I mean DISAPPOINT HER FAMILY

but basically yes

I wish so badly that could happen, too... Why must brainwash be so damn effective

Honestly, my hate is especially strong since I was raised by that type of people and managed to see how wrong it is. Tried to talk sense in so many former family members and only succeeded with one

I don't remember what made me flip the switch and go "wait none of that makes sense" but it was probably about the time I realized that a lot of my own desires did not align with what a Catholic Woman should want (no children, no marriage, being asexual, etc)

and being asexual got me a lot of "you should just be a nun since you're wasting it" (whats it???? why is my value as a person suddenly diminished just bc I don't want children???)

That was similar to my initial tipping point away from it, yep. Zero value to them because I didn't wanna procreate

noctowl: YIKES

Love the implication that nuns are also "wasted" uteri, too

what if women could just do whatever with their bodies and make their own decisions about whether god was involved

seriously...

yeah over the years my mom has said some wild shit trying to get me to have children ngl, once she asked me if I'd be a surrogate for one of my siblings

mind you, the Catholic church does not approve of surrogacy (which is a whole other can of wtf)

what if you want to keep that uterus mint in box until donating the entire thing to someone in need is a viable proposition, huh, mom

lmao it's not even mint cystic fibroids run in my family and there's a strong possibility I'll have to get it removed later anyway

(I'm sure the church will LOVE that medical breakthrough but yeah)

"uterus in working condition, some wear, free to good home"

which is also why the internet needs to be uncensored because how else is a girl gonna learn about reproductive health and what's normal and what's not if her family is the type that believes suffering is just what humans deserve for their sins

YEP

I've reached out to my representative and senators. My Rep asked me for more information, and I sent it, and he thanked me for it and said he'd be watching, and he disagreed with the censorship (as he put it, "As a black man, I see in this the same kind of rules put on black people a hundred years ago, and will not stand for it.")

My senators... one of them had a stroke and has gone from a populist and working for people to someone almost aligned with MAGA; the other just sent me a "thank you for your input", so I'm not sure about it.

fetterman, huh

ding ding

o/~ that stroke destroyed all our faith in him, won't vote for Fetterman... (to the tune of "Better Man" by Pearl Jam)

fetterman is such a fuck up man

so many good Dems got primaried for his ass and a bunch of other mediocre shits squatting in Senate and house right now

I do have a smidgeon of good news about IODA at least. It belongs to a senator known for submitting bills that go nowhere. I'd still recommend bringing it up if you call/mail your reps just in case BUT

oh yep lol fuckin Mike Lee the obsessed freak is ALWAYS doing this shit and it never gains traction, but still, always be vigilant

whenever I hear about Mike Lee, I keep thinking about what comic writer Grant Morrison said about running into comic writer Mark Millar in the city they both live in, Glasgow: "There’s a very good chance of running into him, and I hope I’m going 100 miles an hour when it happens."

inshallah

we could be so lucky

looks like google is potentially rolling out their AV ai to all services. If anyone is looking to de-google some privacy focused browser alternatives: waterfox, librewolf, firefox (caveat: firefox has been implementing it's own ai assistant bs but it can be turned off in settings for now)

search engine alternatives: duckduckgo??? man idk if anyone has suggestions please drop them

I don't list brave here because on looking them up the people running it are... perhaps not people a majority of dwrpers would want to support

UGH GOOGLE... Opera will carry over almost everything from Chrome, if you are switching from that. It took me less than a day to be fully switched over to that one.

It comes with free adblock and VPN and has been great so far

I know I don't lol

duckduckgo is what I've been using and so far not my favorite but it's working well

skiesonfire: Same. At the very least though, it's search results are more useful (on average).

oh also!! vivaldi

forgot that one

SaintCynicism: Yes, this

I am able to immediately get correct info most of the time and that is enough for now

mmm I'm going to have to give waterfox a try

i use brave on my iPad and I need to disentangle myself

I like having the option for an adblock on stupid YouTube and brave has an in browser block

it's been too hot to run my laptop, but when it isn't I'll be giving librewolf a try I think... it and waterfox are forms of firefox. Also re: duckduckgo, it does let you toggle off ai results in image searches which is nice. Not 100% foolproof but it catches most of the slop

*forks

yeah I appreciate the option to hide ai images from ddg

just a heads up since I've seen this going around: any news of KOSA passing the senate is from 2024. This year it's been in committee since being introduced and hasn't budged.

yep fortunately

and as I said the SCREEN act hasn't budged either and neither has Mike Lee's insane obsession with porn

stay vigilant of course because governments are sure getting away with a lot