The bill would still need to make its way through the House.
The US’s latest attempt to chill speech online, KOSA-a bill to effectively force everyone to identify themselves to online platforms-is picking up steam and looking like it will pass the Senate.
That part has (maybe-ish?) changed with these most recent amendments. Per the EFF:
The Bill’s Knowledge Standard Has Changed
The first change to the bill is that the knowledge standard has been tightened, so that websites and apps can only be held liable if they actually know there’s a young person using their service. The previous version of the bill regulated any online platform that was used by minors, or was “reasonably likely to be used” by a minor.
The previous version applied to a huge swath of the internet, since the view of what sites are “reasonably likely to be used” by a minor would be up to attorney generals. Other than sites that took big steps, like requiring age verification, almost any site could be “reasonably likely” to be used by a minor.
So in a best-case interpretation under the new text, a site whose ToS does not allow minors to use it would not be required to check everyone’s ages to verify no one is a minor, in order not to be liable if a minor accessed adult content on it. The problem is, the bill isn’t actually explicit about what qualifies as the site having knowledge of children using it means:
Requiring actual knowledge of minors is an improvement, but the protective effect is small. A site that was told, for instance, that a certain proportion of its users were minors—even if those minors were lying to get access—could be sued by the state. The site might be held liable even if there was one minor user they knew about, perhaps one they’d repeatedly kicked off.
The bill still effectively regulates the entire internet that isn’t age-gated. KOSA is fundamentally a censorship bill, so we’re concerned about its effects on any website or service—whether they’re meant to serve solely adults, solely kids, or both.
No site is going to want to be the ones that an AG tests out their new lawsuit hammer on, so it’s likely to end in 1 of 2 ways: either verifying the ages of all users of the platform, or prohibiting all user-generated content to prevent adult content being posted. Republicans are fine with either of those outcomes. The sad thing is the Democrats who either also are, or who don’t understand the impacts but are voting on it anyways.
So pissed at my democrats, and I’ve emailed and called them all. This is a stupid bill as written that will harm free speech and minorities. I’ve said it before, there are ways to verify that someone is over 18 without them needing to fully identify themselves on the internet. I always get downvoted to hell, but here it is folks. No one implemented any good way of age verifying someone so instead they’re ramming through a bill to get us to all upload our IDs to verify how old we are for the sake of the children.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), also announced new changes to the text of the legislation, which seem aimed at addressing concerns that the bill would allow politicians and law enforcement to censor content online.
Vance (R-OH), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Angus King (I-ME), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND).
The office pointed to a letter dated Thursday from groups including GLAAD, Human Rights Campaign, and The Trevor Project stating they would not oppose the new version of the bill if it moves forward.
“The considerable changes that you have proposed to KOSA in the draft released on February 15th, 2024, significantly mitigate the risk of it being misused to suppress LGBTQ+ resources or stifle young people’s access to online communities,” the groups wrote.
The latest version of the text includes new language to make clear that video games don’t need to abruptly interrupt natural gameplay in order to implement the required safeguards, among other assurances for the industry.
Fight for the Future was “glad to see the attorney general enforcement narrowed” and agrees the change “will somewhat reduce the immediate likelihood of KOSA being weaponized by politically motivated AGs to target content that they don’t like.”
I don’t think a Cuban VPN exists. If it does, it’s definitely government-run. They don’t let the internet in (except on designated monitored computers priced so the local’s can’t access them much) and instead have their own intranet.
Story time: something like 30 years ago, someone sent me an email asking a technical question about a thing I posted online. We exchanged a couple educated emails, and they thanked me for the explanation. Then it hit me: …who TF has email on Cuba …whom was I talking to?
Nowadays they have Internet access for tourists, but 30 years ago… yeah, that.
It was something technical, web hosting related I think. I’d have to dig up some old backups, if it’s even still there… maybe someday. I remember thinking it must’ve been someone working for the government.
Some of the nordics have actual strong privacy laws, last I checked, so there’s no reason to have to play censorship regimes against each other like that.
You’ve got it backwards. China’s increasingly tight social controls, and increasingly antagonistic stance with the US, just means that they’re the least likely country to report you to US companies and state governments. I have no plans to ever go to China or Hong Kong.
As long as that’s true, of you and of any of your acquaintances, and your friendly local Chinese citizen group (¹) working for China doesn’t take an interest in you, that’s fine.
I don’t like the concept of basic internet usage becoming a “know your customer” situation. If they advance this crap, they are just setting up future framework for a social credit score system. It should be very telling that your privacy is an expendable commodity to both major parties.
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Are they insane? There had been a case study done by blizzard showing that its bad, very very bad.
I didn’t see anything in the article about “effectively forcing everyone to identify themselves to online platforms,” care to elaborate?
That part has (maybe-ish?) changed with these most recent amendments. Per the EFF:
So in a best-case interpretation under the new text, a site whose ToS does not allow minors to use it would not be required to check everyone’s ages to verify no one is a minor, in order not to be liable if a minor accessed adult content on it. The problem is, the bill isn’t actually explicit about what qualifies as the site having knowledge of children using it means:
No site is going to want to be the ones that an AG tests out their new lawsuit hammer on, so it’s likely to end in 1 of 2 ways: either verifying the ages of all users of the platform, or prohibiting all user-generated content to prevent adult content being posted. Republicans are fine with either of those outcomes. The sad thing is the Democrats who either also are, or who don’t understand the impacts but are voting on it anyways.
So pissed at my democrats, and I’ve emailed and called them all. This is a stupid bill as written that will harm free speech and minorities. I’ve said it before, there are ways to verify that someone is over 18 without them needing to fully identify themselves on the internet. I always get downvoted to hell, but here it is folks. No one implemented any good way of age verifying someone so instead they’re ramming through a bill to get us to all upload our IDs to verify how old we are for the sake of the children.
They named the bill wrong - it should be Kids’ Act for Online Safety- KAOS.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), also announced new changes to the text of the legislation, which seem aimed at addressing concerns that the bill would allow politicians and law enforcement to censor content online.
Vance (R-OH), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Angus King (I-ME), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND).
The office pointed to a letter dated Thursday from groups including GLAAD, Human Rights Campaign, and The Trevor Project stating they would not oppose the new version of the bill if it moves forward.
“The considerable changes that you have proposed to KOSA in the draft released on February 15th, 2024, significantly mitigate the risk of it being misused to suppress LGBTQ+ resources or stifle young people’s access to online communities,” the groups wrote.
The latest version of the text includes new language to make clear that video games don’t need to abruptly interrupt natural gameplay in order to implement the required safeguards, among other assurances for the industry.
Fight for the Future was “glad to see the attorney general enforcement narrowed” and agrees the change “will somewhat reduce the immediate likelihood of KOSA being weaponized by politically motivated AGs to target content that they don’t like.”
Saved 77% of original text.
inb4 Americans use VPN connections to HongKong to get around US censorship laws…
I think VPN to Belize or Cuba will become a new standard…
I don’t think a Cuban VPN exists. If it does, it’s definitely government-run. They don’t let the internet in (except on designated monitored computers priced so the local’s can’t access them much) and instead have their own intranet.
Story time: something like 30 years ago, someone sent me an email asking a technical question about a thing I posted online. We exchanged a couple educated emails, and they thanked me for the explanation. Then it hit me: …who TF has email on Cuba …whom was I talking to?
Nowadays they have Internet access for tourists, but 30 years ago… yeah, that.
Lol, so what sort of thing was Fidel tinkering with and asking for help with?
It was something technical, web hosting related I think. I’d have to dig up some old backups, if it’s even still there… maybe someday. I remember thinking it must’ve been someone working for the government.
Some of the nordics have actual strong privacy laws, last I checked, so there’s no reason to have to play censorship regimes against each other like that.
You may want to think twice about that:
Don’t Go To Hong Kong Now (Even on Connecting Flights)
You’ve got it backwards. China’s increasingly tight social controls, and increasingly antagonistic stance with the US, just means that they’re the least likely country to report you to US companies and state governments. I have no plans to ever go to China or Hong Kong.
As long as that’s true, of you and of any of your acquaintances, and your friendly local Chinese citizen group (¹) working for China doesn’t take an interest in you, that’s fine.
(¹) China’s overseas police stations
PS: just saying, use Tor. If It’s good enough for the CIA, it’s good enough for everyone.
Figure out which politicians are behind this.
And throw them out,
since they are trying to take away your rights (to privacy).
They are looking to apply mass surveillance upon you guys wrapped into a “For the kids safety” package as usual…
We should leave the parenting to parents.
The parents will ask for the govt to do something stupid like this.
The Handmaid’s Tale is upon us. It’s available free to listen online.
I’m really tired of politicians who barely understand the internet trying to write sweeping legislation to regulate it.
I don’t need to read it to know that it’ll be bad.
I don’t like the concept of basic internet usage becoming a “know your customer” situation. If they advance this crap, they are just setting up future framework for a social credit score system. It should be very telling that your privacy is an expendable commodity to both major parties.
We already have a social credit score, we started it in the 80s. Its called credit
Let me guess, it’s something to do with ending encryption and privacy … for the children?
EFF articles about this bill:
https://www.eff.org/search/site/kosa?sort=created&order=desc
…and their call to action:
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-kosa-will-censor-the-internet-but-won-t-help-kids
Same reason they want to ban TikTok, it’s the only platform they can’t police.