The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online.::Congress has resurrected the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that would increase surveillance and restrict access to information in the name of protecting children online. KOSA was introduced in 2022 but failed to gain traction, and today its authors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and…
What ever happened to parental responsibility?
Nothing. Policy makers are just using their “think of the children” defense to constantly push more and more overreaching policy.
We gave up on parental responsibility when deregulation, deunionization and Reaganomics forced all adults into the workforce.
Now that we’ve driven families to dysfunction, even CWS is underbudgeted with an impacted caseload. So they’ll let child abuse slide so long as the kid’s not infested with lice and scabies.
This is so tragic but actually makes sense. happens all around the world as well.
That’s in the hands of the schools now. /s
If this passes I could see Tor usage and VPN uses rising. Not to also mention something like this would be hard to enforce and would face some backlash.
They plan to make VPNs illegal.
I already sail the internet seven seas, I don’t mind breaking another law
I’m not an expert by any stretch, but couldn’t they force your ISP to just shut off your internet if you use a VPN? Maybe I don’t understand how it actually works well enough.
They could implement restrictions to block VPN traffic. But that would be repealed as fast as it came when these very congressmen would phone angrily their district on why they can work from their million dollar home anymore.
Support: Sorry VPNs are now blocked and you cannot work remotely without them
Congressman: Who are the idiots that voted for these laws
Support: Well, you and your friends
Ha, and you don’t think Congress would write in an exception for them and their wealthy donors? I’m surprised anyone in the US believes fairness is on the table anymore.
There’s money to be made by requiring VPN companies to meet minimum requirements that few companies can actually meet or are willing to. Backdoors for example.
At this point, everyone is breaking the law online already. It’s just a matter of the level.
I once pretended to be over 18 on a… website
Is that actually in the bill, or are you just saying this could be the next move?
More like a next move. If I remember correctly, there was language in the TikTok bill a while back that would have effectively made using a VPN illegal. Maybe I’m misremembering that. I have no doubt there are people who want to make it happen.
Companies relay on VPN to allow remote work while protecting their IP. But maybe it’s only about VPN to/from foreign servers.
What makes you think they aren’t going to come after that too? The whole point is for elites to retain narrative control and bring the whole internet their grip so Donald Trump types never get elected again.
Donald trump was never elected by the people in the first place, and he abused a ridiculous system created to fluff up the power of states with comparatively few people living in them. When that didn’t work the second time around, he started a misinformation campaign and flat out attempted to undermine the democracy our nation is built upon in multiple ways.
Including him in your comment destroys your otherwise excellent point, because the Donald is exactly the type of person that would abuse this system to censor information he didn’t like.
Until we have free (tax-paid¹) school lunches and comprehensive child healthcare, until our kids are not commonly impoverished and skipping meals, I don’t buy into protect the children bills. The federal government wants to protect plutocrats and the established hierarchy, and has not two fucks to rub together to give regarding US children.
¹ Our taxes also pay for fields of unused tanks, laser planes, and active camouflage development all of which cost way more than comprensive child welfare programs ever could. And thats before we get into fossil fuel and automotive industry subsidizes. The federal government already is spending grocery money on Funko POP and pogs.
Kids in general are a danger to our rights.
Not sure if I understand your comment, or if it’s sarcasm … but did you forget you were once a kid? Were you a danger? Edit: instead of downvoting could you please explain what you mean? I truly don’t understand the comment
People using “won’t someone please think of the children” arguments causes our rights to become restricted. The comment is a joke about this.
Thank you! Unfortunately I’ve seen enough people unironically saying stuff like this, that I can never be sure anymore
It’s a joke
George Carlin was right all along, fuck the children. They gotta learn some how. You can’t shield people for ever
“No child left behind!, no child left behind. Oh really? It wasn’t long ago you were talking about giving children a head start. Head Start-Left Behind. Someone’s losing fucking ground here.” - George Carlin
That man was brilliant and so caring
This will not do anything. Kids are typically dumb online, adventurous, but dumb online who’ll do dumb things in unpredictable fashions. It’s like putting all of those plug covers to make sure children don’t pull them off, except they will and do, prompting them to curiously stick a fork into the socket.
That senator is more concerned about what’s online for kids, than how Republicans are actively pushing kids to work jobs that are unsafe for them. Might want to re-evaluate your priorities, dude.
Don’t even get me started how kids have long been able to lie about their age online to get to adulterated content.
I also hate contaminated porn
Whenever the feds say “protect the children” I know they are lying. This bill is dangerous and a danger to multiple communities. If it passes ID checks will become a thing, and guess what. ID checks will likely use Web Environment Integrity to verify if your OS is “secure” before allowing you to scan your ID. This bill is a fuck you to adults, Linux users, and queer people!
Save the puppies and kids!
Made an easy way to tell congress. https://resist.bot/petitions/PEOUQE
What is this? Is it no longer change.org?
Change.org is a site to sign onto. This one sends your congress letters.
We live in the era of brute internet censorship. For example, I identify with incels and all their spaces were “shut down.” DHS set up honeypot forums in their place. Yet when incels were being out and out censored across the web, no one said anything. The excuse was “fighting domestic extremism.” They’ll come after the rest of the internet until “they” can always have narrative control.
Not that I agree with much of “incel culture”, so to say, but you’re right about censorship. The whole idea of freedom of speech is that people should be free to express their thoughts even when we disagree with them.
As long as it doesn’t become harassment or inciting violence… there are limits after all, but I do believe both the left and the right are pushing more and more censorship, they just disagree in what should be censored.
When I posted on the web forum incels.is, to my surprise and shock I learned that it was a DHS operation. The feds there themselves encourage extremist rhetoric. Just imagine how unfair this is. They haven’t publicly announced that they are censoring incels but have in fact done so. They then set up honeypot forums where feds larp as incels and feed the public image of incels as one of extremism and violence. A user ends up there thinking this is what incel culture is and then gets subject to being put on a watchlist. It’s the government itself calling for censorship and restrictions on free speech, something I know all too well given my incels.is (run by DHS) experience.
Man, who are you kidding? I’ve seen incel culture in its infancy like a decade ago on 4chan and it has always been extremist.
You forgot to include the part where you claim government agents rented the apartment above and next to you and then used sound devices to deprive you of sleep until you lost your job.
That did happen. Could be just schizo though. Feds would never be so hateful.
yes, my schizo mind thought it was under “intrusive monitoring” under the “Countering Violent Extremism” program aimed at domestic dissidents. My schizo mind reached the conclusion that feds – in order to better monitor me – rented apartments next to mine. What a preposterous thing to believe, only a schizo would think feds would do that.
Hey I never called you anything, but it’s quite the logical leap to believe that the federal government is spending millions of dollars to monitor you 24/7 and mess with you mentally/physically for leaving some innocuous comments online. If they’re doing that to you, then they must be doing it to everyone else that commented on these forums, no? Wouldn’t that require tens of thousands of people dedicated to doing nothing else but that? Do any agencies even employ that many people (in addition to the people doing their regular job duties)?
My intention here is nothing more than to help you see this from an outside perspective and reason your way through the situation.
