1y ago

‘Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It,’ The President Says About A Bill The GOP Says Will Be Useful To Silence LGBTQ Voices

www.techdirt.com ‘Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It,’ The President Says About A Bill The GOP Says Will Be Useful To Silence LGBTQ Voices

Well, this is not surprising, but unfortunate. With the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to be debated in a Congressional hearing on Thursday, the White House had President Joe Biden come out and give…

Politics @beehaw.org

‘Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It,’ President Biden Says About A Bill The GOP Says Will Be Useful To Silence LGBTQ Voices

www.techdirt.com /2023/07/26/pass-it-pass-it-pass-it-pass-it-pass-it-the-president-says-about-a-bill-the-gop-says-will-be-useful-to-silence-lgbtq-voices/

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Technology @lemmy.world

‘Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It, Pass It,’ The President Says About A Bill The GOP Says Will Be Useful To Silence LGBTQ Voices

www.techdirt.com /2023/07/26/pass-it-pass-it-pass-it-pass-it-pass-it-the-president-says-about-a-bill-the-gop-says-will-be-useful-to-silence-lgbtq-voices/

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41 comments

“This bill is not about privacy, because it will put private data at risk.
This bill is not about kids’ safety, because it will put their safety at risk.
It is not about parental oversight, because it takes those issues out of the hands of parents.
It is not about helping kids, because it’s going to shield kids from useful information that has literally saved lives.
The Republicans seem to know all this and are embracing it for these reasons. Which leaves a big question open: why are the Democrats supporting it at all?”
- Dems support it because on a fundamental basis there is little difference between the two parties. Both lust after power, control and money and will break every rule to gain those - at both the party and individual member levels.
  Ofc there are outliers like Bernie Sanders and (on a smaller scale) AOC, but the mere fact that the DNC pulled the 2015/16 scam on Bernie to push him out of the nomination offers clear proof that left-leaning, truly democratic outliers will never be allowed to win.
  
  The world over, neoliberalism has created managed democracy. You can have the red neoliberals that are cruel and racist or the blue neoliberals that give you crumbs and pretend to be sad but one way or another, you're getting a neoliberal.
  Because as you saw first hand, whenever they're threatened with an actual progressive, they have a class solidarity the rest of us can only dream of.
  "Left-leaning" and "right-leaning" news outlets -- all of them coincidentally owned and operated by the ultra-wealthy -- united to call him a kook.
  His own party repeatedly sold him out because they'd rather give Trump the best spot at the trough than get their own snouts out of it.
  Sleazy corporations pooled their pennies to astroturf the ever loving fuck out of the internet and a hostile foreign government used Julian Assange to ensure the money kept flowing no matter the war crimes.
  All backed by a bullshit economic philosphy that never comes true, but makes them filthy rich with every failure.
  But in AOCs defense, the worst thing we could do is let infighting stop us from ever gaining the foothold we need to start prying these people from power.
  And anything is better than fascists.
  
  Can't argue with that, but it's a bit like saying that the surface of the Sun and a day at the beach are both hot. Like, I can't argue with you because of how you stated it, but there are matters of degrees in both cases.
- Old joke goes: one party is evil, one party is stupid. When they pass a law that's evil and stupid, they call it bipartisanship.
- Which leaves a big question open: why are the Democrats supporting it at all?”
  Not sure if you've been paying attention or not, but the democrats are all about controlling the flow of information on the internet, especially by "encouraging" companies to do their bidding, much like they did with Twitter and still do with Facebook etc. They want even more control over this.

The Kids Online Safety Act does nothing to protect kids, and everything to inject the watchful eye of the government further into our lives. When are voters going to stop falling for the same two tricks? None of these bills have anything to do with kids or terrorism. They're all about enabling fascism.

well looks like this is going to get pretty bad...How is it the responsibility of platforms to take care of your children for you? It's not school, it's not daycare, it's the internet. Does the electric company have some moral or legal obligation to keep your children from jamming a fork in the outlet? Does a public beach need staff on hand to keep children from digging dangerously large sand tunnels that could collapse? Is it up to the water company to provide your child with special means of not flooding your basement? If we need this for some reason, why don't we need to force manufacturers to create cars that won't start for under-16's, windows in high buildings that you have to be 18 to open, or headphones that won't get too loud unless you enter your date of birth? This is some Footloose-level bullshit and I just do not get it I guess.

This is so dangerous. Why is he doing this?
- Both parties are fully onboard with "think of the children" legislation just like they are for police and military funding.
  
  The public is fully on board with it, unfortunately. Broad swaths of independents are terrified on behalf of children and will broadly believe anything you tell them could be a threat.

It's almost like democrats are perfectly happy throwing queer people to the wolves.
- Just like how they act July 1st, every year

isn't this the one where they want to make you upload your drivers license to Facebook

Both sides of Congress have been saying for years now they are going to regulate big tech. This is one of the few things politicians have bipartisan agreeance on.
- They're also all too old to grasp the technology they're tasked with regulating. What could go wrong.

Here is the link to the bill text on Congress.gov
- After taking a read through, it seems like section 3 and section 12 can be interpreted to mean that if you have evidence that access to sex and gender education is benefit for the mental health of minors, you can actually enforce social media platforms allow posts to those resources.
  I don’t really see why people are saying this would be bad for kids?
  And, it seems this bill would also force large platforms to spend more on catching people on their platform seeking to sexually abuse kids. Something that platforms know is so rampant that they are reluctant to put in the appropriate amount of resources at the moment to tamp down on.
  If there is a benefit of much less kids being abused, then I think it’s worth passing and then working within that framework to fight to ensure the law is used to benefit and not harm the LGBT community where applicable.

Why do politicians have to be such idiots. Rhetorical question, obviously.

More like one is a forest fire and one is a lava flow. Yeah, they're on different levels, but neither of them are livable

If you're in the US, here's a link to contact your Senators. https://www.stopkosa.com/

(3) COVERED PLATFORM.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—The term “covered platform” means a social media service, social network, online video game (including educational games), messaging application, video streaming service, or an online platform that connects to the internet and that is used, or is reasonably likely to be used, by a minor.
SEC. 3. Duty of care.
(a) Prevention of harm to minors.—A covered platform shall act in the best interests of a user that the platform knows or reasonably should know is a minor by taking reasonable measures in its design and operation of products and services to prevent and mitigate the following:
(1) Consistent with evidence-informed medical information, the following mental health disorders: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors.
(6) Predatory, unfair, or deceptive marketing practices, or other financial harms.
Facebook is dead.
SEC. 4. Safeguards for minors.
(a) Safeguards for minors.—
(1) SAFEGUARDS.—A covered platform shall provide an individual that the covered platform knows or reasonably should know is a minor with readily accessible and easy-to-use safeguards to, as applicable—
(A) limit the ability of other individuals to communicate with the minor;
(B) prevent other users, whether registered or not, from viewing the minor’s personal data collected by or shared on the covered platform, in particular restricting public access to personal data;
(C) limit features that increase, sustain, or extend use of the covered platform by the minor, such as automatic playing of media, rewards for time spent on the platform, notifications, and other features that result in compulsive usage of the covered platform by the minor;
(D) control personalized recommendation systems, including the right to—
(i) opt out of such personalized recommendation systems, while still allowing the display of content based on a chronological format; or
(ii) limit types or categories of recommendations from such systems; and
(E) restrict the sharing of the geolocation of the minor and provide notice regarding the tracking of the minor’s geolocation.
If they enacted Sec 4 for adults as well, I'd consider using Facebook again.

But y'know, 'muh harm reduction'.

And people wonder why other people still call him "Sleepy Joe", albeit not out in the open at least 🤷‍♀️
- I don't know if him scheming to take away online privacy makes me think of him as "sleepy"

It's almost like democrats are perfectly happy throwing queer people to the wolves.

Not expecting many comments on this one haha.
- Just because Republicans worship their Golden Idol doesn't mean Democrats do the same thing. Sometimes, Joe Biden can really be a dumbass, and this is one example.

41 comments