KOSA is dead! (US)
KOSA is dead! (US)
The controversial and unconstitutional Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is officially dead in the House of Representatives. Reporting indicates that there was significant opposition to the bill within the Republican caucus, and it faced vocal opposition from prominent progressives like Alexandria Ocasi...
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/20332183
Fight for the Future writes:
"The controversial and unconstitutional Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is officially dead in the House of Representatives. Reporting indicates that there was significant opposition to the bill within the Republican caucus, and it faced vocal opposition from prominent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL)."
Evan Greer:
"KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe. I am so proud of the LGBTQ youth and frontlines advocates who have led the opposition to this dangerous and misguided legislation. It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief. It’s infuriating that Congress wasted so much time and energy on a deeply flawed and controversial bill while failing to advance real measures to address the harms of Big Tech like privacy, antitrust and algorithmic justice legislation. "
Thanks to everybody who took action ove the last year to stop this bill!
Article doesn't say why republicans opposed it, but I guess this is one of those "broken clock" moments where they were accidentally right but for the wrong reasons.
They probably opposed the idea of safe kids, given the rest of the platform. That, or there was lobbying money.
Considering the tech industry would need to use more money to enforce the law, it would be cheaper to just buy out politicians.
Their official line is based in fears of surveillance and government overreach. My state senator Mike Lee was one of them, must have been a cold day in Hell or something.
You can't go looking for logic in hate
The reason is obvious, the Democrats wanted it to pass.
I mean, good, but how the hell did it get 90% of the senate?
Senators don't give a fuck about their constituents.
Maybe this is different in Rhode Island and Wyoming, but in Cali the Senators don't even have offices to take your calls if you're a pleb. It's like trying to get customer service from Google.
My US rep actually does constituent services and horror meets with non-rich constituents in person sometimes!
You want hard mode?
Try to get customer service from Steam, I'm almost convinced Valve doesn't actually have a head quarters and Gabe Newell might be an ancient secret government AI hiding on various reels of magnetic tape in some dank basement at Area 51 that not even the President is allowed to apply to be the janitor of.
It's a weird day when I'm happy the Republicans teamed up with progressives to stopped a bipartisan bill.
I'm pretty irritated with Sherrod Brown on this one for voting for it in the senate.
This seems like misinformation... The House is in recess until September.
I'm having a hard time finding any other sources that it's dead in the house. And congress.gov is infuriatingly awful to navigate.
I want to know if my house rep voted for it.
This seems like the most relevant search result but the tracker implies it's passed the house? https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/2073?q={"search"%3A"kids+online+safety"}&s=3&r=3
Edit: apparently it's this "amendment": https://www.congress.gov/amendment/118th-congress/senate-amendment/3021/actions?s=a&r=33 but still no house actions
Your house representative didn't vote for it, nor against it, because the decision was not to bring it up for a vote at all.
You can find sources for this if you search for the #kosa hashtag on Mastodon, e.g. https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/01/ding-dong-kosas-dead-for-now/
Thank you!
Reminder to always keep up the fight. Even when things seem inevitable, fights can be won. That goes both ways: don't get complacent and don't get despaired
Get active, and get involved
Great news!
But honestly, when something is voted down, there should be a cooldown period, where you couldn't vote for it again.
It both stops these people making a new bill every year, and at the same time, actually have the people writing the bill doing a good job.
Kosa means scythe in Polish. What a name...
Wow. Now I know 1 polish word!
Really? I heard the exact opposite, that it passed the Senate and is expected to breeze through the house.
According to Techdirt , the version that passed the Senate cannot be brought up in it's current form by some of the House Republicans needed to pass it. So it's dead for now.
It does mean it'll have to go through both houses again, and yes, they'll try.
Thank God, ya know after SOPA was defeated I thought they'd never try to ban the internet again...
I was wrong
We thought SESTA was dead, and then they ambushed us with FOSTA, the Senate version which has fucked the internet ever since for sex workers, LGBT+ folk and people who like porn. So I expect they're going to pull the same kind of thing, distracting opposition groups while passing it in secret.
Ultimately, both parties want to kill the internet, or turn it into Cable TV, because the public dialoging in forums is dangerous to the ownership class.
Normally one would expect stupid bills to pass the House, but fail in the Senate.
Has this happened before that it was the other way round?
Good job, everyone!
