KOSA- Kids Online Safety Act
The meeting for this is happening THURSDAY JULY 27th 2023
TL;DR- It sucks and is harmful for LGBTQ+ Kids and harmful for adults and US citizens. It creates a backdoor for the government. Please call your senators to stop this from happening and please spread the word.
(Note: I'm bringing this up to spread awareness, I might not have the most perfect understanding of this bill and hell maybe I'm wrong about it. But this is what I understand so far. If you have more information feel free to rechost this with your input!)
This is a bill in the USA that 40 FUCKING SENATORS Support unfortunately. This bill will eventually lead to online users (meaning you!) to use their drivers license/I.D in order to use the internet. It is an act that makes websites responsible for children's safety online, and this means that the act could lead to states voting on banning children/teens from accessing educative resources on LGBTQ+ topics, sex ed, etc.
This could also lead to websites outright BANNING content like this, or lead to the shut down of websites that hold these platforms. It could lead to websites requiring that you give our your I.D to prove that you aren't a child in order to post online, which I'd argue fucks with your first amendment since it removes your privacy even more and could actually lead to your information being held hostage and you being blackmailed depending on what you use.
I mean honestly websites get hacked all the time, but I'd rather not have my I.D be connected to my private pages where I can shitpost freely and look at porn freely. Like shit man... I don't want people knowing my AO3 history.
Again, maybe I'm wrong or being paranoid, but apparently the meeting for this is happening THURSDAY JULY 27th 2023
Ok so here are some links to try and fight back on it.
• https://www.stopkosa.com/
• https://linktr.ee/stopkosa
• https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/kids-online-safety-act-still-huge-danger-our-rights-online
• https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3663/text
You know those horrific state laws that are like "if a child tells a teacher that they're gay or trans, the teacher must notify the parents"? KOSA would function as the online equivalent and worse. It requires social media sites to give parents control over the privacy settings of their children's social media, which means they can view anything their child posts, which means that abusive parents can choke off a major lifeline for their children to seek advice and support.
This is fundamentally a "parent's rights" bill, with all the ugliness that entails, and it does not deserve the bipartisan support that it's getting.
This WILL force everyone to upload their ID — driver’s license, passport — and even biometric data like a facial scan to every platform to "prove" their age, from Ko-fi to Roblox to your period tracker. Not could, will. There’s no other way for any platform to do this kind of authentication at scale. That is to say, for cheap.
This is already the reality for every online sex worker. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to let a third-party entity scan my face and passport just so I can upload my work. It's a logistical nightmare. And if you think every site, every app, every platform keeping their own repository of everyone’s government documentation is an unprecedented security risk begging to be exploited, you’d be right.
I’d go so far as to argue that this has nothing to do with parent's rights even though it's being advertised as such. In fact, this removes any parental control by enormously concentrating government surveillance and expanding police power before parents have a say. U.S. politicians see parents who allow their kids to look up information on transitioning or abortion or watch drag race on their ipad and want to remove them from the equation altogether.
Furthermore, age verification/identity authentication is an emerging industry. Paypal, credit card processors, the same companies that police sexuality and make it almost impossible to accept money for any erotic labour, want to own it. And this, I suspect, is why a bill as terrifying as KOSA has bipartisan support. They’re some of the largest donors to both American parties.
