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The U.S. Government Wants To Control Online Speech to “Protect Kids”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/us-government-about-control-speech-online-protect-kids = https://archive.ph/gMcXO
>The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that allows for a wide range of government penalties for online speech, could soon be passed by Congress. If that happens, the access we have to information may be forever changed. KOSA will make state prosecutors and federal bureaucrats the final arbiters of online content moderation in the U.S.
>KOSA is fundamentally a censorship bill. Politicians are justifying it by harping on something we all know—that there’s content online that’s inappropriate for kids. But instead of letting tricky questions about what online content is appropriate at what age be decided by parents and families, politicians are stepping in to override us.
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>SAY NO TO STATE-CONTROLLED INTERNET IN THE U.S.
>The U.S. Government Will Ban “Depressing” Content
>The heart of the KOSA bill is a “Duty of Care” that the government forces on every website, app, social network, message forum, and video game. (It’s Section 2 in the bill text.) KOSA will compel even the smallest online forums to take action against content that politicians believe will cause minors “anxiety,” “depression,” or encourage substance abuse, among other behaviors.
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>KOSA Throws Out Good Speech With “Bad”
>KOSA will punish people for having online conversations. It empowers every state’s attorney general as well as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to file lawsuits against websites or apps that the government believes are failing to “prevent or mitigate” the list of bad things that could influence kids online.
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>There’s Only One Internet, and KOSA Will Censor All of It
>KOSA’s promise to leave the “adult” internet alone is an utterly empty one. There’s no real way to apply these rules only to minors without creating a special “kids site”—and even then, a website operator will have to be worried about government action. It is likely to see some teenagers who lie about their age, or just stay quiet about it. EFF opposes mandatory age-verification, which is a bad idea for many reasons, including the fact that it takes away adults’ right to talk to each other anonymously.
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>KOSA isn’t Different From Removing “Depressing” Books Out Of The Library