Lawmakers who support KOSA today are choosing to trust the current administration, and future administrations, to define what youth—and to some degree, all of us—should be allowed to read online.
KOSA will not make kids safer. It will make the internet more dangerous for anyone who relies on it to learn, connect, or speak freely. Lawmakers should reject it, and fast.
I fail to see how ensuring platforms don’t algorithmically push negative content on children, or how enforcing better default privacy options for children, is remotely a bad thing. As with most of what the Electronic Farce Foundation publishes today, this article was a word salad of excuses without reasoning.
Also find it pretty ironic and hypocritical that there’s a sudden outcry against “censorship” but just a couple years ago, it was apparently a tHrEaT to oUr dEmOcRaCy if anybody expressed any sort of skepticism over the narrative because tRuSt the sCiEnCe.
See, this is the propaganda part. ‘Protect the kids!’ Of course thats a good sounding thing! Let’s put good sounding thing into law and not worry about any possible downsides.
I know it’s usually an excuse to pass surveillance legislation but I don’t see how this bill even remotely promotes that. As far as I can see, it ensures platforms don’t push algorithmic manipulation on kids and it requires platforms to offer better default privacy settings for kids’ accounts.
Meanwhile the EFF and ACLU (usual suspects) are pushing a garbage narrative of baseless excuses. One has to wonder about their reasoning.
I trust the reliable and reputable experts of laws of EFF (literally founded to protect digital freedoms) and the ACLU (literally founded to protect the liberties that America tries to stop) then some random person thinking more laws is better.
Any legislation presented as being for “protecting children” needs to be immediately met with skepticism.
It’s almost always a cover for egregious government interference in personal life, which sucks since there really is damaging content out there made on purpose… the only thing you can really do is pay more attention to your own kids
Your second paragraph is spot on, but you’ll never get those people to accept the damage they caused. Bringing it up just stirs up shit. Sucks.
It does, and it sucks even more because that’s all the Fediverse is outside of a few rare instances. Love this tech but the echo chamber makes me feel like giving up on the Fediverse at least a few times per week.