this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2024
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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!

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[–] [email protected] 127 points 2 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 2 months ago (7 children)

They probably opposed the idea of safe kids, given the rest of the platform. That, or there was lobbying money.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

Considering the tech industry would need to use more money to enforce the law, it would be cheaper to just buy out politicians.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I'm gonna go out on a limb and go with "Can't give Democrats anything that looks like a conservative win" for $500 Alex.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

That and good old reactive contrarianism. Dems say yes, we say no.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Then why did they support it in the Senate?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Cause Senators are generally less reactionary than the house. They can usually afford to play a long game that House members can't.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

You can't go looking for logic in hate

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

The reason is obvious, the Democrats wanted it to pass.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I mean, good, but how the hell did it get 90% of the senate?

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can always find my senator pretty easily. I just fly to Cancun.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Only when the power is out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Who the fuck wants to look at him in the light?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Our Alberta MLA, who was also the Minister of Transportation, would sit in his agricultural equipment dealership about 2 days a week and take meetings all day with anyone that wanted to come in and talk.

He fixed a lot of people's problems with a few phone calls from there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm curious what riding you're in

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

That was Yellowhead back in the 90s. Old Pavin' Pete.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!!

That's how.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Thank goodness the GOP in the house cares not about the children. They definitely voted against it based purely on the majority of Democrats that voted on favor.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Republicans will block anything that Democrats propose, purely out of spite.

Occasionally, when Democrats propose something awful, this actually works in the people's favor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm seriously never surprised Obama never caught wise to this and started demanding they lower the minimum wage to 50 cents. Republicans would have raised it to 420.69 an hour in a bill that had the most racist fucking dog whistle you've ever seen as the name.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I was hoping that's what this was. Hadn't even seen this one, but when I saw a YouTube link, my exact thoughts were "Please tell me it's a K&P sketch where what I suggested happens."

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago

This seems like misinformation... The House is in recess until September.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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=%7B%22search%22%3A%22kids+online+safety%22%7D&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

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Kosa means scythe in Polish. What a name...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Wow. Now I know 1 polish word!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Really? I heard the exact opposite, that it passed the Senate and is expected to breeze through the house.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Thank God, ya know after SOPA was defeated I thought they'd never try to ban the internet again...

I was wrong

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

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?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Good job, everyone!

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