Howdy Y'all

Just want to put this here but it's time again to YELL loudly out congress not to pass this bill - KOSA (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jul/23/kosa-solution-in-search-of-problem/)

https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-kosa-will-censor-the-internet-but-won-t-help-kids

Yet again, another week with another bill scapegoating "Protect The Children" to censor online content, ESPECIALLY NSFW Art and Sex Work/Adult Creation online will most likely be effected due to being "Harmful" content

Some politicians seem to have an awful lot of free time innit

I think politicians use porn for theatrics.

Like, instead of focusing on complex issues like inflation, unemployment, climate change, the housing market, they create a simple problem ("porn is le bad") and deliver a simple solution ("just ban it") to pretend they’re being useful.

Don’t let them yuck your yum just so they can say they did something for some quick bucks and votes.

gattonero2001 said:
Some politicians seem to have an awful lot of free time innit

So many people are cuck schemers nowadays, amirite? ;)

Man, TechDirt was all over this type of bills. They've been covering it constantly.

mayhaps we should create a new category or feature for e621 "political awareness" or something

supermarcopolo said:
mayhaps we should create a new category or feature for e621 "political awareness" or something

That'll probably attract the most awful people you can imagine. Control freaks and proscribers and all.

Forum section called "politics" where the only posts allowed are "go vote"

Senate

Sponsor: Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT] (Introduced 05/02/2023)
Latest Action: Senate - 12/13/2023 Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 287. (All Actions)

House

Sponsor: Rep. Bilirakis, Gus M. [R-FL-12] (Introduced 04/09/2024)
Latest Action: House - 05/23/2024 Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee by Voice Vote. (All Actions)

Honestly this thing is more concerned with recommendation algorithms, microtransactions, and "spend more time on the same page" features like autoplay and infinite scroll. They aren't coming for your porn (this time), this is the government actually being genuine for once.

Still has a few crazy parts though because of course it does, I think it's a secret rule that every bill has to be at least moderately insane.

potentialgoat said:
Senate
House
Honestly this thing is more concerned with recommendation algorithms, microtransactions, and "spend more time on the same page" features like autoplay and infinite scroll. They aren't coming for your porn (this time), this is the government actually being genuine for once.

Still has a few crazy parts though because of course it does, I think it's a secret rule that every bill has to be at least moderately insane.

The crazy parts are the ones that'll get abused to come for our porn though.

OP, Washington Times is a Murdoch propaganda rag deliberately named in such a way as to get people to confuse them with the New York Times and Washington Post (the New York Post is a likewise a Murdoch propaganda rag too). It's not a very reliable source. Ironically I think this is the first time I've ever seen them freaking out about an actual real problem.

e_pluribus_eunuch said:
The crazy parts are the ones that'll get abused to come for our porn though.

OP, Washington Times is a Murdoch propaganda rag deliberately named in such a way as to get people to confuse them with the New York Times and Washington Post (the New York Post is a likewise a Murdoch propaganda rag too). It's not a very reliable source. Ironically I think this is the first time I've ever seen them freaking out about an actual real problem.

Probably because of the part about algorithms and same page UI. Which is an assumption I'm going to make because I'm not clicking on a news website. though it would effect revenue from external platforms like youtube and facebook, twitter also.

It's a lot easier to keep your audience worked up into a screaming frenzy to put on the whole family when you can minimize their effort to use a mouse and keyboard.

The two big crazy parts are telling the FCC to study device and/or OS level age verification (it doesn't mandate anything it just orders them to check the feasibility and pros/cons) and the requirement to get a third-party audit once a year to prove you're taking reasonable measures. (And the enforcement by state attorney generals, because you know how some states are going to be with that.)

For example on how not-concerned this is with porn, e6 is barely affected, as it doesn't have "minors" (under 17) as "users" (registered accounts) so it can skip everything about handling data and parental features, and it's not even affected by the audit bullshit because it has less than 10 million monthly active users in the US alone. (e6 doesn't even have that many accounts.)
If the House version passes it's also not a "high impact online company" (2.5 billion annual revenue or 150 million monthly active users worldwide) so it's even less affected.

It's really weird because looking at the bill it's like a perfect storm of everything they could have possibly done to make people freak out.

• Senate version originally came out around the same time as EARN IT and RESTRICT which are absolutely batshit, like I've read them they're fucking batshit.
• House version was put forward by a Florida Republican.
• "Think of the children" bill that involves in the internet.
• Govt fucking around with the internet in general.
• The third-party age verifiers would go out of business if instead of getting to handle your fucking govt ID sites just got a "this machine belongs to an adult" flag.
• House version takes a swing at "opaque algorithms" and requires sites allow people to opt out, so Google, Xitter, Amazon, etc are going to be fucking pissed.
• Both versions essentially tell sites they have to allow parents to make their kids use it less and also that they need to cut out the design patterns that encourage "compulsive use" (House)/"addiction-like behaviors" (Senate).

So "omg the govt" people are freaking out, people who don't read bills are freaking out, news sites are freaking out (and posting articles encouraging people to freak out), Google and co are freaking out (and likely to lobby against it)...

Also my favorite part of the bill

(b) Limitation.—Nothing in subsection (a) shall be construed to require a [Senate: "covered platform"/House: "high impact online company"] to prevent or preclude—

(1) any minor from deliberately and independently searching for, or specifically requesting, content; or

They actually fucking wrote in "if minors want to get the 'harmful content' you can let them." Actual madlads.

potentialgoat said:
The two big crazy parts are telling the FCC to study device and/or OS level age verification (it doesn't mandate anything it just orders them to check the feasibility and pros/cons) and the requirement to get a third-party audit once a year to prove you're taking reasonable measures. (And the enforcement by state attorney generals, because you know how some states are going to be with that.)

For example on how not-concerned this is with porn, e6 is barely affected, as it doesn't have "minors" (under 17) as "users" (registered accounts) so it can skip everything about handling data and parental features, and it's not even affected by the audit bullshit because it has less than 10 million monthly active users in the US alone. (e6 doesn't even have that many accounts.)
If the House version passes it's also not a "high impact online company" (2.5 billion annual revenue or 150 million monthly active users worldwide) so it's even less affected.

It's really weird because looking at the bill it's like a perfect storm of everything they could have possibly done to make people freak out.

• Senate version originally came out around the same time as EARN IT and RESTRICT which are absolutely batshit, like I've read them they're fucking batshit.
• House version was put forward by a Florida Republican.
• "Think of the children" bill that involves in the internet.
• Govt fucking around with the internet in general.
• The third-party age verifiers would go out of business if instead of getting to handle your fucking govt ID sites just got a "this machine belongs to an adult" flag.
• House version takes a swing at "opaque algorithms" and requires sites allow people to opt out, so Google, Xitter, Amazon, etc are going to be fucking pissed.
• Both versions essentially tell sites they have to allow parents to make their kids use it less and also that they need to cut out the design patterns that encourage "compulsive use" (House)/"addiction-like behaviors" (Senate).

So "omg the govt" people are freaking out, people who don't read bills are freaking out, news sites are freaking out (and posting articles encouraging people to freak out), Google and co are freaking out (and likely to lobby against it)...

Also my favorite part of the bill
They actually fucking wrote in "if minors want to get the 'harmful content' you can let them." Actual madlads.

.............Every last one of you start watching this bill for any change made but start screaming about needing to protect the kids.
The House bill might be the next best thing after a repeal of the patriot act.
If it passes without any alteration made whatsoever it just might roll back a good ten years of corporate manipulation.

potentialgoat said:
Also my favorite part of the bill
They actually fucking wrote in "if minors want to get the 'harmful content' you can let them." Actual madlads.

LOL, imagine adults needing to get permission to even ask if something explicit exists. Unintended consequences prevention most likely?

@LetForeverDieSlow:
The irony is that this type of stuff leads to a hellish future for the kids.

What's the point? This site is okay with censorship. You guys should love this. First they came for the lolicons...

verxis said:
What's the point? This site is okay with censorship. You guys should love this. First they came for the lolicons...

Did you uhh... read the pinned thread? Most people here, including the mods, weren't happy about having to enact censorship. While a few people saw it as a victory, most were worried/unhappy with the changes, even those who didn't like the content in question. It was made pretty clear that the choice was between censored site, or no site at all.

I think it's more than fair to be salty about it, but pretending that the decision had some sort of popular mandate is just... silly.

alphamule said:
The irony is that this type of stuff leads to a hellish future for the kids.

As far as I'm seeing, it'd only be an inconvenience for those that'd want get up to all the shit we all got up to (and we all did) on the exact kind of sites that, designed as they are, are not safe for anyone, because they prey on everyone, and in ways we weren't preyed upon some 10 or more years back.

And with the "opt out of algorithmic content distribution" part? Even the way we're exploited in the future wouldn't be as it is now.

Is there something I'm missing on the house bill? Like it still requiring ID verification?

letforeverdieslow said:
As far as I'm seeing, it'd only be an inconvenience for those that'd want get up to all the shit we all got up to (and we all did) on the exact kind of sites that, designed as they are, are not safe for anyone, because they prey on everyone, and in ways we weren't preyed upon some 10 or more years back.

And with the "opt out of algorithmic content distribution" part? Even the way we're exploited in the future wouldn't be as it is now.

Is there something I'm missing on the house bill? Like it still requiring ID verification?

Well, that was kind of the point. It feels like a trend to come up with enabling acts.

I'm just going to say this here

You give them even a single inch of wiggle room for censorship they will take a mile, if you don't think that would happen especially the American Government who took away Roe Vs Wade and has started to ban books with LGBTQ+ content from schools because they are "Pornographic" and "Indoctrinating Children" all stemming from giving them the opportunity to get to that position

You are crazy at this point, yes it may not be an explicit "porn ban" but it's a real slippery slope and considering how much content whether it be just you softcore smut or your hardcore knotting they wouldn't care, you don't matter to them.

As with any new major legislation, always take a look at the individuals who proposed the bill. From a cursory browse of Wikipedia and verifying the cited sources:

Richard Blumenthal enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. While avoiding a draft for an unpopular war is not inherently bad, he later falsely claimed that he had served in Vietnam. Stolen valor is not indicative of good moral character. It does not directly impact this bill, but it makes me more skeptical of him having sincere moral concerns.

Marsha Blackburn is openly homophobic and continues to oppose same-sex marriage. She voted against repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell and worked repeatedly to impede the civil liberties of LGBT people:

Of the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, Blackburn said, "Despite this decision, no one can overrule the truth about what marriage actually is—a sacred institution between a man and a woman."

During her tenure as a representative, Blackburn sought to remove Kevin Jennings, a gay man who worked in the United States Department of Education, saying that Jennings "has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools".

Blackburn voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to ban discrimination against LGBT employees. In August 2019, she co-signed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity.

I do not trust Marsha Blackburn to sponsor legislation that could impact access to information or resources related to LGBT people, and her involvement in the bill is worrying, to put it mildly. You should not trust individuals with a history of contempt for civil liberties to propose bills that may impact civil liberties.

Update: KOSA has been near-unanimously approved by the Senate, 91-3.

The only senators who opposed it are Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Reality said:
Remember, any shimmer of progress can always be painted over

I have been so desperate for an end to the business model of soliciting High Arousal Emotions, to extract data from it's response, I forgot the rule more golden than merely one bill leading to another.

2008 happened in large part due to the neutralization of the 1933 Glass-Steagal act, and for however much the Frank-Dodd act made it law again in 2010, it too was rendered null in only a few short years (they're called "bespoke collateralized synthetic obligations" now).

I failed to remember that even if platforms and services are mandated to allow users to stop letting themselves be mentally, emotionally, spiritually hijacked, they can always have that one concession revoked.
Especially once the requirement of state, federal ID verification is made law, when a profile for every user can be based on government records, featuring all the data sets required to make an empirical determination on that record.
Not as a person or a citizen, not as a potential threat to catagorize in tiers either, but as an economic unit.
A consumer, an actor in the markets for products, services, and content.
American society is already a factory for trauma and anxiety running two seperate assembly lines for different versions of reality, in whose service is never ending monetization.
It's already a reality show.
Next week's plot can always ignore what happened this week if it will mean higher ratings.

And this bill would only help it toward dropping plot points in real time.
Driving us into further confusion and bewilderment.

Ahah, it took some digging but I found out what they did (i.e. why congress.gov didn't update the bill as "passed senate").

The Senate has not passed S.1409 the Kids Online Safety Act. It hasn't even voted on it.

The Senate has voted 91-3 to pass S.2073 the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act; apparently five days ago they amended the Eliminate Useless Reporting Act of 2023 by erasing it entirely and copypasting S.1409 (slight alterations) into it, as well as pasting the "COPPA 2.0" (original was S.1418 the Children and Teen's Online Privacy Protection Act) as Title II of it.

Oh yeah and the Eliminating Useless Reports section is still there at the very end.

S.2073 passed the House in its original form (as the EURA); the Senate is being a bunch of sneaky fucksticks by doing this amendment bullshit, though it still has to pass the House again as-amended and the House isn't too keen on their own version of the bill. And yes, I assume the Senate really does think the House is stupid enough to fall for "yeah we passed that already I thought?"

Highlights so far:

• New definition on design features.
• Definition of sexual harms is more specific (cites actual pieces of the US Code and is not a vague open-ended statement).
• Section 102(b)(1) is still there minors can still deliberately search for harmful content.
• The fucking audit is still there aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (e6 is safe due to <10 million active monthly users but still)
• They copied the House bill's rider about letting people (including adults) opt out of "opaque algorithms" lmao.

Oh and for "give inch take mile" that's what the audit is. You have to be able to get an "independent third-party" to audit you that you trust to handle all the data you just gave them and then you have to trust them to, y'know, not deliberately fuck you over because they don't like your content.

I'm not worried because based on the House's reception (38/435 cosponsors, not even close to enough to pass, unlike Senate which had 72/100 before they pulled the amendment switcheroo) to their own version I don't think it's going anywhere. I am however cautious because, y'know.
Senate being fucksticks.

potentialgoat said:
Oh and for "give inch take mile" that's what the audit is. You have to be able to get an "independent third-party" to audit you that you trust to handle all the data you just gave them and then you have to trust them to, y'know, not deliberately fuck you over because they don't like your content.

I'm sure they won't go after any massive sites just selling data like no tomorrow, after all that's the free market baybay 🤬 You know they'll use this as some excuse for something shitty for smaller spaces

Are there any updates?

letforeverdieslow said:
Are there any updates?

Yeah it died. For now.

Not in US, but if the legal system is anything like mine, case law will win at the end of the day. Though from experience I doubt any full time judges (not ones that are elected) would have a hard time seeing the other side of this bill. Rip it's how it goes.

regsmutt said:
Yeah it died. For now.

Killed by the GOP, but since the GOP are a bunch of nazi cunts, I will rule that it was killed by a Democrat.

lenkagetsu said:
Killed by the GOP, but since the GOP are a bunch of nazi cunts, I will rule that it was killed by a Democrat.

Dude, c'mon, was that really needed?

Hmm, I imagine there's some moderator waking up and deciding if they should close this or not as it's pretty much a done deal until next year.
Doctor Claw's doing his "Next time, Gadget!" line on this one.