Charlie Jane Anders discusses KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act).
If you’re in the US, https://www.stopkosa.com/ makes it easy to contact your Senators and ask them to oppose KOSA.
"A new bill called the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, is sailing towards passage in the Senate with bipartisa>n support. Among other things, this bill would give the attorney general of every state, including red states, the right to sue Internet platforms if they allow any content that is deemed harmful to minors. This clause is so vaguely defined that attorneys general can absolutely claim that queer content violates it — and they don’t even need to win these lawsuits in order to prevail. They might not even need to file a lawsuit, in fact. The mere threat of an expensive, grueling legal battle will be enough to make almost every Internet platform begin to scrub anything related to queer people.
The right wing Heritage Foundation has already stated publicly that the GOP will use this provision to remove any discussions of trans or queer lives from the Internet. They’re salivating over the prospect.
And yep, I did say this bill has bipartisan support. Many Democrats have already signed on as co-sponsors. And President Joe Biden has urged lawmakers to pass this bill in the strongest possible terms."
I am not an American and I couldn’t care less about their laws or the people in power. Why is content here so focused on the US anyway?
Then post tech news from your country.
In this case, sites could make content unavailable to everyone to make sure Americans using VPNs don’t see it.
What about sites hosted there, or operated by Americans?
Because you’ll be effected by this too. That’s the reason. The internet is full of platforms that are related to the USA in some way, and because of this all of them will have to heavily censor themselves or shut down.
I feel you. I don’t want to have to do anything with the USA. I don’t even want to go there at all. As far as it doesn’t hurt anyone outside I don’t care what they do. But here we are.
If you don’t care then why are you asking?
The US likes to throw its weight around. Today it’s websites inside the US the tighty righties are afraid of. Tomorrow it might be one of yours; just like the GDPR has caused a lot of USian websites to be even more annoying, USian legislation might do it to non-USian websites next.