The Kids Online Safety Act has gained support from right-wing groups that want to crack down on LGBTQ content, and now Senator Elizabeth Warren.


Evan Greer is a transgender activist, musician and writer based in Boston. She’s the director of the digital rights non-profit Fight For The Future.

Senator Marsha Blackburn was recently caught on camera saying the goal of her bill, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), is to “protect minor children from the transgender in this culture.” That’s not that surprising. Senator Blackburn is one of the most anti-LGBTQ members of the Senate, and has said many terrible and offensive things about transgender people. What is surprising, is that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, long seen as an LGBTQ ally, apparently wants to help Blackburn advance her legislative attack on our community.

This week, Senator Warren became a co-sponsor of KOSA, a dangerous and misguided bill that will make kids less safe, not more safe. KOSA is supported by right-wing groups that have campaigned against LGBTQ rights for decades, like NCOSE and Heritage Foundation, explicitly because it will allow conservative State Attorneys General to crack down on LGBTQ content under the guise of “protecting kids.” The bill seeks to address legitimate harm, but is written in such a way that it allows trans and LGBTQ youth to be exploited for cheap political points.

Senator Warren is absolutely right that Big Tech companies are out of control and need to be regulated. We’ve cheered her support for antitrust and privacy legislation. But KOSA will make the harms of Big Tech worse, not better.

The bill has been roundly condemned by a broad coalition of civil society, LGBTQ rights, human rights, and racial justice organizations as well as parents of transgender children. Advocates have driven more than 300,000 emails and calls to lawmakers against KOSA, including many from young people who have been sounding the alarm about the bill on TikTok and other social media platforms.

Lawmakers are also expressing concerns. Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL), the youngest member of the House, has come out against KOSA, along with Senator Wyden of Oregon.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, a longtime champion of more privacy and safety protections for kids online, has also expressed concerns about KOSA. In the Senate Commerce Committee markup of the bill he said, “I commend the authors for their work on the bill, but I want to continue to work to modify the bill to fix the concerns that the LGBTQ community has been raising. More work needs to be done.”

Despite all of this, and over the objections of dozens of human rights groups like the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and the ACLU, Senator Warren has decided to sign on as a cosponsor of KOSA. Worse, she has done so without securing a single change to the bill. Human rights and civil liberties groups are trying to hold the line to demand meaningful changes to protect LGBTQ and other marginalized groups that are being attacked in states, Senator Warren is breaking that line to help pass a deeply flawed bill.

I’d like to think that this misstep was unintentional, especially given Senator Warren’s long record of purported support for the LGBTQ community. At a time when my community faces unprecedented danger, I genuinely hope that the Senator does not care more about scoring political points by posturing as tough on Big Tech than she does about the actual substance of the legislation and whether it will help or hurt marginalized communities.

As a former law professor, Senator Warren should also know better than to cosponsor a bill that constitutional experts have said is blatantly unconstitutional as written. A court just found that California’s Age Appropriate Design Code, which KOSA borrows a lot from, likely violates the First Amendment, because it allows the government to dictate what content platforms can show to which users. The provisions that will almost certainly run afoul of the First Amendment are the very same provisions that will do damage to my community and that we’ve asked lawmakers to change.

KOSA might be redeemable. There are good faith supporters of the bill who want to take on big tech and stop exploitative practices that harm children and adults in the name of greed. But they’ve made a bad bargain and are refusing to make common sense changes that will not only protect marginalized communities but would also make the bill less likely to be struck down in court. Unfortunately, these supporters are trading the rights of marginalized people for expediency in passing a dangerous bill. They’ve made changes to KOSA, but none of them address the bill’s deadly flaws: it requires censorship and incentivizes invasive age verification.

I’d hoped Senator Warren wouldn’t make this kind of trade. It’s a deal that will have deadly consequences for the most vulnerable people in our society, especially transgender youth, who already face disproportionate rates of violence, discrimination, self-harm, and who are actively being targeted by extreme right wing legislatures and attorneys general. The very same attorneys general that KOSA will empower to censor online speech.

Senator Warren is an influential member of Congress. She’s a member of Democratic leadership and a former presidential candidate. And she’s shown thoughtfulness on these issues in the past. She rightly expressed regret over her support for SESTA/FOSTA, and introduced an important bill to study the harm it did to sex workers and LGBTQ rights.

I hope that Senator Warren will read the letter signed by hundreds of parents of trans and gender expansive kids, many of whom are from Massachusetts, and use her power to pressure changes in KOSA that will actually protect marginalized communities. As it stands, her cosponsorship advances policies that Sen. Blackburn and far-right hate groups hope will be used against my community.

link: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjven5/elizabeth-warren-just-backed-an-online-safety-bill-that-will-harm-lgbtq-youth

  • Veltoss@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Warren for years now has been doing stuff like this. Saying one thing while supporting something that doesn’t do what she claims to care about. She’s rubbed me the wrong way ever since the multiple sketchy things she said/did when she was running against Bernie.

    Won’t even bother going into how much she loves supporting the banks. She’s no different than corpo neolibs, she just wears a different costume.

    • hibsen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So her demands for the return of oversight over banking just didn’t happen, in your magical world where Warren isn’t one of the more progressive Dem senators?

      Archive Link

      Dislike her all you want, but try to do it for reasons that actually exist, if you don’t mind.

      • Veltoss@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Oh well that one single anecdote makes up for everything else.

        Why does everything on social media need to be dumbed down to overly black and white simple arguments? You realize she can do that and still do other things that are pro-bank right?

        Like her all you want, but try not to claim anyone who has a problem with her actions are making them all up, if you don’t mind.

        • hibsen@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’ve provided no evidence to support your claim. I’m going to assume you’re making it up as all the evidence I can find points to the contrary.

          If you’re that against “dumbing things down,” you could try making a better argument than your opinion backed by nothing.

    • SlikPikker@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Watching her during the 2012 debates, she struck me as a corpo liberal, VERY happy to say whatever focus tested best

      • hibsen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This doesn’t ring true, like…at all. In 2012, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce described her by saying “no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren.” Archive Link.

        I didn’t watch any debate she had with Scott Brown in 2012, when she was running for Senate, for the first time, but I know she ran unopposed in the democratic primary for that position.

        What exactly do you have as evidence of her being corpo-ANYTHING in that year?

        • SlikPikker@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Absolutely none, I’m not American and don’t know her in detail. I watched the 1012 debates and had that impression. The end.

          • hibsen@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I mean now I’m more curious. You’re not American, you have no detailed interest in Warren…what random set of circumstances had you watching her debates in 2012, when she was running for political office for the first time?

            Frankly I wouldn’t think most non-Americans would have heard of her before she ran for President.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Before being elected to Federal government. She was registered as a republican for quite some time. Though I’m not sure it’s even as clear cut as that.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Just a reminder that politicians, whether you agree with them or not, can be wrong about something. You can oppose an idea even if it means criticizing someone you otherwise support, and that is neither a contradiction not an attack on your party.

    If we support the individuals over ideas, then we end up with despots.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There are Democrat politicians that need a kick in the ass, and deserve to be called out for their shit, that shouldn’t get you labeled as an enemy by your own party. Too many people see criticisms of a democrat as you showing support for the Republicans, which is a huge chasm.

      Sometimes on here you can criticize Biden, and you’ll get replies saying “how is Trump better?” Or “so you support Republicans then!” As if those are the only two paths.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And you get it from both sides. Cobservatives will take those criticisms and say, “See? you should vote for DeSantis!” as though that’s a decision that has ever made a shred of sense for anyone.

    • hibsen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is the best take in this thread. Warren is completely wrong about this and someone needs to bring her up to speed on the harm these bills pose. Mistakes like this are easily avoidable if your staff educates you properly in areas you have no expertise.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So basically the only hope now to stop KOSA is the courts. Kids are fucked. I’m glad my daughter knows how to use a VPN.

    • BourneHavoc@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Earlier in this fever-dream hell-scape timeline, I didn’t imagine that kids would literally need a VPN as they tried to just exist. Yet here we are, and I’m right with you, I’ve been setting my kids up with VPN as well, and talking to them about what sort of things they need to be careful about looking up without the VPN connection. Fucking dystopian.

    • hibsen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “This senator is wrong about something, so she should probably be voted out of office.”

      Like. No, man. You don’t remove a progressive Dem because they’re wrong about one thing. You argue with them, educate them, and get them to change their mind.

      Warren made and successfully defended the CFPB. She’s wrong about this, but you don’t throw people into the garbage because they have one bad take.

      • Krackalot@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        That would be a good point if this was the only reason I felt this way. I personally think she shifted left for political reasons and, as such, will slide back if it benefits her. That said, this is the second time that I’m aware that she’s sought to damage internet freedoms to protect someone else. Last time, it was service women on revenge porn sites, now it’s “for the children.” I don’t think she’s that great, is all. Of course, someone better would have to run, so I may vote for in the end anyway.

        • hibsen@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah America is just full of perfectly pure left politicians. Why bother with someone who screwed up a whole twice (in your opinion, I don’t have enough info to make a point on your other instance of failing).

          She shifted left because the right in this country are literally trying to dismantle it. That’s as good a reason as any. Throw stones at her for this, but don’t chuck someone who actually accomplishes things for the working class in the gutter.