#the other user was censored for privacy

[cb-writes-stuff]

So, I might have done a thing on a serious, non-fandom post.

I don’t think anyone there knows what ISAT is. Or that “The Cursing of Château Castle” isn’t a real book series.

I have no regrets.

[onionsites]

ONİONSİTES - DRAGON+ (2)

Onion sites, also known as.onion sites, are a unique type of website that can only be accessed through the Tor network. The Tor network, short for The Onion Router, provides a layer of anonymity and encryption for users accessing these sites, making them popular for those seeking privacy and security online. Unlike traditional websites that can be accessed through standard web browsers, onion sites list require special software, such as the Tor browser, to navigate. Individuals can create onion versions of regular websites or develop standalone onion sites for specific purposes. The exclusivity and privacy features of onion sites contribute to their appeal for various users, ranging from privacy advocates to individuals navigating the dark web for specific content.

There are several reasons why individuals choose to use onion sites, with privacy and anonymity being at the forefront. Onion sites offer a level of confidentiality that is not typically found on the surface web, making them attractive to individuals seeking to protect their identity and browsing habits. Moreover, best onion sites can provide access to content that may be restricted or censored in certain regions, allowing users to circumvent such limitations and access information freely. The encrypted nature of the Tor network adds an additional layer of security, reducing the risk of surveillance and tracking by third parties, including governments and internet service providers.

Common types of content found on onion sites range from forums and marketplaces to news outlets and secure communication platforms. While exploring onion sites, individuals may come across forums, chat rooms, file-sharing platforms, and other interactive spaces that facilitate communication and information exchange in a secure environment. The anonymity and encryption offered 2024 onion sites contribute to a unique online experience, enabling users to engage with content and communities that may not be easily accessible through conventional web browsers.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When the app tries to make you robo-scab

When we talk about the abusive nature of gig work, there’s some obvious targets, like algorithmic wage discrimination, where two workers are paid different rates for the same job, in order to trick occasional gig-workers to give up their other sources of income and become entirely dependent on the app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Then there’s the opacity — imagine if your boss refused to tell you how much you’ll get paid for a job until after you’ve completed it, claimed that this was done in order to “protect privacy” — and then threatened anyone who helped you figure out the true wage on offer:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#boss-app

Opacity is wage theft’s handmaiden: every gig worker producing content for a social media algorithm is subject to having their reach — and hence their pay — cut based on the unaccountable, inscrutable decisions of a content moderation system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Making content for an algorithm is like having a boss that docks every paycheck because you broke rules that you are not allowed to know, because if you knew the rules, you’d figure out how to cheat without your boss catching you. Content moderation is the last place where security through obscurity is considered good practice:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

When workers seize the means of computation, amazing things happen. In Indonesia, gig workers create and trade tuyul apps that let them unilaterally modify the way that their bosses’ systems see them — everything from GPS spoofing to accessibility mods:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

So the tech and labor story isn’t wholly grim: there are lots of ways that tech can enhance labor struggles, letting workers collaborate and coordinate. Without digital systems, we wouldn’t have the Hot Strike Summer:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

As the historic writer/actor strike shows us, the resurgent labor movement and the senescent forces of crapulent capitalism are locked in a death-struggle over not just what digital tools do, but who they do it for and who they do it to:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

When it comes to the epic fight over who technology acts for and against, we need a diversity of tactics, backstopped by tech operated by and for its users — and by laws that protect workers and the public. That dynamic is in sharp focus in UNITE Here Local 11’s strike against Orange County’s Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa.

The UNITE Here strike turns on the usual issues like a living wage (hotel staff are paid so little they have to rent rooming-house beds by the shift, paying for the right to sleep in a room for a few hours at a time, without any permanent accommodation). They’re also seeking health-care and pensions, so they can be healthy at work and retire after long service. Finally, they’re seeking their employer’s support for LA’s Responsible Hotels Ordinance, which would levy a tax on hotel rooms to help pay for hotel workers’ housing costs (a hotel worker who can’t afford a bed is the equivalent of a fast food worker who has to apply for food stamps):

https://www.unitehere11.org/responsible-hotels-ordinance/

But the Marriott — which is owned by the University of California and managed by Aimbridge Hospitality — has refused to bargain, walking out negotiations.

But the employer didn’t walk out over wages, benefits or support for a housing subsidy. They walked out when workers demanded that the scabs that the company was trying to hire to break the strike be given full time, union jobs.

These aren’t just any scabs, either. They’re predominantly Black workers who rely on the $700m Instawork app for gigs. These workers are being dispatched to cross the picket line without any warning that they’re being contracted as strikebreakers. When workers refuse the cross the picket and join the strike, Instawork cancels all their shifts and permanently blocks them from new jobs.

This is a new, technologically supercharged form of illegal strikebreaking. It’s one thing for a single boss to punish a worker who refuses to scab, but Instawork acts as a plausible-deniability filter for all the major employers in the region. Like the landlord apps that allow landlords to illegally fix rents by coordinating hikes, Instawork lets bosses illegally collude to rig wages by coordinating a blocklist of workers who refuse to scab:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-makes-rent-setting-software-for-landlords-sued-for-collusion/?comments=1

The racial dimension is really important here: the Marriott has a longstanding de facto policy of refusing to hire Black workers, and whenever they are confronted with this, they insist that there are no qualified Black workers in the labor pool. But as soon as the predominantly Latino workforce struck, Marriott discovered a vast Black workforce that it could coerce into scabbing, in collusion with Instawork.

Now, all of this isn’t just sleazy, it’s illegal, a violation of Section 7 of the NLRB Act. Historically, that wouldn’t have mattered, because a string of presidents, R and D, have appointed useless do-nothing ghouls to run the NLRB. But the Biden admin, pushed by the party’s left wing, made a string of historic, excellent appointments, including NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who has set her sights on punishing gig work companies for flouting labor law:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/#bidens-legacy

UNITE HERE 11 has brought a case to the NLRB, charging the Instawork, the UC system, Marriott, and Aimbridge with violating labor law by blackmailing gig workers into crossing the picket line. The union is also asking the NLRB to punish the companies for failing to protect workers from violent retaliation from the wealthy hotel guests who have punched them and screamed epithets at them. The hotel has refused to identify these thug guests so that the workers they assaulted can swear out complaints against them.

Writing about the strike for Jacobin, Alex N Press tells the story of Thomas Bradley, a Black worker who was struck off all Instawork shifts for refusing to cross the picket line and joining it instead:

https://jacobin.com/2023/07/southern-california-hotel-workers-strike-automated-management-unite-here

Bradley’s case is exhibit A in the UNITE HERE 11 case before the NLRB. He has a degree in culinary arts, but racial discrimination in the industry has kept him stuck in gig and temp jobs ever since he graduated, nearly a quarter century ago. Bradley lived out of his car, but that was repossessed while he slept in a hotel room that UNITE HERE 11 fundraised for him, leaving him homeless and bereft of all his worldly possessions.

With UNITE HERE 11’s help, Bradley’s secured a job at the downtown LA Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, a hotel that has bargained with the workers. Bradley is using his newfound secure position to campaign among other Instawork workers to convince them not to cross picket lines. In these group chats, Jacobin saw workers worrying “that joining the strike would jeopardize their standing on the app.”

Today (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

[Image ID: An old photo of strikers before a struck factory, with tear-gas plumes rising above them. The image has been modified to add a Marriott sign to the factory, and the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' to the sky over the factory. The workers have been colorized to a yellow-green shade and the factory has been colorized to a sepia tone.]

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[sunny-day-jack-official]

URGENT! Stop KOSA!

Hey all, this is BáiYù and Sauce here with something that isn't necessarily SnaccPop related, but it's important nonetheless. For those of you who follow US politics, The Kids Online Safety Act passed the Senate yesterday and is moving forward.

This is bad news for everyone on the internet, even outside of the USA.

What is KOSA?

While it's officially known as "The Kids Online Safety Act," KOSA is an internet censorship masquerading as another "protect the children" bill, much in the same way SESTA/FOSTA claimed that it would stop illegal sex trafficking but instead hurt sex workers and their safety. KOSA was originally introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass. and Bill Cassidy, R-La. as a way to update the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Act, raising the age of consent for data collection to 16 among other things. You can read the original press release of KOSA here, while you can read the full updated text of the bill on the official USA Congress website.

You can read the following articles about KOSA here:

EFF: The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online

CyberScoop: Children’s online safety bills clear Senate hurdle despite strong civil liberties pushback

TeenVogue: The Kids Online Safety Act Would Harm LGBTQ+ Youth, Restrict Access to Information and Community

The quick TL;DR:

KOSA authorizes an individual state attorneys general to decide what might harm minors

Websites will likely preemptively remove and ban content to avoid upsetting state attorneys generals (this will likely be topics such as abortion, queerness, feminism, sexual content, and others)

In order for a platform to know which users are minors, they'll require a more invasive age and personal data verification method

Parents will be granted more surveillance tools to see what their children are doing on the web

KOSA is supported by Christofascists and those seeking to harm the LGBTQ+ community

If a website holding personally identifying information and government documents is hacked, that's a major cybersecurity breach waiting to happen

What Does This Mean?

You don't have to look far to see or hear about the violence being done to the neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities worldwide, who are oftentimes one and the same. Social media sites censoring discussion of these topics would stand to do even further harm to folks who lack access to local resources to understand themselves and the hardships they face; in addition, the fact that websites would likely store personally identifying information and government documents means the death of any notion of privacy.

Sex workers and those living in certain countries already are at risk of losing their ways of life, living in a reality where their online activities are closely surveilled; if KOSA officially becomes law, this will become a reality for many more people and endanger those at the fringes of society even worse than it already is.

Why This Matters Outside of The USA

I previously mentioned SESTA/FOSTA, which passed and became US law in 2018. This bill enabled many of the anti-adult content attitudes that many popular websites are taking these days as well as the tightening of restrictions laid down by payment processors. Companies and sites hosted in the USA have to follow US laws even if they're accessible worldwide, meaning that folks overseas suffer as well.

What Can You Do?

If you're a US citizen, contact your Senators and tell them that you oppose KOSA. This can be as an email, letter, or phone call that you make to your state Senator.

For resources on how to do so, view the following links:

https://www.badinternetbills.com/#kosa

https://www.stopkosa.com/

https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

If you live outside of the US or cannot vote, the best thing you can do is sign the petition at the Stop KOSA website, alert your US friends about what's happening, and raise some noise.

Above all else, don’t panic. By staying informed by what’s going on, you can prepare for the legal battles ahead.

[mintpopz]

a brief post regarding KOSA.

KOSA (also known as Kids Online Safety Act) alongside others like it (such as the Online Safety Act in the UK, RESTRICT-IT, COPPA 2.0, etc.) Are planning to censor the internet. In particular, KOSA and Online Safety Act are very close to being passed through and made law.

Now, what do I mean when I say "censor the internet"? Well...

Under the guise of "Protecting children", these bigots trying to push the bill through congress want to censor LGBTQ+/queer content (including advice for trans and gay teenagers), abortion, gun violence, gore and violence, sexual/18+ content, suicide and depression help, and many more.

This bill also plans to effectively destroy free speech online, with the removal of end-to-end encryption. Furthermore, it also wants an ID for online posting and will reveal what kids are doing to their parents regardless. This would be extremely harmful especially for queer minors in the closet, or minors with abusive parents.

but what can YOU do to stop these bills?

You can Phone your senators, sign petitions, send emails, or spread the word through social media. We CANNOT let laws like KOSA and Online Safety Act censor queer people and destroy our queer cultures online. 2 senators have already disagreed with KOSA, one of them because of the phonecalls and feedback from people like US, which is proof that it's still worth fighting. the fight is far from over, but even the smallest of actions is one step closer to shutting this bill down. Both KOSA and Online Safety are in recess until September, so make this month count.

finally, here are some links to helpful sites/petitions and more information:

[cherryg]

The internet censorship is coming..(again)

There are two well known censorship bill known as KOSA and the EarnIt act.

These bills both promised that they will protect children but unfortunately these are misguided bills that says they’ll do something but then they will do the opposite or make things worse.

Both of these bills are serious threat to the LGBT community and will censor a lot of content especially there

the EarnItact will also get rid of NSFW content and deem it as illegal, and will also get rid of section 230

The KOSA act will let attorneys from Florida and Texas take control and decide what people could and could not watch and sue websites and anything they don’t like and will not protect children but mostly put many vulnerable teens and children at risk while going as far as to even censor important information like sex education, health issues, suicide prevention hotlines and many more

We have stopped these bills from passing before but the cofounder Richard Bluemenhal is clearly not giving up and trying hard and hard again to push these bills back on congress

Last year more than 90/100 human rights groups urged lawmakers and congress to not pass KOSA in the omnibus bill and it got shelved and the same then happened to Earn it last year on February/March

But now he is trying a third time,using and manipulating grieving parents and young people into supporting and lobbying his bills, whiles even accepting anti trans and LGBT groups into supporting his legislations. He’s trying to find any type of scandal a platform is currently facing and turn and twist it on behalf of his agendas.

He says he supports abortions and the LGBT community but his bills will censor those things he claims to support. He can’t have it both ways.

But he was stubborn enough to ignore every criticism and scrutiny he gets about the legislations, being childish and all.

Not to mention that they are also both privacy nightmares to everyone and globally too

That’s why it’s important that you call and email your representatives and lawmakers and urge them to drop Kosa and the earn it act

Let any human rights group you trust knows and tell anyone you trust about it weather it be a friend or family member.

For more information, click these links below ⬇️

You can also help us by joining our discord server on how to stop internet censorship

There also a petition made from Fightforfuture recently about the KOSA act

(Update # 2)

Hey guys I’m back to warn everyone about yet again another bad internet bill it’s called the safe tech act

This act is supported by 7 democratic senators including bluemenhal which is never a good sign with him when it comes to internet bills.

This is a misguided 230 reform and when reading it, all it shows is that these people have no understanding of 230 whatsoever.

It’s just another dangerous censorship bill that threatens everyone’s free speech. The creators claim that it’s won’t hurt free speech but it actually does and they do not understand how important 230 is in its current form right now!

Here is a good article explaining the safe tech act really well and why it’s dangerous :

Also talk to your representatives about this and why it’s bad and if you can, try to explain to them about why section 230 is important. Support digital advocacy, human rights and any other groups that supports free internet and expression and let them know about these legislators and their bad ideas!

Update 3

The EarnIt act is sadly coming back after failing two times, now they are trying a 3rd time.

This legislation is dangerous for privacy and free expression and speech. It will bring lots of surveillance and is just as bad as the restrict act.

https://act.eff.org/action/the-earn-it-act-is-back-seeking-to-scan-us-all

Now it’s being reintroduced by two senators and two representatives if you don’t know what this bill actually does there is more information about it here from these links : https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/earn-it-bill-back-again-seeking-scan-our-messages-and-photos

The second one is called KOSA (KidsOnlineSafteyAct),

now this bill has failed to pass last year because a lot of opposition from 90/100 human rights.

It claims it’s would protect kids but it’s actually has a lot of censorship and is very dangerous to lgbt/trans kids and many other kids that are in abusive households. It will actually hurt them instead of protecting them.

If that’s not bad enough it’s tragically gaining momentum and attraction by these child advocacy groups and being sponsored by Dove and Lizzo. And there has been petitions in supporting this unconstitutional bill, One of them having somewhere around 30k signs…

I really wish I could say I’m joking but this is sadly true.

If you want more info on KOSA here they are:

https://www.fightforthefuture.org/actions/censorship-wont-make-kids-safe/

Please everyone call your senators and representatives and tell them to oppose these bills. We really need help into fighting off these bill so we could keep a free opened internet!

[hikkikoaubrey]

Please read, don't scroll pass this.

Hello, in this post I mainly wanted to talk about KOSA, as well as the "banning TikTok" bill that has also been a big problem lately. Now I know this is mainly an American issue but in the long run if these bills get passed it could lead to other places, and even then, it will ultimately effect America for the worse.

These bills aim to censor people and suppressing their freedom of speech. Literally going against first amendment of the US constitution (which is about freedom of speech)

Here are some links that will probably explain things better than I ever could, please look into them, and of course do your own research on this. (also KOSA and the TikTok bill are not the same thing) If nothing is done this could end up changing the internet for the worse.

(20) ˋˏ🍉 jessie/jes. ⁴ ⁵⁵ 🏎️ˎˊ on X: "A 🧵of resources for you to learn and start taking action against KOSA (a trojan horse for internet censorship): https://t.co/UfSIzz5nrD" / X (twitter.com)

https://x.com/T_H_E_B_I_T_E/status/1767935486926979327?s=20

https://x.com/SoftSuperstar/status/1768404026293420072?s=20

(20) Isa Baguette 🥖🍉 on X: "America is LITERALLY becoming a facist state before our eyes and some people STILL seem to think democrats, or republicans, will fix it. There NEEDS to be a MAJOR change to the way our government works and functions, because this is NOT it." / X (twitter.com)

https://x.com/_bilaire/status/1768067681687654471?s=20

(20) MaceAhWindu 🇵🇸 on X: "The fact that they won’t try and pass an actual American data privacy bill that protects user data and instead tries to ban the apps that aren’t based in America is proof that this banning TikTok thing has never actually been about protecting citizens." / X (twitter.com)

(20) courtney 🇵🇸 on X: "we’re watching blatant censorship bc these old farts are scared & y’all are not concerned enough for my liking 😭" / X (twitter.com)

(20) Mothball on X: "Btw the TikTok ban bill passed this morning, but only in the house, We will have a chance to fight against it in the Senate. I will make a thread on it in the near future. The TikTok Ban is a different bill from KOSA." / X (twitter.com)

Might add more to this post tommarow, and will make a post about project 2025 sometime soon

[transformers-earthspark]

Apologies for my recent radio silence. I've had a lot on my mind lately.

This post isn't Earthspark-related at all, but please read it.

I need to take a second on this blog to acknowledge some things going on in the world. I should not have stayed silent on this blog before, but I'm trying to fix that now.

Genocide in Palestine + how you can help Palestinians

You can buy e-sims for people in Gaza here. Anything helps.

Click here daily to help generate funds for Palestine. It's free and takes less than a minute.

Here's a list of where you can donate to help Palestine.

(If there's anything I should add to this section, please let me know.)

-----

The KOSA bill, what it's going to do if passed, and how you can help prevent it from taking effect

KOSA will essentially erase anonymity from the internet by requiring people to upload their government ID or other form of identification to any social media site, as well as restricting resources and information on LGBT rights, history, racism, and more. This bill will censor the entire internet and destroy privacy while violating First Amendment rights and potentially putting minors in danger.

This also could very well mean the end of Tumblr, and I'm not exaggerating here.

Tomorrow KOSA could be passed in Senate, and from there it will need to pass in the House of Representatives before being signed into law by the president. It's not doomsday yet, but it is a dangerous situation-- and here's what you can do.

StopKOSA.org provides you with a template email to send to your representatives. You can leave it how it is or edit it to say what you want, and then send it from their website.

The website also allows you to call your representatives and gives you a template of what to say.

BadInternetBills.org, run by the same people, takes action against KOSA as well as other bills like EARN IT. At the time of posting this, over 356,000 people have signed this petition.

Additionally there are several petitions on change.org to help stop KOSA. Here are a few of them.

STOP KOSA

STOP THE KOSA

Stop Kosa

Save Humanity, Oppose KOSA

STOP THE KOSA ACT

(Again, please let me know if there's anything I should add.)

-----

One last thing-- The evolution of AI images and video.

I don't really have anything good to say. AI is evolving fast and changing the world as we know it. We are adapting, but nobody knows how this really is going to end up.

A few quick points:

AI images are not art. That's all. AI "artists" who genuinely claim to have made something of their own just by typing a prompt into a generator will be blocked. (Which has been in my rules for a while, but I still think it needs to be said.)

I recommend Glaze for artists who don't want their art being scraped and used for data training. Especially with the recent rumors of an upcoming deal between Tumblr and Midjourney. There's also a similar program called Nightshade (haha, earthspark reference? anyone?🦉) that I haven't tested myself but have heard good things about.

-----

That's all, I suppose. Reblogs are good, if you don't mind.

Spread the word about KOSA. Contact your representatives. Sign the petitions.

Support Palestine if possible. Donate if you can. If you are unable to donate, make sure to do your daily clicks.

Stay safe and take care of yourselves. ❤️

[anxiouscryptidpartner]

TLDR: KOSA will do more harm than good by censoring queer content and sex education. You can go here to contact your senators:

The long version:

In theory, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) sounds good. Protecting children always does.

However, when you consider that states' Attorney Generals get to decide what is allowed, there is genuine concern that this bill could unintentionally limit young people's exposure to sex education and LGBTQ+ content. GLSEN, the American Association of School Librarians, Freedom Network USA, and over 90 other organizations have written a letter (https://cdt.org/insights/coalition-letter-on-privacy-and-free-expression-threats-in-kids-online-safety-act/) against this law.

According to Congress's website, there will be a committee meeting about KOSA this Thursday, July 27th, at 10am.

There is a link at the top of this post. Please go to it and contact your senators, by either letter, phone call, or both.

Image Description: A background of different hues of blue and stars. A frog is shown saying "The internet is for all!" Above it is green text that reads "Keep the internet accessible! Say no to KOSA!!!"

[cheshire-j]

PLEASE READ BECAUSE THIS WILL AFFECT YOU IF THIS PASSES

The US Government is trying to pass a bill that will censor the Internet under the guise of protecting kids! And it has bipartisan support.

This bill is called KOSA, Kids Online Safety Act. This basically gives government the power to censor anything they deem as "inappropriate" or "harm content" to kids. And if you want unrestricted access to the Internet, the bill stated you will need to prove you are a user over the age of 18, which means you will likely need to give your ID in order to access the web. And there is no guarantee listed that your ID will be safe alongside the rest of your data online, if this passes (think how well Instagram and Facebook and how well they've protected data i.e sold it to Russians).

This bill also includes censoring history as well as websites that could be medically helpful, in ADDITION to restricting or out right banning certain apps and websites like;

- Tumblr

-TikTok

-Wattpad

-Ao3 (Archive of our own)

- Medical Information: for things like Mental Health, Sex Ed, medication

And more

The bill is set for markup on July 27 2023 at 10:00 am.

Also, if this passes it'll be the start of quickly passing other internet acts like the EARN IT ACT and the RESTRICT ACT.

Please call and or email your representatives and senators. You can find the needed contact information on Congress.gov. This is a abuse of power and a violation of our 1st amendment rights to freedom of speech, choice, and press, as well as the 4th amendment that prohibits unlawful searches and seizures, and a violation of privacy.

SIDE NOTE: While I agree that there needs to be protections for kids online, KOSA, as well as the other bad internet bills, is not it. And if protecting kids is really the concern, then why not focus sights on implementing regulations that holds the people who intend to harm kids accountable?

[ozzgin]

Thank you for letting me know, I will be responding with a censored screenshot so I can protect their privacy while I address this.

I have a post where I detail my policy when it comes to minors interacting with my content, so if you want my full opinion you can read it here. That being said, there is a certain threshold where age becomes more problematic.

After consulting Tumblr's Terms of Service, it seems that the minimum age to use the platform for most regions outside of the European Union is 13. It implies, however, that mature content would be made unavailable for younger users, assuming - of course - that they were honest about their age.

I will look into the possibility of flagging the account for review, so that it can be provided with more safeguards and privacy. I personally don't believe in blocking, because it doesn't solve the core issue, and it removes the access to a trusted adult. So, we shall see how this approach turns out.

Now, just in case there's other kiddos reading this post and wiping their foreheads, let me give you a little reminder. Please go through this article and keep it as a mental check list.

[learnwithmearticles]

KOSA Update

Following up on a previous post about the KOSA bill - a bill that would drastically change how the internet functions, in some ways enforcing the collection of private information and restricting access to educational material based on anyone’s belief that it might be harmful to children.

As of March 2024, the bill has gone through revision to reduce the ability to target marginalized communities. However, the language used in the bill is still broad and would be ultimately harmful to children and adult internet users.

Press releases like that of the American Civil Liberties Union invoke the First Amendment to highlight both the bill’s continued call for requiring or incentivizing age verification and its goal of censoring many different topics of conversation in online spaces.

If the U.S. government seeks to control, censor, and otherwise interfere with the world of the internet, then it would have to be a government program akin to public education or certain libraries. Let that government take over the responsibilities of running and funding the internet in that case if they want that power. Otherwise, the internet does not fall under federal jurisdiction.

In response to reaching out regarding this bill, one Congressman wrote that platforms like TikTok have come under scrutiny for “leaving users’ data vulnerable to access by the Chinese Communist Party, by collecting personal information on children in violation of federal law”. This Congressman does not state in this response whether he supports the KOSA bill in particular, but we hope that he is aware that this proposed bill would, by federal law, necessitate the collection of personal information of minors if websites are to follow its requirements. Additionally, TikTok’s data collection is comparable to that of other sites such as Instagram and Facebook, which are just as able to be infiltrated by political enemies of the U.S.

This update is not about the U.S. government’s ultimatum to the company ByteDance that will likely end in a U.S. ban on TikTok. Still, that news is relevant to internet users, especially those who value choice and self-determination.

In the aforementioned Congressman’s response, he also mentions the Privacy Enhancing Technology Research Act (H.R. 4755). That bill, passed in 2023, calls for organizations like the National Science Foundation to conduct and support research into technologies for mitigating privacy risks. Bills like this one are far more conducive to achieving online safety than the proposed KOSA bill. It seeks to enhance our understanding of data handling and online privacy, while the KOSA bill is more so blindly punching towards a problem that we do not yet have a clear view of.

As before, resources to further learn about and speak out against the bill are below.

Resources:

1.https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/revised-kids-online-safety-act-is-an-improvement-but-congress-must-still-address-first-amendment-concerns

2.https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act

3. https://www.stopkosa.com/

4. Privacy Enhancing Technology Research Act

5. KOSA Bill Post-Revision6.https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/analyzing-kosas-constitutional-problems-depth#

[mostlysignssomeportents]

CDA 230 bans Facebook from blocking interoperable tools

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then TOMORROW (May 3) in CALGARY, then SATURDAY (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the most widely misunderstood technology law in the world, which is wild, given that it's only 26 words long!

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

CDA 230 isn't a gift to big tech. It's literally the only reason that tech companies don't censor on anything we write that might offend some litigious creep. Without CDA 230, there'd be no #MeToo. Hell, without CDA 230, just hosting a private message board where two friends get into serious beef could expose to you an avalanche of legal liability.

CDA 230 is the only part of a much broader, wildly unconstitutional law that survived a 1996 Supreme Court challenge. We don't spend a lot of time talking about all those other parts of the CDA, but there's actually some really cool stuff left in the bill that no one's really paid attention to:

https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/supreme-court-decision-striking-down-cda

One of those little-regarded sections of CDA 230 is part (c)(2)(b), which broadly immunizes anyone who makes a tool that helps internet users block content they don't want to see.

Enter the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and their client, Ethan Zuckerman, an internet pioneer turned academic at U Mass Amherst. Knight has filed a lawsuit on Zuckerman's behalf, seeking assurance that Zuckerman (and others) can use browser automation tools to block, unfollow, and otherwise modify the feeds Facebook delivers to its users:

https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/gu63ujqj8o

If Zuckerman is successful, he will set a precedent that allows toolsmiths to provide internet users with a wide variety of automation tools that customize the information they see online. That's something that Facebook bitterly opposes.

Facebook has a long history of attacking startups and individual developers who release tools that let users customize their feed. They shut down Friendly Browser, a third-party Facebook client that blocked trackers and customized your feed:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/once-again-facebook-using-privacy-sword-kill-independent-innovation

Then in in 2021, Facebook's lawyers terrorized a software developer named Louis Barclay in retaliation for a tool called "Unfollow Everything," that autopiloted your browser to click through all the laborious steps needed to unfollow all the accounts you were subscribed to, and permanently banned Unfollow Everywhere's developer, Louis Barclay:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html

Now, Zuckerman is developing "Unfollow Everything 2.0," an even richer version of Barclay's tool.

This rich record of legal bullying gives Zuckerman and his lawyers at Knight something important: "standing" – the right to bring a case. They argue that a browser automation tool that helps you control your feeds is covered by CDA(c)(2)(b), and that Facebook can't legally threaten the developer of such a tool with liability for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the other legal weapons it wields against this kind of "adversarial interoperability."

Writing for Wired, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University speaks to a variety of experts – including my EFF colleague Sophia Cope – who broadly endorse the very clever legal tactic Zuckerman and Knight are bringing to the court.

I'm very excited about this myself. "Adversarial interop" – modding a product or service without permission from its maker – is hugely important to disenshittifying the internet and forestalling future attempts to reenshittify it. From third-party ink cartridges to compatible replacement parts for mobile devices to alternative clients and firmware to ad- and tracker-blockers, adversarial interop is how internet users defend themselves against unilateral changes to services and products they rely on:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Now, all that said, a court victory here won't necessarily mean that Facebook can't block interoperability tools. Facebook still has the unilateral right to terminate its users' accounts. They could kick off Zuckerman. They could kick off his lawyers from the Knight Institute. They could permanently ban any user who uses Unfollow Everything 2.0.

Obviously, that kind of nuclear option could prove very unpopular for a company that is the very definition of "too big to care." But Unfollow Everything 2.0 and the lawsuit don't exist in a vacuum. The fight against Big Tech has a lot of tactical diversity: EU regulations, antitrust investigations, state laws, tinkerers and toolsmiths like Zuckerman, and impact litigation lawyers coming up with cool legal theories.

Together, they represent a multi-front war on the very idea that four billion people should have their digital lives controlled by an unaccountable billionaire man-child whose major technological achievement was making a website where he and his creepy friends could nonconsensually rate the fuckability of their fellow Harvard undergrads.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Image: D-Kuru (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MSI_Bravo_17_(0017FK-007)-USB-C_port_large_PNr%C2%B00761.jpg

Minette Lontsie (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_Headquarters.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[homucifer-ryotan]

At this point saying and hashtagging #Stop Kosa isn't enough. We should doing a #Stop Chuck Schumer tag.

And by stopping him, I mean calling him as much as Mike Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries, and Steve Scalise, and politely and patiently convincing him on why Kill Online Speech Act will not be good for anyone, let alone American kids.

Schumer has been pushing for KOSA way too much (even more than Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal lately, and they were the ones who created that cursed bad internet bill in the first place) and he is mostly likely the reason KOSA is back from the dead after being gone for just about a month.

He has using Kill Online Speech Act's title of "Kids Safety" and misguided American parents to push the bill to become legal (even though there are American parents that do not want KOSA). We need not only more Americans, especially American parents to call him and convince why making KOSA a law would not only be bad for kids (and everyone else in the world) but will also make America bad.

TLTR: Chuck Schumer looks like KOSA biggest supporter and is most likely the reason why Kill Online Speech Act got brought back from the dead even though the bill is an invasion of privacy and violates the first amendment. The more American parents call him on all the reasons why is a bad internet bill, the more likely we can KOSA can be dead for good.

Please parents and everyone else, use the google doc and other links before and keep calling Mike Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries, Steve Scalise, and Chuck Schumer calmly and politely. For the sake of having free and safe internet for everyone regardless of age.

[nats-revival]

Not they tryna reenact KOSA… anyway yall, here’s why KOSA is bad!!

If you don’t already know, KOSA, or Kids Online Safety Act is a bill that was proposed to keep children safe on the internet. You might ask ‘why is this bill bad if it’s in favor of supporting the safety of children online’? Well, according to stopkosa.com, it puts pressure on platforms to add even MORE filters on anything they think is inappropriate for children. This is especially harmful for LBGTQIA+ youth because the knowledge about this topic would be censored, as well as knowledge on suicide prevention and LGBTQIA+ support groups. Do you see how this an issue? For those children who are wanting to learn more about these topics they’d be turned away because of this bill. It would also be likely that it’ll allow the shutdown of websites that allow them to learn about race, sexuality and gender.

This bill would also add more internet surveillance for all users across all social media platforms. It would expand the use of age verification and parental monitoring controls. These things in itself are already very invasive, but doesn’t take into consideration the children who live in unsafe environments where they are domestically abused and/or are trying to escape these situations. To add my two cents onto this, I strongly believe that the KOSA bill is an unnecessary violation of our first amendment rights (if you’re American), and doesn’t really make the internet any more safer. It actually makes it more unusable for youth. Hypothetically, if this bill were to be passed, then this would make social media unusable for literally anybody. To censor content from the youth about wanting to learn about their identity is extremely harmful. Blocking them from accessing resources that may prove as helpful in their scenarios is outlandish and unneeded. We try to shelter our youth so much to the point where we try to boil them down to only being with their parents want them to be and also not being able to let them learn and explore about other things that they may want to identify themselves with. This is very harmful.

This is a list of companies who are saying no to KOSA ..

• Access Now

• ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

• Black and Pink National

• Center for Democracy & Technology

• COLAGE

• Defending Rights & Dissent

• Don’t Delete Art

• EducateUS: SIECUS In Action

• Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Equality Arizona

• Equality California

• Equality Michigan

• Equality New Mexico

• Equality Texas

• Fair Wisconsin

• Fairness Campaign

• Fight for the Future

• Free Speech Coalition

• Freedom Network USA

• Indivisible Eastside

• Indivisible Plus Washington

• Internet Society

• Kairos

• Lexington Pride Center

• LGBT Technology Partnership

• Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition

• Media Justice

• National Coalition Against Censorship

• Open Technology Institute

• OutNebraska

• PDX Privacy

• Presente.org

• Reframe Health and Justice

• Restore The Fourth

• SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change

• SWOP Behind Bars 

• TAKE

• TechFreedom

• The 6:52 Project Foundation, Inc.

• The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center

• Transgender Education Network of Texas

• TransOhio

• University of Michigan Dearborn – Muslim Student Association 

• URGE

• WA People’s Privacy

• Woodhull Freedom Foundation

There is something you can do to stop the KOSA bill from being passed! On the website I linked, there is a petition. All you have to do is fill out the information and it’ll send off an email for you. The email reads as follows:

I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk. KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources. KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity. There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data. KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.

The website also gives you like a format of what you can say if you chose to call your representatives. If after reading this post, you feel inclined to do something then I would say just go ahead and do it. My first time learning about KOSA was today immediately after seeing the post I felt inclined to send my lawmakers an email. Please try to help when you can and this will only take a few minutes so I think this is something that you can consider. This post is getting a little long now, so I’ll stop here. There are more resources online if you would like to learn more about the cons of this KOSA bill, thank you for reading.

[xxstarlight-lifexx]

Some quotes I have from people speaking out against KOSA, please reblog, tag people, cross-post on other platforms, and share with everyone you can, all quotes are fair use <3

“This law is a scam, created with the express purpose of persecuting LGBTQ+ people and silencing victims of abuse. That is the only possible outcome of these kinds of bills.

Oppose them on principle. Be skeptical whenever they are even brought-up.

This isn’t about safety—it is a takeover of THE major avenue to disseminate information in the modern world. It is more than censorship, it defines the avenues that thought may even take.

It will lead to identity verification companies like Clear or ID.me getting more of people’s private data and guaranteed, exclusive government contracts for surveillance and data collection, in violation of the spirit of the 4th Amendment, if not the letter.

It is also an absolute certainty that conservatives in positions of authority will use this program to persecute LGBTQ+ people, with the force of the State, under the guise of protecting children from pornography and "grooming". It has been an explicit misdirection tactic the right has invented to poison debate on trans rights issues and the (unconnected) growing evidence of sexual impropriety among the powerful, particularly conservatives.

Furthermore, I and most others will not abide by this law, if it is passed, and will take whatever actions necessary to safeguard our personal information via VPN, encryption, onion networking, etc., regardless of their permissibility.”

“This is a violation of basic rights on the Internet. Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech? Or are we just gonna ignore a literal Amendment in favor of “protecting the American children" while many of those children are the ones against this??”

“having full privacy on the internet may have saved my life growing up. don’t take away kid’s privacy, there’s already perfectly reasonable ways for parents to monitor kids.”

“I think that people have a right to privacy online, especially children. This doesn't seem like a bill that would actually protect children from anything, it would just make important resources more difficult to access, increase censorship online, and increase surveillance, all of which I oppose.”

“There are three things you never give out on the internet for your safety. 1) Name, 2) Face, and 3) Home. This bill guarantees that all three will be easily available to those who wish to hurt the children this bill falsely claims to protect. If you actually care about children, stop this bill. Listen to what those of us that actually use the internet are telling you. Children and adults deserve a private, anonymous space to be.”

“i'm a queer teen and i know full well the importance online spaces have in supporting lgbtq+ youth, especially ones who don't have supportive environments in person. censorship doesn't actually erase the information, it just makes it harder to access.”

“I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk.

KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources.

KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity.

There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data.

KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.”

“Censorship doesn't keep kids safe. Censorship does not save abused children. Censorship does not save queer children. Censorship will not save any of us. Freedom for us all. Freedom for the internet. This shit cannot stand.”

“This bill is a massive overreach on civil liberties and freedom of speech in particular. It should not be within the government's purview to determine what content is acceptable, no matter which party is in power.”

“As we all know, the major threats to American children today are books, bathrooms, and the Internet.

Not getting shot in their own schools or attacked on their own streets.

Since graduating from the public school system in 2007, I haven't seen anything from elected officials to contradict this.”

“KOSA is a censorship bill in sheep’s clothing. It would erode Americans’ rights to privacy, especially that of vulnerable and marginalized Americans, and gather information about the whereabouts and identities of the children it play-acts at “protecting”.”

“This is a ridiculous law

KOSA is a giant bill that is pretending to be about child safety, but is actually overreaching government censorship. It is a violation of free speech and the 1st amendment.

This bill would require that internet users upload their government ID to access any site, and state attorney generals could sue to remove any site that contains content deemed "harmful" to children. The government will be able to censor ANYTHING - such as abortion info, LGBTQ+ resources, and any content relating to protesting or organizing. They will also be able to ID you if you search for any of these topics. This is the opposite of a free internet!”

“The law is pretty much just a trojan horse for censorship.”

“frankly i dont want to be put on a list the gov has of every queer person who opposes their anti-lgbt laws”

“I care about actually helping people instead of making a bill that is going to kill any ability for anyone to get help. That is going to be used to police anyone who disagrees with the absolute mess everything is right now. The conservative morals don’t allow for anyone not white, cuz, straight, or male; and I won’t have that enforced on the fucking public forum.”