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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 24th, 2023

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  • Oops, you’re absolutely right about the attribution, the quote I posted above is from an earlier letter, I had too many open at once.

    Unfortunately, the provision you mention is essentially a bad-faith attempt to skirt the first amendment objections, while leveraging the imposed ‘duty of care’ to allow State AGs to censor with impunity. From p.6 of the more recent letter:

    KOSA will enable politically motivated actors to purge the Internet of speech that they dislike under the guise of “protecting minors.” Section 11(b) permits state attorneys general to bring enforcement actions whenever they believe that a resident of their state has been adversely affected by an alleged violation of KOSA. The inevitable abuse is entirely predictable. Consider two possibilities. First, in the aftermath of the May 14, 2022 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a report blaming social media platforms for hosting the hateful speech that radicalized the shooter and calling for increased civil liability.27 Under KOSA’s duty of care, James could file suit 28 alleging failure to mitigate or prevent “physical violence” that might affect a minor user to pressure platforms into removing any speech deemed “hateful.”

    Second, some have already admitted that KOSA will be 29 used to censor LGBTQ content, especially that which relates to gender-affirming care. Armed with cherry-picked and selectively interpreted studies associating trans content with “anxiety, depression . . . and suicidal behavior,” 30 an ambitious attorney general will claim that “evidence-informed medical information” requires that platforms prohibit minors from viewing such content under KOSA’s duty of care. A state attorney general need not win a lawsuit—or even file one at all—to effectuate censorship. They need only initiate a burdensome investigation to pressure platforms to take down or restrict access to disfavored content.(31)


  • Would it be impossible to create separation between sites used by older teens and adults?

    Obviously it’s not impossible, it just requires sites to obtain a verifiable proof of age, i.e., a government ID.

    A lot of pathological optimism in this thread, and it might not impact you (at first), but the document you’re quoting explains why a lot of people are concerned:

    KOSA would require online services to “prevent” a set of harms to minors, which is effectively an instruction to employ broad content filtering to limit minors’ access to certain online content. Content filtering is notoriously imprecise; filtering used by schools and libraries in response to the Children’s Internet Protection Act has curtailed access to critical information such as sex education or resources for LGBTQ+ youth. Online services would face substantial pressure to over-moderate, including from state Attorneys General seeking to make political points about what kind of information is appropriate for young people. At a time when books with LGBTQ+ themes are being banned from school libraries and people providing healthcare to trans children are being falsely accused of “grooming,” KOSA would cut off another vital avenue of access to information for vulnerable youth.










  • So, you may not be aware, but these days Police are in the habit of dodging the legal requirement for a warrant to obtain similar data:

    Amazon’s Ring devices are not just personal security cameras. They are also police cameras—whether you want them to be or not. The company now admits there are “emergency” instances when police can get warrantless access to Ring personal devices without the owner’s permission. This dangerous policy allows police, in conjunction with Ring, to decide when access should be granted to private video. The footage is given in “​​cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.” The company has provided videos to law enforcement, without a warrant or device owner consent, 11 times already this year. This admission comes in response to a series of critical letters from Senator Ed Markey (D-MA). Markey chastised the company over many of the same privacy problems that EFF has brought up, including the far-reaching audio capabilities of Ring devices, and the company’s refusal to commit to not incorporate facial recognition technology into their cameras.

    I don’t have more information on this particular company’s dealings with law enforcement, but I certainly think it’s reasonable to be concerned.

    I also think most cars can’t be stopped dead with a traffic cone, so these protesters are highlighting the unpredictable and sometimes dangerous behavior of these vehicles in mixed traffic. While I’m sure the folks involved would like to see steps taken to address cars and transport infrastructure more generally, it’s hard to see why you would call this ‘hypocritical’.