As much as I understand and sympathize with your concerns, it's hard not to look at that entire list and not feel like it's being held up solely by Slippery Slope thinking. There's a lot of dangerous stuff going on in tech right now, but without some serious evidence the last thing anyone needs is fearmongering that makes it sound like lawmakers are so idiotic can't even, for example, ban CSAM without making it illegal to share ANY images online.
the last thing anyone needs is fearmongering that makes it sound like lawmakers are so idiotic can't even, for example, ban CSAM without making it illegal to share ANY images online.
I have extremely bad news for you about our lawmakers.
This is NOT a slippery slope argument, it is an argument with very clear precedents and lots of evidence of harm done. There isn't dangerous stuff going on in tech right now, there has been dangerous stuff going on in tech since "tech" has existed.
SESTA/FOSTA, passed by lawmakers to prevent human trafficking, is why it's so easy to get trans women on tumblr banned for posting 'mature content'. It has also made human trafficking worse, made sex work more dangerous, and sanitized the internet to the point that it's difficult to post photos of classical sculptures or instructions on how to perform a breast self-exam on most platforms.
The DMCA, passed by lawmakers to protect copyright holders online, is frequently used to censor criticism, cover up reporting on corporate malfeasance, and prevent buyers from having true ownership of digital purchases.
Lawmakers are CONSTANTLY attempting to use "But this would protect children/prevent the sharing of CSAM" to attack Section 230, a legal provision that prevents platforms from being held liable for the content they host. The proposed changes lawmakers idiotically present actually would drastically erode your ability to post ANY images online, would not make anyone safer, and would further consolidate the power held by platforms like Google and Meta while making it harder for smaller online platforms to exist.
The original sin of all of this (in the US at least) is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which was passed in 1986 to regulate charges and sentences for computer-based crime and has been used since to prosecute security researchers and activists, and has been responsible for tremendously disproportionate sentences levied against people charged with computer-related crimes.
The people who write and pass laws about computers and the internet don't understand computers or the internet. The people who advocate for these kinds of laws either don't anticipate the second-order consequences or anticipated the consequences and wanted fallout like the sanitation of the internet or the criminalization of downloading journal articles.
I am not fearmongering, I am someone who has been aware of the disastrous outcomes of legislating the internet for decades pointing to the specific ways that the sorts of rules people are proposing have demonstrably been fucking people over forever.
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