Somehow, all these heavily lobbied bills were organized so that gov. bodies couldn't escape / delay / or reject them, simply by branding them as an "Emergency!"
You've got EU Chat Control, a week ago, slid in as an "Emergency Legislative Procedure" to bypass the standard voting threshold.
You've got the UK’s "Public Safety Amendments" to the Online Safety Act, a few weeks ago, that were fast-tracked with "Crisis Response Protocols"
You've got the US House passing "KIDS" / HR7757, two weeks ago, fast-tracking it with a procedure, very literally called "Suspension of the Rules,"
🧐🧐🧐
Entities that lobbied for all three:
Microsoft, Meta, Facetec (it is they who lobby to ensure legal texts explicitly mandate "3D liveness detection;" aka face scans), Clearview AI, Incode, Persona, Verifymy Limited, Grindr, Iris (self-explanatory), Veratad, Thorn (literally Ashton Kutcher & friends), "WeProtect,", Yoti, various "network infrastructure" contractors (Cisco, "Check Point") and various other private "age-verification" coalitions, all lobbied for all three bills.
(Go to 'lobbyfacts. eu', 'open secrets. org', and 'transparency . co . uk' to look into the details.)
In the UK, a regular person could face up to 14 years in prison just for gathering information or downloading posts from an "enemy" foreign-hosted Substack or YouTube.
If the government officially labels an international news source as an "enemy group," or potentially "affiliated with" an "enemy group," that means independent journalists and on-the-ground citizens, too, ✨"interacting with their output"✨ (reading their text, watching their videos) becomes a technical crime.
They put in a fake, wobbly amendment "to address this" (17A), but it remains the same in action.
KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) has passed the House.
From now until the Senate vote, This period of time is our last chance to stop KOSA.
Upset at Discord and Youtube's age verification policies? If KOSA passes, your alternatives to these sites will be affected too.
You would not be able to avoid it, not unless you decide to leave social media entirely, which many people cannot do. You would have to choose between privacy and access to your accounts.
All is NOT lost, but our hope relies on calls, petitions, emails. I cannot stress enough how important these next few months are. Every call made in the next few months is for the future of the online world.
If you have struggled to find time to make a script, or don't know what to say, use 5 Calls. They give you a script to use while calling.
People have also provided other scripts. @daytimemin for example has a document with scripts.
Find your senator here: U.S. Senate: Senators
Everyone is free to tag people, tag fandoms, anyone you think should know about this. This is serious
EDIT: Guys I messed up. I accidentally said "Passed the SENATE". It has NOT passed the Senate. It has passed the HOUSE. I'm sorry if I scared you more by saying it passed the Senate.
EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0, will be in effect until 2028, but the battle isn’t over yet
Today, the European Parliament allowed the suspicionless mass scanning of private communications ("Chat Control 1.0") to pass, a measure it
“Today, the European Parliament allowed the suspicionless mass scanning of private communications (“Chat Control 1.0”) to pass, a measure it had rejected twice in March.
Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes.
As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028.”
“A symbolic exemption was adopted for encrypted communications—though in practice, service providers do not scan these anyway.
Furthermore, while a majority of voting MEPs wanted to restrict the scanning of private communications strictly to suspects identified by the judiciary (322 to 255 votes), this amendment likewise fell short of the required absolute majority.”
Dr. Patrick Breyer, civil rights activist and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP), warns of the consequences:
“The fact that Chat Control is moving forward against the will of the majority of voting MEPs is a farce and damages democracy. Our children are the real losers in this undemocratic process.
The passage of a genuine, permanent child protection regulation is now in serious jeopardy. The Council will never agree to a desperately needed paradigm shift as long as they can simply stick to the old approach of suspicionless scanning at the whim of the tech industry.”
Despite the legislative defeat, Breyer remains defiant regarding the upcoming negotiations:
“Today’s vote on the interim regulation was a setback, but the political battle over the permanent ‘Chat Control 2.0’ is just getting started.
The resistance we saw in Parliament today was so strong that finding a majority for permanent, suspicionless mass scanning in future negotiations is a complete pipe dream.”
what’s next?
“The interim regulation passed today will remain in effect until 2028, or until an agreement on a permanent regulation is reached. Negotiations for the permanent law will resume in September.
The core dispute between the EU Parliament, member state governments, and the EU Commission remains the scanning of private chats: should it be indiscriminate, or targeted at criminal suspects?”
“Talk of averting a “protection gap” is therefore highly misleading.
The most effective law enforcement tools—court-ordered wiretaps, user reports, and the scanning of public platforms and cloud storage—were never at risk and remain fully intact.
The only practice that was temporarily banned since April was the indiscriminate, warrantless searching of private, unencrypted messages of innocent people on a handful of US platforms.”
talks over permanent
“In parallel, negotiations are ongoing for a permanent regulation to protect children from sexualized online violence (the “CSAM Regulation” or “Chat Control 2.0”)
In these talks, the EU Parliament is pushing for a paradigm shift in how we approach online child safety, demanding:
Mandatory, targeted detection orders against actual criminal suspects, rather than blanket mass scanning left to the tech industry’s discretion.
An EU Child Protection Centre tasked with the systematic removal of known abuse material from the public internet.
Strict security standards for messaging apps (“Security by Design”) to prevent cyber grooming.”
This permanent legislation has stalled because EU member states insist on maintaining the outdated approach of voluntary, suspicionless scanning of private communications.
Critics warn that repeatedly extending the interim rules removes the political pressure needed to reach a viable, permanent agreement.
Ultimately, clinging to the status quo threatens to derail real progress on child protection.
Patrick Breyer sums up the problem:
“As long as EU governments can use procedural loopholes to continually extend their comfortable status quo of voluntary, indiscriminate mass scanning, they have zero incentive to engage with the Parliament’s targeted, legally sound, and far more effective child protection strategy.
“The Voices of Survivors: “We need privacy to bring abusers to justice”
Survivors of sexual violence explicitly emphasize that untargeted Chat Control did not help victims:
Texas recently passed their own flat out appstore age verification laws. This is something we need to remind parents that, the government is not to be trusted. So take the time to inform parents and neighbors the dangers of this system that is poorly managed and not to mention an overall bad idea for privacy. Also ask your family if the giving your drivers license and other personal info like that is appropriate to access a weather app. If they so no, then show them that is basically what is happening with these laws and verification vendors. If they wanna help after the conversation. Have them call, email, and irl mail their reps, senators, and governors. Have them say along the line "I will not support or vote if you are in favor of these laws and verification acts". Then if they ask if there is more to do, guide them to the petitions against these laws and have em sign it. PLEASE I can not stress enough. We used to make jokes how parents don't use the internet as much yet when these things happen, unfortunately, they are the majority we need to inform and educate as that is who the GOVERNMENT rely on for mass manipulation. Now it is our duty to open their eyes and make them more aware. As we reblog, retweet, share links and so on. We have to also tediously share the news in person/irl. Because that majority of people that are being manipulated by government mandated news on tv and paper that will either not talk about it or if they do. Will show one sentence saying "its to protect children" and thats it. That is all they will see unless we take that time to tell them in person as well as our neighbors. Thank you for your time. Stay safe, stay alert, stay free
You might have seen that a bill package including the notorious Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) passed out of the House in a rushed vote last week.1 This bill and many of its counterparts would lock large swaths of the Internet behind invasive online ID checks and threaten our ability to speak out online.2
This is far from the end of the road. And calls and messages from people like you have made a huge impact.
We’ve been fighting these bills for years, and I can tell you with certainty that the tide is turning. Legislators are shifting, fearmongering “kids safety” arguments are losing their grip, and we’re building a strong, diverse movement of people refusing censorship.
KOSA is not yet law, and with the House and Senate disagreeing on fundamental provisions, we have a critical opportunity to build momentum against this legislation and other nonsensical Bad Internet Bills that threaten to kill the Internet as we know it.
Now’s the time to dig in. Call and tell your lawmakers how you feel about the KIDS Act passing. Then, check out our brand new Bad Internet Bills tracker, where you can take targeted action against all the most dangerous bills threatening encryption, free expression, and community online.
KEEP UP THE FIGHT
If you’re not sure how your rep voted last week, you can check here.3
Together,
Matt at Fight for the Future
P.S. If you believe in our anti-censorship work and can spare the cost of a coffee per month toward the fight, we’d so appreciate it.
KOSA UPDATE 7/10/26: THE SENATE RETURNS FROM BREAK SOON
I got this email from Fight For the Future and it is really helpful in communicating where we currently are in the fight against the KIDS Act and KOSA.
We should be using this time during the Senate's break to be calling, spreading the word, and doing everything we can to push back against these harmful bills. The return from break around July 15th, which is when Cruz said he wanted to consider the bills. So please, call while you can.
✨ Legislation quietly passed / about to pass, while your countrymen were distracted, watching FIFA:
✨ EU Chat Surveillance
EU Parliament voted to give Chat Surveillance a second life, approving an "urgent procedure" requested by "the European People’s Party."
✨ UK Security ("State Threats") Bill
UK Bill 4140. Passing this month;
A regular person could face up to 14 years in prison ✨ for ** reading ** posts ✨ from an "enemy," foreign-hosted Substack or YouTube channel.
If the government officially labels an international news source, journalist, hobby citizen-blogger on-the-ground as an "enemy group," or "affiliated with" an "enemy group," literally merely reading "their material" becomes a technical crime.
✨ Similarly: in the EU:
The EU’s highest court made a parallel ruling (Case C-67/25) several days ago.
The EU maintains active sanctions regimes against dozens of countries (absolutely NOT limited to Russia: it includes Syria, Iran, Belarus, North Korea, Venezuela, Palestinian zones, and more).
So, from now on, ✨ if you repost or reblog a link, an article, or a video from a "banned foreign entity" (news source, journalist, hobby citizen-blogger), on YOUR PERSONAL BLOG, you can be criminally prosecuted for "disseminating banned content."✨
All very conveniently timed to coincide with mandatory digital ID verification; sorry "age verification." ("It's for the kids!" said Goebbels, Iribarne, and the rest).
This will scare people into stopping themselves from reading or sharing international news at all.
A team of Baldur's Gate 3 modders remaking the original Baldur's Gate as a custom campaign have show off progress on a revamped Candlekeep.
The Deathbringer's Reign mod turns back time, giving players a chance to experience the original Baldur's Gate via Baldur's Gate 3.
I'm very proud to be part of this project as one of the character writers! I haven't been able to shut up about this to everyone I know--it's one of the most exciting things I've ever had a hand in.
The team is still looking for artists, writers, animaters, coders, composers, and even voice actors later down the line. Both articles have a link to the project's Discord server, where you can apply to be a part of the project. I couldn't be more excited to work on it, and hopefully I'll see everyone at the Friendly Arm Inn very soon!
