BAD NEWS: The House GOP and Democratic members of the Energy and Commerce Committee have been working on a package of age-verification bills and have finally struck a deal (I believe some of these are the same bills in the KIDS Act which they had passed out of committee a few months ago). Theoretically, this means that the House of Representatives could bring this package up for a vote at any time, with some reporters saying as early as this week or next week.
If this package were to pass it would still face an uphill battle as the House version of KOSA doesn't not include a duty of care provision, which the Senate wants.
However, we need to do everything to can to stop this from passing now, so it doesn't advance any further.
We must call House Leadership, our representatives, and our senators to express our opposition and we need to spread the work. If we can make noise and create pressure over how unpopular age verification is, it makes passing bills like these less enticing.
(Note: this is different from whatever deal the Senate and the White House are trying to reach over AI and age-verification)
You can use the resources linked to find more information and 5-calls to call:
All of the bad internet bills. One website.
Call Script on Page 2! Resources For Learning about KOSA Petitions: STOP KOSA Tell Congress: KOSA Will Censor the Internet But Won't Help
The leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will unveil a bipartisan deal Monday on guardrails for protecting kids against online
Also noting that leaders in the push for age-verification don't like the House's version. So, if the House doesn't like the Senate version and the Senate doesn't like the House version, and no one likes Marsha Blackburn's AI package, that is a weakness/friction that can work in our favor, so PLEASE CALL TO OPPOSE:
I’m not kidding. This is the time to act. Yes I know it’s short notice , but so is Netflix trying to remove Rise without any heads up. Spread this! Repost it! Everywhere. And I mean, everywhere. TikTok, twitter, Reddit, insta, Facebook. Stream the show/movie all day tomorrow and Saturday. Let’s flash mob this!
We’re going full on guerrilla streaming. Do. Not. Let. Them. Win! Reblog. Share. Fight. Protect the art you love.
ID age-gating bills and AI age estimation are especially harmful to autistic people.
For those unaware, Congress is trying to push 18 "kids online safety" bills and also trying to repeal Section 230. If they pass these bills and repeal Section 230, the internet will be massively censored, ID age-gated, and ultimately destroyed.
I want to go into detail how this will affect autistic people in particular, coming from an autistic person myself.
You may already be familiar with Youtube's AI-based age estimation, which more often than not, falsely flags adults who have more "childish" interests. It's not a surprise when autistic adults using Youtube are often getting flagged by these systems in place, which may or may not be a coincidence... FFTF has made a report by various users about this before.
Similarly, back when Roblox rolled out the Age Verification Update, many adult players were being falsely flagged as under 18. This is especially harmful for autistic people who also happen to be "baby faced".
As we can tell, even through AI face scanning or age estimation, that AI almost always seems to falsely flag autistic adults as under 18, and the only way to properly verify their age is to provide sensitive information like a credit card or ID, which mind you, not all autistic adults have.
It feels like it's not a coincidence that this could be used as a way to discriminate autistic people from having access to the open internet by locking them out through age gates. Not to mention that even if they do verify themselves, it puts themselves AND their data at risk, like with mass surveillance and data breaches.
If you are an autistic person reading this, I know this seems really scary, and this scares me too, but we CAN fight back against these bills if we ALL work together.
Autistic or not, EVERYONE needs to sign petitions and CALL THEIR REPS!!!
All of the bad internet bills. One website.
Text SIGN PPBSXB to 50409 to send this to your officials.
Free speech is under attack. Trump is suing journalists for unfavorable reporting, investigating companies that have DEI programs, and tryin
KOSA is a censorship bill that won’t make kids safe. Instead, it'll put all internet users at risk, especially youth. If you believe in a fr
More Information:
RI Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is leading a bipartisan effort to repeal Section 230, a move critics warn will destroy online free speech. By
Democrats warn the proposals would override stronger state privacy laws.
Government must stop restricting website access with laws requiring age verification.Some advocates of these censorship schemes argue we can
EFF is against age gating and age verification mandates, and we hope we’ll win in getting existing ones overturned and new ones prevented. B
This is going to be a very all hands on deck month.
⭐Right off the bat, tomorroe Dec 2 the House subcommittee on Commerce, Manufactoring, and Trade is holding a hearing to most likely pass the 19-bill package on KOSA & other age verification bills. It will most likely either go to the full house vote after and/OR an attempt to add it to the NDAA. It is VERY IMPERATIVE that we make as much noise as possible ASAP about this and make as many calls to the members of this committee as possible.
You can see subcommittee members here (scroll down) https://energycommerce.house.gov/committees/subcommittee/Commerce
The Committee on Energy and Commerce is the oldest standing legislative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and is vested with th
I would really appreciate if someone could compile a list of important people here. But in all honesty just call as many people as possible today. Bonus if you can call them all. It won't even take an hour. Use our updated call script here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IyBUe6frFGF44rJQU3TahZ5zyG3tC7jai_hPneAKlnM/edit?tab=t.0
Call Script on Page 2! Resources For Learning about KOSA Petitions: STOP KOSA Tell Congress: KOSA Will Censor the Internet But Won't Help
⭐ It is a week of action against digital IDs and age verification. (From Fight for the Future). Spend a lot of time today reaching out to influencers and big accts and talking about age verification. Go to this website for more info
Hello, I am urging you to call the House GOP leadership. They are trying to pass the kids online safety act (KOSA) along with other bills that are currently in the House Energy & Commerce Committee. Once the government shutdown is over they will move onto it.
a quick run down as to why this bill mustn't pass:
This bill will essentially censor the entire Internet under the guise that it's a bill to protect children when in reality it will put them in more danger. This administration could and will use this bill to not only censor freedom of speech on the internet, but LGBTQ+ rights, talk about practices that aren't Christian, POC voices, women's voices, and much more.
Steve Scalise - (202) 225-3015
Mike Johnson - (202) 225-2777
I also urge you to call these numbers too.
Republican Phone Numbers.
Steve Scalise (202) 225-3015
Mike Johnson (202) 225-2777
Brett Guthrie (202) 225-3501
Gus Bilrakis (202) 225-5755
Richard Hudson (202) 225-3715
Call Script on Page 2! Resources For Learning about KOSA Petitions: STOP KOSA Tell Congress: KOSA Will Censor the Internet But Won't Help
Here is the call script (For both Republican and Democratic States)
You can also fax them too, Faxxing them takes up their ink and also costs them their time.
(You can also use the scripts in the google doc I provided here.)
https://faxzero.com/
And in case you don't know who your representative is you can find them here.
Here is the call script (For both Republican and Democratic States)
You can also fax them too, Faxxing them takes up their ink and also costs them their time.
https://faxzero.com/
And in case you don't know who your representative is you can find them here.
tangentwithtanner
stormborns
blakekathryn
areudirty
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
romaincrisis
dededos
