While the SCREEN Act failed in the committee, KOSA did move forward. Contact your senators immediately demanding it be opposed, and keep the pressure up until it comes to a vote in the Senate

Fight for the Future@fightforthefuture.org · 4h ago

The Senate Commerce Committee just passed KOSA out of committee with zero debate & failed to move the SCREEN Act. punchbowl.news/article/tech...

The screen act was worse, but KOSA is still a death knell for LGBTQ speech on the internet.

Fight for the Future@fightforthefuture.org · 4h ago

The Senate Commerce Committee just passed KOSA out of committee with zero debate & failed to move the SCREEN Act. punchbowl.news/article/tech...

Can't get over how cool these paintings are, really neat way to stylize lightning

Just to add clarity: The SCREEN act was never going to get past committee in the Senate. It's been proposed 3-4 times and has been soundly rejected every time. It's good to celebrate the victory and breathe a sigh of relief but don't rest on laurels: while SCREEN failed, KOSA advanced. Keep calling.

To be clear, the Senate version of KOSA passed today is completely different than the House version that passed earlier this year, making it very unlikely to become law. The Senate knows this yet they are committing to the farce of acting on kids safety.

Keep mailing and calling. Use the resources i sent!!

We're winning. Keep it going. Don't stop

The Senate Commerce Committee just passed KOSA out of committee with zero debate & failed to move the SCREEN Act. punchbowl.news/article/tech...

Tech: KOSA heads to Senate floor

The Senate Commerce Committee sent the Kids Online Safety Act to the floor on Wednesday, alongside three other bills designed to protect kids and teens using technology.

punchbowl.news

GOOD NEWS! 👏 Mike Lee's SCREEN Act, a dangerous, obscenity censorship bill, is officially dead in the Senate committee. And it's all thanks to us using our voices of opposition. ... However, KOSA still did pass. Predictable, but we still need to keep our calls going.

the SCREEN Act just failed to pass out of committee. that's a very good start to preventing federal age verification laws.

SOME GOOD NEWS! continue to contact your reps re: KOSA and the KIDS Act, but also give yourself a pat on the back if you called! Your voice mattered!

Free Speech Coalition@fsc.bsky.social · 5h ago

SCREEN Act, which would have required mandatory age-verification for sites (like this) that allow "material harmful to minors" failed to pass out of committee after thousands and thousands of people called their Senators. More work ahead!

Leona hates bikinis, but Basima convinced her

Mixed blessing today at the Senate. Their version of the Kids Online Safety Act made it out of committee today, but their version of the SCREEN act didn't due to not meeting quorum. Be sure to use every day of the upcoming 5 week Senate recess to tell your senators to vote no on the former!

SCREEN Act, which would have required mandatory age-verification for sites (like this) that allow "material harmful to minors" failed to pass out of committee after thousands and thousands of people called their Senators. More work ahead!

Alison Boden@alisonboden.bsky.social · 5h ago

The SCREEN Act just failed to pass in the Senate Commerce Committee! 🎉 Enormous thanks to the thousands (!!) of you who told your Senators to vote no! Your voice matters and you should feel good that you made a difference. Obviously, the fight isn't over, but this was an important victory.

SCREEN failed to pass out of committee, despite a 15-13 vote (in favor). Not enough members voting, but looks like a party line vote. Good work everyone! Keep up the pressure for after recess and beyond!

Mike Stabile@mikestabile.bsky.social · 23h ago

If SCREEN were to pass, you'd be required to scan your face and upload an ID to access this site because it allows "harmful" material. This affects you even if you don't care about sex work or porn.

Senate KOSA unfortunately passed the committee through voice vote. This isn't entirely surprising considering an earlier version of the bill passed 91-3. Still, Senate KOSA faces an uncertain future in the House. SCREEN Act was far more of a party line split. No D's present voted for it.

Before you think "ungh whats calling and mailing and spreading the word gonna do" may i remind you this will basically erase what little privacy we still have online completely. That's a bad thing.

Despite all the rhetoric about "reining in Big Tech" we heard today, it's essential to understand the push for this "kids safety" legislation as something that most Big Tech companies WANT. Microsoft, OpenAI, Snap, X, Apple, and now Meta all support KOSA because it benefits their monopoly status

But here's the thing: the Senate version of KOSA they just advanced is wildly different from the House version of KOSA they advanced as part of the KIDS Act. The committee knows they can't be reconciled This is theater not substance. They want to say they "protected the kids" without doing anything

First, the bad news: as predicted the committee unanimously advanced the Kids Online Safety Act or KOSA. It's particularly embarrassing that progressive Democrats allowed this to advance on a voice vote despite opposition from human rights, LGBTQ+, racial justice, and civil liberties organizations.

THREAD: Here's what happened in today's "We are exploiting peoples' legitimate fears around kids online safety to advance dangerous censorship and surveillance legislation" hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee... 🧵

And we need to break the stranglehold that a few 80 year old white politicians have over this issue. We need to develop thoughtful champions in Congress who actually understand how technology works and how it can be regulated. We have a lot of work to do. Join us. fightforthefuture.org/donate

Donate

Donate We rely on donations from everyday people just like you to fund our strategic activism. Please make a recurring donation to our organization so we can continue to fight for your digital rights....

fightforthefuture.org

Most people are primed to believe that censorship and surveillance lead to more safety. Anytime we get into a debate between "freedom" and "safety" we are always going to lose. The digital rights movement needs to chart a new path and show how we can stop Big Tech without trashing human rights.

We @fightforthefuture.org and our growing coalition have been beating back these misguided "protect the children" internet censorship and surveillance bills for literally 10+ years. We're good at it! And we can keep doing it. But to really win on this, we have to radically shift the narrative

In the end, it's really good that the SCREEN ACT didn't advance. In a lot of ways that was a more real threat than KOSA, which has been mired in controversy for years and is almost certainly going to die in conference between the House and Senate. But also: we're playing whack-o-mole

It's still a little unclear exactly what happened but it seems like several members of the committee stayed out of the room on purpose in order to sink the vote on SCREEN ACT (without having to go on the record voting against the save the children bill) master classes in bravery we're seeing here

Here's some more good news from today's hearing: it seems like the SCREEN ACT totally failed. This was one of the most dangerous bills being considered: it would have created an Internet-wide ID check regime that would be a censorship and surveillance nightmare for marginalized communities.

Today is the KOSA and SCREEN markup. Keep calling and mailing your reps if you live in the US. Stop Internet surveillance stopkosa.com badinternetbills.com fightforthefuture.org/actions/stop-the-screen-act

Walk Cycles a la Billie and Jodi (I've had this animation in my mind for a good year or so)

There are so many bad internet bills that it's hard to keep track of them all. @fightfortheftr has compiled all of them on one page. Take action on all of them here: badinternetbills.com

Bad Internet Bills

All of the bad internet bills. One website.

badinternetbills.com