from the wtf-senator-warren? dept
At this point, any Senator signing on to support KOSA cannot deny that the bill has been written explicitly to suppress LGBTQ+ voices. The Heritage Foundation said so directly earlier this year. And Senator Marsha Blackburn flat out said that KOSA was important in order to “protect minor children from the transgender [sic] in our culture.”
While this was obvious from the earliest moments of KOSA’s existence, I can kinda forgive Senators who backed the bill earlier on and who aren’t deep in the weeds of these things, and who were suckered in by the “protect the children!” language used to promote the bill.
What is completely unforgiveable is any Senator who claims to be an ally of LGBTQ+ causes deciding to support KOSA now.
Meet Senator Elizabeth Warren.
She just added her name as a KOSA co-sponsor (along with Josh Hawley, though the addition of his name is entirely expected given his cynical power-driven populist authoritarian tendencies). As we’ve pointed out before, if you’re a Senator and you’re agreeing with Hawley, you may want to question what it is that you’re really supporting.
Warren holds herself out as an ally for LGBTQ+ rights. But it is impossible to take that seriously when she decides to support something like KOSA.
I honestly wondered if this was yet another sloppy mistake from Warren’s office, because last year a “clerical error” resulted in her sponsoring a bill with Senator Lindsey Graham for an outright repeal of Section 230. That was quickly fixed, but I’m increasingly questioning whether or not it was really an error. After all, earlier this year, Graham and Warren teamed up to introduce a bill to create a new federal online speech police agency.
And now she’s co-sponsoring KOSA, even after the GOP has been clear that the bill is designed to literally silence trans voices and trans support.
That is inexcusable.
Of course, in looking around to see if she has made any statement to try to defend this attack on LGBTQ+ rights, I found the likely reason she’s supporting this censorial bill: Common Sense Media asked her to do so.
Remember, Common Sense Media is a dangerous pro-censorship organization that will support any law that censors the internet, no matter how unconstitutional or dangerous. And last week, they sent a letter to Elizabeth Warren asking her to support KOSA.
From that incredibly misleading letter:
The Kids Online Safety Act seeks to hold social media companies accountable after their repeated failures to protect children and adolescents from the practices that make their platforms more harmful. The bill establishes a duty of care for social media companies to protect minors from specific mental health harms including; anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors. Additionally, the bill requires companies to go through independent, external audits, allows federal researcher access to platform data assets, and creates substantial youth and parental controls to create a safer digital environment.
As a leader in protecting children, you have the power to contribute to tackling this growing issue through support for the Kids Online Safety Act. The wellbeing of future generations depend on it.
What Common Sense Media conveniently leaves out is that KOSA’s enforcement mechanism allows state Attorneys General to decide what is “harmful” content and to force companies to remove it. This mechanism means that state AGs become censors for any content they dislike, including (as admitted directly by Heritage Foundation and Senator Blackburn) any content that admits that trans people exist.
Senator Warren has no excuse for supporting this bill. Her staff knows how this bill will be used. It’s no excuse that Common Sense Media sent a mendaciously misleading letter. Blackburn’s statement about using KOSA to stop trans content got widespread attention. Either Warren’s staff is incompetent or she actually supports protecting “minor children from the transgender [sic] in our culture.”
Neither is a good look. Senator Warren should be ashamed.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, censorship, elizabeth warren, josh hawley, kosa, lgbtq, protect the children