Technology

More of them “freedoms” that you yanks are always going on about?

Ah yes.. forever and again, the siren song of children being used as an excuse for draconian, rights eroding legislation.. its amazing how much responsibility parents have shirked to the state as they replace babysitters with cellphones and tablets.

Ah yes, children security. Of course.

And then everybody slaps a "Only for 18+, fill in your birth day" on their site and nobody can legally claim it's harming children.

Unfortunately this is just ONE of MANY bad internet bills currently up for consideration and with bipartisan support. Help fight all of them at https://badinternetbills.com

The internet is about to move to the rest of the world if this passes, no one will host a web server in the US after this.

I’m shocked that the first openly gay senator Tammy Baldwin is a co-sponsor for the bill. You bet I’m writing her.

I don't know how American voters can stand for this, how can you re-elect people who cause your children to get shot in schools and believe the same people have set out to protect them with things like these?

Why would you oppose this? Don't you want children to be safe online? Won't anybody please think of the children? /s

in 2014: "Stupid SJWs, my rights don't end where your feelings begin."

now: "Stupid SJWs, your rights end where my ego begins."

'Free Speech' mfs really do like their blasphemy laws.

Unfortunately I live in a backwards, ignorant red state represented by complete idiots. The last time I wrote to my representatives asking them to oppose something like this they wrote back saying "the agree fully" and then went on to explain that they would definitely support it and thanked me for backing them... Then went on to show a complete lack of understanding of the bill in question.

And I've been on his email list ever since despite clicking unsubscribe probably 30 times. The crusty sock puppet probably thinks that means "show me more" based on how he responded to my initial email.

This is exactly the bullshit policy Biden sticks his dick into everytime. I really don't want to hate the guy but what a fucking idiot.

Biden being anything but conservative lite is just the fucking truth.

American here, and I am totally OK with a tiny bit of extra latency if people & companies want to move their servers to some place in Europe that actually respects freedom and people.

Though I suspect that if you’re a US company with servers located abroad, they will still make the law apply to you since you control it.

Knowing this will probably be passed like

"Think of the children" is such a dumb excuse that people keep using in the US to pass laws that restricts citizens and are anti-privacy.

Make sure you vote!!!!

I would appreciate governments, especially the American government, refraining from passing laws "for the children". They never are. They never work. They are a scam that gives the appearance of being beneficial to all while only benefiting a few. They accomplish nothing the scam indicates it will and instead turns out to be another overreach of government power.

No more "for the children" nonsense from any government - it's not about them and you know it.

You want to pass something for the good of the children? GET RID OF THE GODDAM GUNS.

Why would a state attorney generally have any oversight over the content of the internet? That seems way out of scope for their job

part 2 of this bill:

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

just so we're all clear on the purpose of this bill.

I hang around a bunch of artists who make money through NSFW art...or shit, they just draw it for fun. This isn't gonna be great for them. Why should me and my friends' thirty year old asses have to hold back so Little Timmy doesn't see a boob or something? Shouldn't their parents be the ones making sure that doesn’t happen?

I don't know if I'm in the right here but I'm practically at the point where I'm just like fuck it, let them ruin the internet.

I want to hear them scream when because of their own actions they have tanked the companies that their retirements are depending on.

Let's see how fast they can fix shit when they have 35 million angry retirees that hold 78% of the wealth in the country mad at them and telling them to fix it.

Ooooh... the liberals are about to hand the fascists the keys to the tanks.

"would give the attorney general of every state, including red states, the right to sue"

What a weird distinction to make. I know they're getting squirrelly, but they still technically count in the "every state" column.

I emailed my senators, both Democrats. One wrote me back telling me how proud they were of co-sponsoring the bill. The other told me how important it is to protect kids from the dangers of social media. WTF.

A bill like this has merit if it's targeted at real problems, like the sources of fascist growth and propaganda that have existed on the internet for decades.

As per usual the US isn't interested in going after the fascists though. This will absolutely be used against already marginalised people and the left, by which I mean socialists. There's a reason it has bipartisan support.

Donate to the EFF.