From some of the clips I saw in passing on the news, Blumenthal made an absolute ass of himself today grandstanding. If I wanted Marsha Blackburn's ideas imposed on me, I promise to let you know.
I do believe it's time to start organizing against this more strongly, but I don't have much to offer in that regard and realistically after thinking about it, what's already visibly being done to point out flaws doesn't seem very likely to be superseded by much else other than maybe peaceful protest, and I'd look silly yelling at the sky there too.
However there is something like competence Ron Wyden is showing, in my opinion:
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/31/as-congress-grandstands-nonsense-kid-safety-bills-senator-wyden-reintroduces-legislation-that-would-actually-help-deal-with-kid-exploitation-online/EDIT: Here is the bill text for the Wyden bill the article is referring to.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/223/textI didn't see anything terribly odd except for a bit of the bill that was about Korean customs duties that seems completely out of place, section 4(c)(4). I do wonder if that's even supposed to be in there. I wonder if I should fly off the handle and criticize it harshly like I do with bills I don't like, just to be fair. Other than that it seems to set up a director to sort of keep an eye on everything and report to Congress, and increases funding and staffing for things. The techdirt article has a longer summary, along with an explanation that this part in the process is sort of the chokepoint in the system.
I have a bookmarks section called "Wyden does good things". That should be a hint of who in my opinion actually knows what they are doing, and who are showboating. EDIT3: I failed a meme here and removed it out of shame.
Once again, unless it had a significant re-write that I am sure it did not as that would imply... something else than can be expected from that part of the party... KOSAS is a disaster of a bill for the American people. It seems less intended for it's stated purpose than to grant attorneys general a massive upgrade to fight partisan culture wars. EDIT2: Removed angry conjecture for once.
Now, even if you disagree with the contentious idea contained above, if you want to know why it would be foolish for a company to work voluntarily with the people pushing these nonsensical power grabs that appear to be a way to corral people into a gatewayed, Disney-ified internet, here is a good reason: the backstabs if you ever say no.
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/30/doj-decides-to-try-backpages-michael-lacey-for-the-third-time-after-failing-to-get-convictions-the-first-two-times/As has been detailed over and over again, while the public story was that Backpage was taken down for facilitating sex trafficking, the real story is very, very different. The site actually worked closely with law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to track down and actually arrest and stop sex traffickers. DOJ officials actually praised the site for their help.
Where they drew the line, however, was in doing the same thing for fully consensual sex work. They made it clear they didn’t think that was appropriate, and so the Justice Department literally plotted to make an example of them for not working with them on their desire to shut down consensual sex work.
They raided Backpage, arrested a bunch of people, and “seized” the site and the founders’ assets. For the two top execs, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, the feds made it so they couldn’t access their own assets to mount a defense, and got courts to block their ability to use the fact that the feds had been really happy with how helpful the company had been in stopping sex trafficking.
Remember that this had a broad ripple effect across the internet. So you see, it's a bunch of old prudes who love to complain about how lonely the young people are after taking away things that make them less lonely once they reach a nearly universally accepted age of majority and consent (18), such as effective dating sites (which I would not have included Backpage in, as that was for something else that was actually illegal in many jurisdictions... however it's legal collapse did effect sites that I would lump in with "effective dating site" that catered to consentual adult casual relationships not specifically involving the transfer of value to also shut down for fear of similar legal woes). Now, I say this should stop, before it effects the next generation of gullible people like Brian Schatz (who sadly I only know from his age verification bill which must be enormously frustrating as it had some problems I previously yelled at the sky about) falling for things that sound suspiciously like what our opponents in ye olde hybrid war would want, in not one but a whole fucking series of bills whose aggregate effect will without much imagination hinder what types of criticism are able to be mustered by people against the mountain of resources that goes towards campaigning in a very loosely regulated electoral finance system. A procession of poorly founded and whacky bills have been appearing and sometimes even passing, many of which are no doubt quite obviously unconstitutional and plainly visibly so even to what must appear to be a nut yelling at the sky on the internet like me, and it's not solely from the party I expect it from by now, sadly.
Still, at the federal level nothing really got done due to the deficiency of the bills themselves, except maybe for people who I don't think have good interests at heart cavorting in what appears to be some sort of anticipatory glee. The KOSAS bill as of my previous reading of it is like crippling yourself by pre-emptively taking the blame for giving a ridiculous authority to people who are clearly going to abuse it to the point of saying so, and despite there being actual alternatives that make far more sense than what I know about KOSAS, it is simply amazing leadership is too out there to seem to know it.
EDIT: I yelled too hard at Blumenthal there at the end, enough to make me feel bad and I removed it. I'll never make demagogue rank 1 now. I think I should be clear that unless there were some really big changes KOSAS is a big stinker and they should look at Wyden's proposals instead.
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