Editor's note: This TechCrunch piece quotes extensively from the source. For brevity, the quoted pieces were removed, but can be seen if one clicks through to TFA.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Last month, we shared the details of a really good “Dear Colleague” letter that Senator Rand Paul sent around urging other Senators not to vote for KOSA [Kids Online Safety Act]. While the letter did not work and the Senate overwhelmingly approved KOSA (only to now have it stuck in the House), Paul has now expanded upon that letter in an article at Reason.
It’s well worth the read, though the title makes the point clear: Censoring the Internet Won’t Protect Kids.
It starts out by pointing out how much good the internet can be for families:
[...] He correctly admits that the internet can also be misused, and that not all of it is appropriate for kids, but that’s no reason to overreact:
[...] He points out that the law empowers the FTC to police content that could impact the mental health of children, but does not clearly define mental health disorders, and those could change drastically with no input from Congress.
What he doesn’t mention is that we’re living in a time when some are trying to classify normal behavior as a mental health disorder, and thus this law could be weaponized.
From there, he talks about the “duty of care.” That’s a key part of both KOSA and other similar bills and says that websites have a “duty of care” to make efforts to block their sites from causing various problems. As we’ve explained for the better part of a decade, a “duty of care” turns itself into a demand for censorship, as it’s the only way for companies to avoid costly litigation over whether or not they were careful enough.
Just last week, I got into a debate with a KOSA supporter on social media. They insisted that they’re not talking about content, but just about design features like “infinite scroll.” When asked about what kind of things they’re trying to solve for, I was told “eating disorders.” I pointed out that “infinite scroll” doesn’t lead to eating disorders. They’re clearly targeting the underlying content (and even that is way more complex than KOSA supporters realize).
Senator Paul makes a similar point in the other direction. Things like “infinite scroll” aren’t harmful if the underlying content isn’t harmful:
[...] As for stopping “anxiety,” Paul makes the very important point that there are legitimate and important reasons why kids may feel some anxiety today, and KOSA shouldn’t stop that information from being shared:
[...] He also points out — as he did in his original letter — that the KOSA requirements to block certain kinds of ads makes no sense in a world in which kids see those same ads elsewhere:
Even as I’ve quoted a bunch here, there’s way more in the article. It is, by far, one of the best explanations of the problems of KOSA and many other bills that use false claims of “regulating design” as an attempt to “protect the kids.” He also talks about the harms of age verification, how it will harm youth activism, and how the structure of the bill will create strong incentives for websites to pull down all sorts of controversial content.
There is evidence that kids face greater mental health challenges today than in the past. Some studies suggest this is more because of society’s openness to discussing and diagnosing mental health challenges. But there remains no compelling evidence that the internet and social media are causing it. Even worse, as Paul’s article makes abundantly clear, there is nothing out there suggesting that censoring the internet will magically fix those problems. Yet, that’s what KOSA and many other bills are designed to do.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10, @04:27AM (7 children)
These weirdos, along with mass media, do a disservice to the 1st Amendment, making it look like only right wing wackos believe in free speech. Maybe it's true, where the hell are the so-called "liberals"? Now that the democrats are the party of war criminal, Dick Cheney [npr.org], liberals have no voice in D.C., not that they ever did...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10, @04:30AM
Oops! Rand Paul... oh well, same difference
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 10, @11:25AM (5 children)
There are 2 major parties operating in the United States today with significant power:
- A fairly openly pro-bigotry party who theoretically believe that your position in life should be dictated by circumstances of your birth like your genitalia and skin tone to gain power among those whose genitalia and skin tone put them in a group that would make them richer and more powerful under a system of bigotry, but in practice is completely bought out by a handful of rich people and foreign governments.
- A very openly anti-bigotry party whose stated belief is that your position in life should not be dictated by circumstances of your birth like your genitalia and skin tone to gain power among those whose genitalia and skin tone put them in a group that would make them poor and powerless under a system of bigotry, but in practice is completely bought out by a handful of rich people and foreign governments.
The stuff that gets done most easily is the stuff which has the support of both groups of rich people and foreign governments, like gutting banking regulations in a way that crashed the global economy, and supplying weapons for genocides targeting people who are poor and brown and halfway around the world. The stuff there's fighting over is the stuff that has the support of some rich people and foreign governments, but not others. And the stuff that will never happen regardless of lip service is the stuff that doesn't benefit rich people.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10, @12:40PM (4 children)
I believe the fact that you phrased this in such a circular way shows how deeply flawed your interpretation on the two parties is. Party one claims to promote the idea of merit over equity, which does not equate to being pro-bigotry, they really only care about money and power and think that is the best way to get it. The second party widely hearalds its self-virtue in claiming to be anti-bigotry while it in fact heavily pushes for actual institutional discrimination. That has unfortunately proven to be very effective propoganda which helps them gain more power and money.
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 10, @08:45PM
So party one cares about money and power [lawsandsausagescomic.com], while party two cares about power and money? That's an easy way to distinguish them, they differ on some very key points [youtu.be].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 10, @10:57PM (1 child)
My claim that one of the major political parties was fairly openly pro-bigotry was not unjustified or speculation:
- Their presidential nominee apparently divides the work of the world into "black jobs" and jobs for everyone else. He also was busted by the Nixon administration for racist rental practices in the 1970's.
- Their vice-presidential nominee has openly called for women to not be in the workplace, and instead at home raising children. He has openly mocked women who choose to do something else with their lives. He has also argued that it should be illegal for an abused wife to divorce her husband.
- Their largest think tank produced a blueprint for their policy goals. (The party is pretending that it's not connected, but it totally is, as anybody who looks will notice immediately.) Among those goals is eliminating federal rules against gender discrimination among federal contractors, and eliminating enforcement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act's prohibitions against race and gender discrimination.
That's not about "merit", that's about enforcing rules that put men in charge of women.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11, @12:14AM
It's like you almost had it but then sank back into propaganda.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11, @12:50AM
you mean like not wanting to teach history because it hurts white people's feelings?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 10, @05:06AM (4 children)
There's something about the content design/editing, and speed and timing of its delivery that feels like short videos are trying to induce mental satisfaction/addiction mechanisms. It's fuzzy, and when they say "eating disorders", that might either be anecdotal or an analogy to "consuming" content. My current hypothesis is that watching brain activity in video form through functional magnetic resonance imaging while test subjects are doomscrolling*, would show what the brain does differently during that activity which appears in multiple brains.
*Depending on the test subject species, you may have to mount the doomscrolling device on a wall and tie the playback and scrolling to pacing on the exercise wheel. Then you get an fMRI and an exercise study at the same time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Tuesday September 10, @07:33AM (1 child)
Also TV will rot your brain.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 10, @09:02PM
And your body [cnn.com].
(Score: 4, Touché) by VLM on Tuesday September 10, @11:53AM (1 child)
Infinite beer has never turned out well around teenagers but supposedly infinite scroll is harmless and non-addictive, like an advertisement claim from the 40s for cigarettes
(Score: 2) by cereal_burpist on Friday September 20, @01:29AM
I'd
walkscroll a mile for a Camel!(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10, @06:34AM
Voting no for when NY state needed federal funds from hurricane Sandy but that asshole is first in line when a tornado wipes out his shithole state.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday September 10, @12:16PM (2 children)
I think it'll be OK, when you look at the context of the discussion.
A theoretical chance of microscopically temporarily reducing pro-trans propaganda aimed at children is defined, and I quote, as "wage war on legal and essential information to teens", LOL. I think the kids will be alright despite their best efforts at eugenics.
If you're dealing with a political group that always and consistently provides harmful advice about everything, at least when they're not projecting their own sins on everyone else, and is completely deranged about even the slightest dissent from their near-religious fervor as "MAGA extremists", its instructive as a thought experiment to embrace-and-extend like Microsoft did. Let's say their worst case scenario happens. Yeah, I'd be happier with that theoretical scenario than the present situation of having them in charge of everything.
Is the bill a good strategy? Meh. Is it likely to be effective? Meh. Does it encourage people with insane deranged ranting sophistry to self-identify themselves publicly so we know who's very coincidentally usually wrong and usually PREACHING bad advice to us where any sensible person would follow the opposite course? Yeah, it's pretty good at that. So overall I have to support the bill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11, @12:28AM (1 child)
Its like when they cry bOoK BaNS and then you find out it's books about getting screwing being removed from grade school libraries. The books themselves still being for sale by places like Amazon, who at the same time unpublished things it finds "offensive" to it's ideological palette.
Then you get all those articles about how awful the constitution is and how free speech is dangerous. Their candidate wanting to "get" musk. Free press my ass.
But there's no reprieve. Laws like this are proposed and supported by both sides of the purported aisle. Both want to just ban what they disagree with. It's all so very tiresome. This bill is a stepping stone to the removal of anonymity and internet ID. Bank on it. That's what they really want.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11, @12:53AM
ftfy, runaway.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 10, @02:05PM
What he doesn’t mention is that we’re living in a time when some are trying to classify normal behavior as a mental health disorder,
And what is your field, doctor? Psychology? Psychaitrity? Particle physics? If not either of the two former you're even more ignorant than me, because I worked with psychologists and sociologists trying to cure poverty (we didn't succeed, obviously).
What normal behaviors are being classified as being a mental health disorder? In short, what the fuck are you talking about?
infinite scroll
What's wrong with that, except that it's obsolete since 33.6 modems were obsoleted?
There is evidence that kids face greater mental health challenges today than in the past.
Well DUH! For thousands of years, a family had a breadwinner and homemaker. The homemaker was almost always the woman, but children were always raised by a loving parent.
Then during the Reagan administration, and a succession of Republican governments including the Clinton government, inflation raged and the Republican-controlled congress refused to raise the minimum wage. Mortgage rates in the eighties were like the credit card rates today. In the late 1960s an hour's work at minimum wage bought ten McDonald's hamburgers. Today those exact same burgers cost $24.90.
By the late 1980s it took two incomes to pay the bills, including a brand new bill only single parents had formerly had, CHILD CARE. Children are now being raised not by loving parents, but soulless corporations that care about nothing but money.
And fools wonder why the kids are committing suicide and shooting up schools. And blaming video games and social media for their insanity.
A Russian operative has infiltrated the highest level of our government. Where's Joe McCarthy when we need him?