US, UK: Please take a moment to contact your elected officials!

[denise]

We're currently in the middle of an unprecedented wave of governmental attempts worldwide to control social media through the legislative and regulatory process, often in the interests of protecting children. Unfortunately, the methods being proposed as a solution are dangerous and damaging to everyone. If you live in the US or UK and have a few minutes today, we at Dreamwidth would like to ask you to contact your elected officials and ask them to oppose several of the worst of the pending bills.

If you live in the US: KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act, claims to be a bill that will protect children's privacy and restrict them from viewing harmful material. If you've followed our efforts to help overturn California's AB 2273, you likely already know the problems with KOSA, because they're the same problems: requiring websites to age-gate the internet will require every website to identify, deanonymize, and store information about every single one of their users, not just people under 18, to determine who shouldn't see content deemed "harmful to children". It also politicizes the question of what's "harmful to children" in ways that will disproportionally affect the marginalized. If you don't want to be forced to upload your government issued ID or subject yourself to unscientific, unvalidated, black-box biometric 'verification' every time you visit a website, learn more about the issues with the bill and then contact your elected officials to tell them you oppose its passage.

If you live in the UK: The Online Safety Bill will criminalize a large amount of lawful speech, ban strong encryption, and empower Ofcom to block access to websites with no accountability and no recourse. Multiple providers and services have already said they'll stop offering services to UK residents if it passes, including Wikipedia and WhatsApp. Please take a moment to learn more about the issues with the bill and then contact your MP to tell them you oppose its passage.

There are dozens of other terrible bills in various stages of the legislative process worldwide that will threaten your right to express yourself and hand the government the power to censor and deanonymize you online: those are only the two biggest threats right now. We will continue to do everything we can to contribute to the legal fights being fought by various organizations that are working to protect your right to be anonymous and speak freely on Dreamwidth and elsewhere online, but the best way to do that is to not have to have the legal fight in the first place. Please let your elected representatives know that you oppose efforts to require age verification to access content online and to force websites to engage in government-mandated censorship.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Thank you for keeping us all in the loop!

[wraithmoon]

Thank you for keeping us in the loop.

[bens_dad]

The UK link is two years old and we have had two prime ministers since then. The Bill has been gutted, redrafted and repurposed since then, though I doubt it is any better.

Can anyone point me at any more up to date criticisms ? If we are to lobby our MPs we need to tell them what is wrong with the current bill.

Thanks,

[denise]

Sorry, I was going with the best link I could turn up from the Open Rights Group website (which is where I usually go for UK issues)!

[soc_puppet]

luckyladylily has some key words for social scripts if you're stuck with a conservative in the US:

One trick, if your senator is a republican [...], write about how angry you are about this economy killing bill. Make sure to use terms like “excessive regulations” and “red tape”, saying how mad you are it will hurt companies.

(Rebloggable.)

It may not be (all of) why we are angry about this bill, but it can help to tailor your outrage to who you have to act on your behalf.

[ride_4ever]

Thank you kindly for this important information!

[pseudomonas]

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/online-safety-bill-a-danger-to-democracy/ is a more recent summary from the ORG (who you're quite right to identify as the best source)

[cu_sidhe]

There is also a change.org petition for those more shy about drafting an e-mail:

stop the KOSA

[cu_sidhe]

As a libertarian, I would also add mention of "government overreach," as some Republicans either like to pretend they're libertarian, or have certain leanings in that direction.

[shadowbliss]

I'm an Australian, I hope both work out for the better.

[makamu]

I'm not from either of these countries, so I can't do anything directly, but thank you for keeping us informed all the same

[nordickk]

The USA and the UK are closely aligned. Perhaps it's beneficial to have an alternative power center, like Russia, even if it's often portrayed negatively?

[vlad_m]

That's exactly (among other things) what the people need to do to keep politicians under control.
Take it from Russian: if you allow the government to censor you speech both on- and offline ("to protect the children", of course) they will come to take all of your freedoms. it just the matter of time.

[vlad_m]

Are you kidding me?
Do you happen to know how many people in Russia are in jail nowadays or even murdered for speaking and writing things the government didn't like?
Russia is just a bit ahead of the US on the way to the 100% totalitarian state. Almost there.
Do not take this road.
Go back if already did.

[lunabee34]

Thank you for helping to educated everyone about these harmful bills.

[sergei_tachenov]

What about the EU? Anything going on here we should be aware of?

[madfilkentist]

This is dangerous stuff indeed. Society is increasingly turning away from the ideal of free discourse, putting "free speech" in mocking quotes. Politicians use "protecting the children" as an excuse for grabbing power.

The test of commitment to free speech is your willingness to recognize the rights of those whom you don't agree with and may even despise. Whether you call it "hate speech" or "grooming," if you make an exception for it, what you advocate is freedom for those who agree with you — and who doesn't advocate that?

[lilacsigil]

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/31/roadmap-for-age-verification-online-pornographic-material-adult-websites-australia-law

Australia has just had a win on (one part of) this kind of law on privacy grounds. Keep pushing for your countries to do the same!

[spiralsheep]

You could also try signing this shockingly under-attended petition:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/634725

(frozen comment)

[rampitec]

So... You have changed your hosting, because your old one did not promptly ban the dissent. And now you are wondering about the restrictions on the free speech. Hilarious, isn't it? Did you think they will not come after you?

I remember, you have already suggested me to find a platform I like. I did. Left (almost) this one and relocated. No need to remember again. JFYI: since you suggested it, I have wrote literally zero posts. So I obey.

[rampitec]

Seriously? They have started this. Access internet using your passport credentials is their idea. This has started (unfortunately) not long before West has joined. JBTW, initially their idea was to protect minors too. So we are here lagging them just a few years. Quite unfortunately this lag is shrinking by the day.

[autopope]

I'd like to help but alas, lobbying my MP would be useless: I'm in Scotland, my MP is SNP, both the Conservatives and Labour hate the SNP and view them as an existential threat so anything they advocate for would be seen as something to oppose. And I don't think I can reverse-psych my sane and sensible MP into advocating more censorship ...!

[loganberrybunny]

Yes. It's only a few months since a leaked document showed that Spain was pushing for end-to-end encryption to be completely outlawed. Also from that Wired link:

"Denmark and Ireland expressed support for scanning encrypted messengers for child sexual abuse material while also endorsing the inclusion of wording in the law that protects end-to-end encryption from being weakened."

In other words, the mythical "back door for good guys only". Sigh.

(frozen comment)

[veritas_poet]

It is difficult, especially when there IS filth being peddled to children, including the sexual deviancy of the rainbow brigade, which is even being pushed in schools! And, of course, the current filth of telling white children they are racists solely based on the color of their skin.

The truly evil part is these two things WILL be defended, even by those who claim they hate "censorship." You'll see it in the comments here.

But this is what happens when there's no transcendent standard for morality. (As the Bible establishes and commands there to be.) Everything is just a matter of everyone's varying opinions.

[loganberrybunny]

I mean, the SNP are an existential threat to the UK. Their members would be awfully annoyed if they weren't! ;)

But on the serious point, it is a pain when you have an MP who's likely to have little influence where it counts. I wonder whether it would be worth contacting some of the wider bodies that support the Online Safety Bill -- the NSPCC is one such, I believe -- and pointing out practical problems. For example, that without effective strong encryption their own bank accounts would be at risk of being hacked.

My admittedly limited experience is that bodies like that are more receptive to specific practical examples of problems than they are to arguments based on principles.