Billboard truck decries Senator Blumenthal’s hypocritical reintroduction of KOSA, an LGBTQ+ censorship bill

A Pride-themed truck is spending Monday circling Senator Blumenthal’s offices in Hartford with messages from LGBTQ+ people and activists disappointed at his betrayal.

Just ahead of Pride month, self-professed LGBTQ+ ally Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) reintroduced the Kid’s Online Safety Act (KOSA), betraying the LGBTQ+ community. For years, digital rights experts have warned that, if passed, KOSA will censor LGBTQ+ people and content from the Internet. 

Both the Heritage Foundation and Senator Blumenthal’s cosponsor, Senator Marsha Blackburn, have said KOSA is about “protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture.”

Because Senator Blumenthal and his staff continue to myopically push KOSA, a federal addition to the over 900 anti-LGBTQ+ state bills that have been introduced since the start of the year, queer women-led digital human rights organization Fight for the Future has brought the public’s disappointment to the Senator’s doorstep. A billboard truck, emblazoned with LGBTQ+ pride colors, circled the Senator’s offices in Hartford on Monday with messages from people disappointed in his reintroduction of KOSA.

SEE PHOTOS AND VIDEO: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ng1awDAKwd3xRWXkgnOqzS7yq3GS9u94?usp=sharing 

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Lia Holland (they/she), Campaigns and Communications Director at Fight for the Future, said: “You cannot say you support the queer community on one hand, and gut punch us with a censorship bill like KOSA using the other. Senator Blumenthal and any legislator or organization that supports KOSA is supporting a powerful new tool for the Trump administration to censor any speech that Trump doesn’t like off the Internet. We already know that trans people are in Trump’s crosshairs—it is incomprehensible to us that Democrats and other so-called allies continue to support a bill like KOSA, just because some liars insist it’s about protecting kids online. KOSA is a bad, ignorant bill that will do little or nothing to meaningfully protect kids—in fact, its censorship may end up hurting the most vulnerable children online by blocking the resources and community they need to survive. It’s time we stop fighting each other over bad legislation like KOSA and work together to craft a legitimate anti-surveillance law with a progressive, rights-forward vision to protect all of our digital lives. We’re calling on Senator Blumenthal to wake up and drop KOSA before his whole legacy becomes blocking forward movement on really holding Big Tech to account.”