50+ human rights groups sign letter opposing MA “age verification” bills, hold press conference at State House with Rep Mike Connolly

BOSTON, MA—A growing coalition of human rights, LGBTQ+, civil liberties, racial justice, and environmental advocacy groups will release a letter signed by more than 50 organizations on Wednesday, May 13th, expressing grave concern about dangerous and unconstitutional online ID check bills proposed by the Massachusetts House and Governor Maura Healey.

Leaders from organizations that signed the letter will hold a press conference in front of the State House at 10am on Wednesday, May 13th, urging the Governor and the House to work with experts and impacted communities to make significant changes to the legislation.

Signers of the letter, led by Fight for the Future, include the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Sierra Club of MA, Partners in Sex Education, United American Indians of New England (UAINE), The Coalition for Student Mental Health, Progressive Massachusetts, Muslim Justice League, Mass 50501, Act On Mass, and dozens more. 

See a preview of the letter and current list of signers here: https://docs.fightforthefuture.org/s/1acb8d52-7c11-421c-8c07-e15d81cba9c9

Rep. Mike Connolly, who voted against the House bill H.5366, will join advocates for the press conference. Advocates will hold signs, make short remarks, and take questions from the press before going into the State House to deliver the letter to House and Senate leadership as well as the Governor’s office. 

Fight for the Future has released a working draft proposal of an alternative model bill that would address Big Tech harms without undermining privacy or human rights. The group has met with Governor Healey and the Attorney General’s office after holding a protest outside the governor’s broadcast on WGBH last week. Fight for the Future director Evan Greer and Nathalie Marachél of Northeastern University penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe explaining the privacy, civil liberties, and free expression problems with the current legislation. 

Contact: Evan Greer, press@fightforthefuture.org or 978-852-6457, to RSVP for the press conference or arrange a separate interview. We will have photos and video available for press later in the day.

Members of the coalition have offered the following statements to press:

“Health education is built on the principle that young people are best protected not by cutting them off from information but by giving them the tools they need to navigate a complex world. We are especially concerned about LGBTQ+ teens, young people in abusive homes, and adolescents in mental health crises who rely on online communities for support they may not find anywhere else. This bill would put those young people at greater risk, not less. A real legislative response should focus on privacy protections and algorithmic accountability, not surveillance and restricted access to information. We urge Massachusetts lawmakers to scrap H. 5349 and pursue policy that is genuinely centered on the wellbeing of young people.” -Megara Bell, Director of Partners in Sex Education

“Mass 50501 stands firmly against handing our personal data to large tech companies — especially when they are so willing to share that data with our federal authoritarian government. We also stand with marginalized youth who often feel isolated until finding their communities online. It is true that social media can do harm, especially to the mental health of children. However, the way this bill is written will disproportionately affect LGBTQIA+, disabled and neurodivergent youth, while opening the door to surveillance overreach for all citizens of Massachusetts by for-profit tech companies. The problem is real, this solution is reckless, invasive, and puts the very people it claims to protect at greater risk.” – Rebecca Winter (she/her), Executive Director, Mass 50501

“The Intersex community is still so young that we don’t have accessible resources; and the sex and gender resources that do exist don’t know how to support us. Intersex youth and adults alike are totally dependent on social media for peer support, patient centered medical support and the lived experiences of our elders.” -Esther Morris Leidolf, President and Founder of MRKH Intersex

Online verification policies have proven to be a data privacy nightmare. Rather than reining in Big Tech, as legislators have portrayed the bill as doing, it expands new frontiers for them to profit from our data and puts marginalized communities at risk.” -Jonathan Cohn, Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts 

“We share the concern about young people’s wellbeing online, but this bill raises serious questions that lawmakers haven’t answered. Age verification means collecting government IDs and face scans — data that can be hacked, sold, or misused. The solution to protecting young people is not putting their private information at greater risk. It’s ensuring they have access to comprehensive sex education that builds the critical thinking and media literacy skills they need to navigate the digital world safely.” – Callie Simon (she/her), Executive Director, SIECUS

“As an organization grounded in the Unitarian Universalist faith, we oppose H.5366 as this bill directly threatens many of our UU principles including; ‘justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.’ This bill endangers the safety of our children and youth, puts them at risk, robs them of their right not to be surveilled, and in this way denies them the justice, equity, and compassion to live free from surveillance and censorship.” –Rev. Jo Murphy, UU Mass Action

“This House bill is in effect an ID check for everyone to go online. Digital Fourth strongly opposes legal mandates for technological verification of people’s ages online. This bill won’t protect kids from the negative consequences of Big Tech; instead, they will kill the non-Big Tech Internet, by imposing expensive burdens on volunteers who operate community forums, listservs and blogs. The House should focus on proven, non-corporate-sponsored solutions, like education on online harms and universal user protections that don’t target or disempower youth, and that therefore don’t require invasive online ID checks.” – Alex Marthews, Co-Chair, Digital Fourth

“After witnessing the current horrors of the Trump administration and the failures of social media platforms like Discord to adequately prevent data breaches, I cannot imagine how anyone thinks that age verification would make a single person in Massachusetts safer. Our personal information should not be put on the marketplace for anyone to buy and abuse, from Meta to Stephen Miller. The legislature should drop this effort and instead send the Consumer Data Privacy Act to Gov. Healey’s desk and actually keep us safe online.” – Noah Risley (they/them), Jamaica Plain Progressives Steering Committee Member

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