Senate Commerce passes censorship bill KOSA out of committee, SCREEN Act fails
Fight for the Future is a digital rights organization that has been leading coalitions of human rights, LGBTQ, reproductive rights, and digital rights organizations opposed to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and mandated online ID checks. They have driven over 400,000 calls and emails to Congress against these bills, and other harmful internet bills, through badinternetbills.com.
On August 5th, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the Kids Online Safety Act out of committee with zero debate and failed to move the SCREEN Act. Despite the usual and continued insistence that KOSA protects kids, the duty of care enforced by a Trump FTC would be a censorship and surveillance nightmare, especially for LGBTQ+ youth who need online communities now more than ever to connect, organize politically, and find resources that are being restricted in public space by the Trump administration and rightwing state governments.
The members of Senate Commerce committee know that Congress remains divided on what the final version of the Kids Online Safety Act should even look like. The Senate version passed out of committee today is a completely different bill than what was passed in the House earlier this year and the committee’s insistence on pushing this legislation in a form that they know will not see the light of day is a farce for everyone involved.
Fight for the Future is relieved that the SCREEN Act failed to move out of committee, as a widespread age verification mandate would be a death knell for free expression and privacy online, especially in its current version, which would restrict important and vital VPN usage.
“Congress is once again doing political theater instead of actually meaningfully regulating the business model of Big Tech companies,” said Sarah Philips, Campaign Director at Fight for the Future. “The Senate Commerce Committee is rushing out bad internet bills so they can go out and campaign on them even knowing they are doomed to failure, either because they will be rejected by the House or overturned by the courts for being unconstitutional. Young people have been calling and emailing Congress on this issue for years, and have been rallying around the world against proposals to fence them off from the internet for a reason. They can see through these efforts. They know more censorship and surveillance, more data collection for companies, and all of us having to turn over ID in order to interact online is not safety. We’ve had hearing after hearing on this issue for the last few years instead of actually moving against the tide of tech corporate power that is making our future unlivable and exploiting our data for profit. We want to protect kids, but we want those proposals to actually do the work, instead of just making an easy headline for Congressional leadership. Anyone in Congress still pushing censorship and surveillance bills under the facade of kids safety has failed us, especially members that claim to support trans kids and every community currently being attacked by the Trump administration.”