As you may have heard, the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA as it's more commonly known, just passed the US Senate by a vote of 91-3; only one Democrat, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) voted against it. The bill was co-written and sponsored by Marsha Blackburn (Nazi Party-TN), one of the most virulently anti-queer fascists in American government, and endorsed by The Heritage Foundation (the very same nazis who brought you Project 2025.) As an American trans woman facing down a real-as-fuck, increasingly mainstream fascist pogrom against trans people, I'm furious at this betrayal by Senate Dems, and more than a little afraid for my future online, or otherwise.

Despite its protested benevolent intentions, this is a foundationally fascist bill that would give the FTC (controlled by whoever happens to be President) and State Attorney Generals (including hardcore nazis like Ken Paxton in Texas) the ability to force online platforms to censor any content they *think* might cause minors "anxiety" or "distress." What exactly is content fascists think might cause "distress" or "anxiety" in young people? Well, given the vague wording of the bill, it's hard to say, but the "conservatives" who support it have repeatedly made clear that they consider information about sex education, sexual abuse/assault, anti-racist literature, history they don't like, information about contraception, and information about queer, particularly trans people, simply existing, to be "distressing" and "damaging" to children, so it's not that hard to guess. Blackburn herself has given interviews where she admits the fascist right intend to use the bill to "protect" young people from "the transgender" and "gender ideology." The Heritage Foundation and various other fascist think tanks who support the bill have also indicated the same. While the far right insists the purpose of the bill is to protect children from harm and pornography, that reasoning falls a little flat when you realize they've openly stated that just knowing trans and queer people exist is "harmful to children" and "pornographic" or "sexualizing" in nature.

Furthermore, the prosecution of an anti-queer agenda, and an ongoing anti-trans pogrom aren't the only horrifying problems with this bill. While the Act is ostensibly designed to protect young people, and its sponsors swear up and down it won't lead to age-gating and violations of privacy for everyday adult users of online platforms, it does require those platforms to know which users are, and aren't, minors; which is going to be pretty much impossible without demanding identification or some form of identifying age-verification process. One can easily imagine numerous ways this poorly-thought out censorship regime can go completely sideways. For example, if "red-state" fascists want to unmask you on large online platforms, all they're going to have to do is flag you as a potential minor, which in turn will force you to essentially identify yourself to prove otherwise or lose access.

Liberal proponents of the bill, and disingenuous fascists trying to hide their already-admitted intentions, have of course insisted that KOSA contains safeguards that will prevent it from acting as a fascist censorship law on large internet platforms. This argument is however clearly divorced from reality when you examine the intentions and standard operations of those platforms. No Big Tech company will wait around to get sued by nazi American parent groups and fascist State Attorney generals, and they sure as fuck aren't going to spend the resources necessary to resolve this on a case by case basis when they can just pre-emptively ban anything myopic wingers might find objectionable and call it a day; especially since that will cost less and reactionary Tech Bros who own big online platforms don't really want to host queer content, resources for sexual abuse victims, or anti-racist content in the first place. Half the folks running these companies already donate to Trump and wholly support the Christian Nationalist agenda Project 2025 is designed to further.

Of course passing the Senate doesn't make KOSA a law yet, but given that fascist Republicans prosecuting a Christian Nationalist agenda hold a slim majority in Congress, and President Biden has already endorsed the bill, I'm not feeling very optimistic it won't be soon. And while I'm certainly outraged at nazis who intend to use this bill to prosecute a fundie fascist agenda designed to pogrom trans people and chase their political opponents out of public life, I must admit I reserve a special ire for Senate Dems empowering that agenda in exchange for warm feelings of "bipartisan co-operation" and the purely hypothetical support of white suburban nazis who call themselves parents. It's pretty hard for me to believe you folks oppose Project 2025, when you're already helping the fascists pass laws that support it and Trump hasn't even been elected President, yet.

#KOSA #Facism #USPol #TransRights