United States Politics: ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0 where ε=4 and φ=0.25

[DavidCroquet]

I heard a NPR piece about the Kids Online Safety Act, and I am just boggled by the lack of specificity that passes for news these days. Like, you may as well hum into the microphone for 5 minutes instead, and I will be exactly as enlightened.

For context: the Kids Online Safety Act is a bill that is very likely to pass with bipartisan support super soon. It basically makes social media platforms more responsible for kids that get groomed, or hooked on drugs, or whatever, via those platforms. It also mandates that they add more parental controls.

Its a hard thing to attack, but it does get criticism from the left for (maybe) hurting LGBTQ+ kids (cuz, of course). Well, let's not be dismissive, let's engage with the points being made here.

GONYEA: This bill was actually first introduced two years ago. And back then, many advocacy groups believed it might actually endanger young people, possibly by subjecting LGBTQ teens to surveillance through parental controls or by limiting their access to information. But now I understand that some of the groups that opposed it back then are actually getting on board.

FEINER: Yeah, so there's actually a group of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups that have not necessarily given their support to the bill but at least said, we are not going to stand in the way of this bill becoming law any longer because we feel like the changes made at least make us feel like the worst outcomes we were afraid of won't happen as a result of this. But at the same time, you see other groups that feel like that's not enough. They acknowledge that that's a good step forward, but they feel like there's still a long way to go.

GONYEA: OK, to that end, we are going to hear right now from Aaron Mackey. He's a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He said this to NPR.

AARON MACKEY: Paradoxically, what KOSA does is it removes the ability for teens and children to find information when they are experiencing the very sort of health problems and other problems that KOSA is trying to address. So what I would say is that I - while I appreciate where Congress' intentions are, the result is actually going to be more harmful to kids than helpful.

GONYEA: So again, he used that term KOSA, Kids Online Safety Act. And the things he raises there - these are some pretty fundamental worries about censorship.

This wasn't the specific story I heard, but naturally it has the same issue. I hear stuff like this in modern news stories all the time, vaguely defined impacts that are very quickly judo flipped into concrete harm.

"limits access to information"...what information? Information that only exists online? What kind of info is that? If it's so critical and crucial, why isn't it available in print, in magazines, in free pamphlets everywhere? Why would that information be impacted differently than say, a webpage on "how to build a birdhouse"? 

"parental surveillance"...you mean "parenting"? If not, what makes the two concepts distinct here? 

And yet it just sorta passes unchallenged. I remember everyone crying that the moderators weren't grilling Trump in the debate, but everyone watching already knows he's blustering and lying and shooting from the cuff...there's nothing to challenge. He'd answer a challenge the same way he answered the original prompt: change the subject, say whatever. 

However, if we're gonna have someone on a news program spreading FUD about specific topics, asking any kind of clarifying question is totally appropriate, but is for some reason increasingly rare.