Microsoft endorses anti-LGBTQ online "child safety" bill KOSA night before Big Tech hearing (US Politics)

Technology@lemmy.world – 255 points – 5 months ago

Microsoft president endorses online child safety bill night before Big Tech hearing

cross-posted from: https://infosec.exchange/users/thenexusofprivacy/statuses/111847834655628571

Worth noting: Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which wouldn't be particularly affected by KOSA.

There's a hearing on Wednesday, and potentially a Senate vote soon, so if you're in the US now's a good time to contact your Senators. https://stopkosa.com and EFF's page make it easy!

#kosa #microsoft

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In practice, when the AG threatens to sue and the law makes it clear that they'll win (which KOSA currently does), companies will typically stop what they're doing (or settle if the AG actually launches a suit)

Wouldn’t the law only make clear they’ll win if it fits the law’s definition of harm?

The law's defintion of harm is extremely broad. Charlie Jane Anders has a good discussion of this in The Internet Is About to Get a Lot Worse:

"This clause is so vaguely defined that attorneys general can absolutely claim that queer content violates it — and they don't even need to win these lawsuits in order to prevail. They might not even need to file a lawsuit, in fact. The mere threat of an expensive, grueling legal battle will be enough to make almost every Internet platform begin to scrub anything related to queer people."

Hmm, I was under the impression that Attorneys General could already sue whomever they want, success rates aside. Is that not the case?

Technically yes but judges get annoyed if there's absolutely no case, so they rarely do -- and if they threaten when there's no case, larger companies will look at it and say the threat's not real.

Wouldn't the same go for attempting to sue with this law on hosting LGBTQ content, which has no mention?