KOSA Rises From The Ashes: House Committee Announces Markup
from the it-never-ends dept
Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the internet, KOSA rears its ugly head once again.
The rumors of KOSA’s demise in Congress may have been overstated. Following a big push by supporters of the bill, including Senator Marsha “we need this to protect kids from the transgender in our culture” Blackburn, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, has announced that she’ll hold a markup of it and 15 other bills on Wednesday of this week.
This does not mean that KOSA is really going to get a vote. Lots of things could happen. But it does mean that KOSA (and COPPA 2.0, which the Senate combined into KOSPA — the Kids Online Safety & Privacy Act) are getting a bit of new life.
It’s possible the markup will be delayed or won’t actually happen. Markups get announced and delayed and sometimes shelved entirely. And what happens at the markup may matter. Markups are when other committee members can offer up amendments, and it gives everyone a sense of what people feel about a bill. It’s possible that amendments could change KOSA quite a bit, though the fundamental problems of the bill are unfixable.
I’ve also heard that House GOP leadership is still not a fan of the bill. So, even if it goes through a markup and passes out of committee, that doesn’t mean that House Speaker Mike Johnson would agree to bring it to the floor.
Since the House bill is still significantly different from the Senate version that passed, even if the bill went to the floor and passed, there would still need to be a reconciliation between both versions and another vote.
In short, there are still plenty of reasons why KOSA might not become law. But, the fact that the markup has been announced suggests that it could move forward and is not totally dead.
If you have a Representative who is on the Energy & Commerce Committee, you might want to call your Representative and point out the many, many problems with the bill. If your Rep is a Republican, I’d recommend Rand Paul’s thoughtful exploration of the problems with the bill. If your Rep is a Democrat, then just highlight how hard the Heritage Foundation is pushing for the bill, and how it sees it as part of its Project 2025 goals to have more power to stop speech it dislikes on the internet.
Filed Under: cathy mcmorris rodgers, coppa 2.0, house energy & commerce committee, kosa, kospa
Comments on “KOSA Rises From The Ashes: House Committee Announces Markup”
I wanna get off Mr. Blumenthal’s wild ride.
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so do i…
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Same here.
Wish we can toss his old wrinkly ass out of the ride called earth instead so we dont have his “old man yells at cloud” crap ever again.
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I wouldn’t wish death on the guy but I do wish he’d retire soon.
I’d only want to see this bill pass for one reason if any: To wipe the smugness off of the lawmakers who claimed it was constitutionally “bullet-proof” in the courts.
But jokes aside, this feeling of the internet never being safe from bad tech regulations like these is soul-crushingly exhausting.
I don’t envy people who work closer with these things.
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“The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.” – A Slave Owner
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Some painful irony in that quote, but the words themselves remain, sadly, true.
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It’s one of a number of reasons why people don’t specialize in covering such things and writing the news about bills like these. In my personal experience, you have to build up a tolerance to pure insanity and continue moving forward, even if what you are covering is soul crushingly bad. I’ve witnessed many writers who were good at this sort of thing ultimately choose to leave writing about these things and move on to something else because, in part, it was too much for them. It’s not just putting up with this on an emotional level, but also putting up with this over many many years.
It’s for reasons like that (along with the stress of maintaining a site in general over the long term on top of it all) that I don’t blame people for leaving after a while. Just covering this is not easy in the least. For one, you are trying to decipher highly technical elements of both law and technology. For another, it can be extremely thankless because even when you are right, you’ll get detractors from obviously misinformed individuals who will launch relentless personal attacks against you on top of it all for… accurately reporting the news. What’s more, it pays terribly as well. It’s a tough gig all around.
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Blumenthal I think was the one that said KOSA was constitutionally bulletproof.
When KOSA dies I can’t wait to see his and Blackburn’s reaction to it going down in flames.
Their reaction whenever it dies well let’s say a certain body area of mine will be quite pleased but that’s all I will say at this point lol.
[Why won’t you die?!] (https://youtu.be/Cjl0p0MdvQ0?si=4PDdL2igrbz-2lRP)
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Oh god, I screwed that up.
Anyways, not really surprised of KOSA making a last-minute resuscitation. But I’m for one glad that it doesn’t have the odds in its favor outside of the senate. Fingers crossed, though.
I will say shoving 16 different bills into one markup session is kinda insane. At least to me at least.
Been hearing that they are going to add an amendments to restore AG powers that the senate removed also Congressman Frank Pallone filed APRA — the American Privacy Rights Act bill that went down in E&C earlier this year after conservative opposition– as an amendment to the KOSA
Look like a mess tomorrow, but do have to remind everyone who may start to panic, Congress breaks up next week for elections.
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Ooh, so they re-added the part that was removed and slapped something extra ontop of it for good measure? For an already controversial bill?
Think KOSA just got poisoned.
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Here’s a news story about that:
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Yup, poisoned.
This kind of expansion’s only gonna cost it support. (Remember several rights groups dropped their opposition when the powers were given to the FTC instead of the AGs? I’d take a fat guess and say that opposition’s gonna be back soon.)
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This means it likely will lose support by the Senate too, right?
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Maybe? Bit too early to tell, suppose.
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then why is everyone still putting this shit OUT?!
KOSA was referred to the Education and the Workforce committee as well, but I can’t tell just by poking through websites whether it would have to go through the whole markup/vote rigmarole there too.
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I Told You All…I TOLD YOU!!!
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Calm down dude.
Read what the article’s saying.
And then go outside and take a deep breath.
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Re: Re: Blackburn, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, has announced that she’ll hold a markup of it and 15 other bills on Wednesday of this week.
WE’RE FUCKED!
FUCKED! FUCKED! FUCKED!
i knew it…no one is fighting this…
everyone has fucking brianrot…
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Holy shit you make my anxiety spirals look like a mild worry.
Please stop commenting, for your own sake,
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Serious question: Are you 12 years old?
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Dude. Even if it still passed the mark-up, KOSA would still need to go through the House, has to be approved for a House vote, has to go through reconciliation process (depends on the Mark-up), and 18 months to go into force, which has a strong probability of being shot down judicially within that time.
Calm down, KOSA isn’t inevitable.
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how…are you sure?
people are lazy…and article 13 passed and for some reason it’s not in force…but it passed! i saw it happened!
true the last tiktok ban didn’t pass(The Restrict act)
but the latest one did!
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This kind of second-guessing will only ensure you’re never gonna be rid of your anxiety.
Snap out of it, and stop polluting the comments with this.
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Does that means that it’s basically impossible for it to pass before the lame duck session?
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Sounds kinda like it, doesn’t it?
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If it isn’t snuck into an omnibus bill, then yeah. KOSA has an extremely narrow path that’s thinning every day.
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Do you think it will be snuck in like that, or is that unlikely?
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50/50? I don’t see it happening personally, but stuff like this is hard to predict.
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how would you know that KOSA isn’t Inevitable, we are dealing with nonsense that’s ruining this world and i am panicking! i just want this to stop and never come back!
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You’ve been given plentiful examples of why the bill’s unlikely to make it, what else do you want?
Nobody can just snap their fingers and make everything stop being an issue right here right now, otherwise climate change wouldn’t be an issue.
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Passing a mark-up session does not guarantee that the bill gets the floor vote automatically. It took over a year for KOSA to pass the senate when it passed the senate committee.
Hysteria isn’t good for anyone. And it’s especially not good for you. Your mental health matters.
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TIL: Asking someone to calm down is apparently trolling.
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once again…just when we had hope…it was all sucked away
all of this and all of everyone’s history being treated as if we all did nothing…THAT is a slap in the face to me!
I Know you all think i am gonna act like a crazy piece of shit and i know people might think i’m crazy…and look…i just want everyone else to get this message…even if it gets ignored…PLEASE…FIGHT AGAINST THIS!
and if THATS Not Enoigh…i WILL say this…
WAKE! UP!
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and i missed enough…great…
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Sorry dude, I’m labeling you as spam. Quit doom-posting.
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You’re not simply preaching to the choir anymore. You’re ranting while the choir’s trying to sing.
Stop with the “I told you” and “wake up”.
Context
To the people who might be thinking this is the Senate version of the bill, it’s not. This is the House version of KOSA, H.R. 7891 and COPPA 2.0, H.R. 7890. The senate version of these bills (KOPSA) goes by the number S.2073. So for all intents and purposes, the Senate version is still deadlocked.
Remember to give yourselves a mental break if it’s starting to get too much.
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Oh, lmao.
That turns this from concerning to comedic.
Before you know it, KOSPA will mutate into KOSPLAY and we’ll have to worry about senators dressing up like cats and going on Zoom meetings….
less then 2 months hopefully kamala wins
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I’m not sure that’ll make a difference in this debate, personally. Both parties are itching to censor the internet.
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Yeah; it’ll result in politicians saying “My electorate voted me in because they were concerned with Child Safety. I pledge to support their faith in me by voting for KOS*A!”
That’s the problem when there’s no viable alternative to vote for. But it can still be countered with bad publicity.
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The main difference is that one side could theoretically be convinced to back a better bill, while the other one would gleefully and enthusiastically support anything that lets them oppress minorities even harder.
At this point it’s guaranteed to pass, just a matter of when, by next week as the house is in session until the 30th or after the election. The heritage foundation wanting trump not kamala to use kosa makes the latter more likely to occur assuming we unfortunately end up in hell again.
Now the focus should be on preparing to kill this garbage in court and finding non-american sites to speak your mind in case things go south which has a high chance of doing so.
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Don’t be a pessimist man, that’s not cool.
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just flag them they don’t know how markups work
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Censor me because I’m not a foolish optimist? Bullshit man, I’m being realistic/pragmatic here.
I’ve been following this pro-internet censor back and forth since the SOPA/PiPA days and while some bills were defeated some of them have passed. Tell me would your need to see no negativity stopped FOSTA from passing?
We’ve lost many fights on the privacy end of things, pure optimism does nothing worthwhile in that case which is why I advocate for routing around these bs laws since even court cases aren’t a slam dunk as much as you want to believe, we already have examples of the courts ruling in asinine ways as Masnick has recently posted in the case of CDA 230.
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shut up pessimist
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Its very unlikely there bill be a vote next week so soon after markup, also the House is dealing with stopping a Gov shutdown.
Fight for the Future just laid out a statement explaining why KOSA wouldn’t survive in the courts.
I agree with their sentiment, congress should be working on better things instead of wasting time on this bill.
Pushing KOSA at this point is pure stupidity and ignorance
I had a feeling that KOSA wasn’t dead and considering that there’s a week and a half left til house goes back to their districts for reelection.
I still don’t think it will pass considering it’s an election year plus Blumenthal and his groupies are extremely desperate to ram KOSA through the House by any means necessary.
Even if KOSA passes somehow it will die in court fairly quick too considering the California AADC along with KOSA style laws in other states have been blocked/killed.
It is disappointing and a bit concerning that Kamala supports KOSA but considering she is close to Newsom who pushed for the California AADC I can’t say I’m surprised by her support of an unconstitutional bill.
One thing I forgot to mention is that Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers won’t be around next year so that’s a bit of good news but as long as Blumenthal is still kicking and in the Senate he won’t stop putting out unconstitutional TOTC (think of the children) laws.
He needs to be stopped and called the fuck out like enough is enough with this “moral crusade” bullshit.
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yea i can’t see it being passed this quickly