#restrict act

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

What is the EARN IT Act?

The EARN IT Act (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal’s EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of “protecting kids” to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

It will make CSAM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works – without fear of liability for any “failure.” Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on “obscenity” as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill? EARN IT is actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don’t know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the “make child pornography worse” bill, but here we are.

HOW TO FIGHT BACK

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

[phone] connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven’t seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

#earn it act #internet censorship #restrict act #us politics #net neutrality

[crim50n-r8er-reblogs]

Senate Bill 686 of the 118th Congress (The Restrict Act)

I’m honestly a bit disappointed here at Tumblr for not talking about this bill more, so I’m going to share what I’ve learned about it with you all

The link above goes to a pdf file going over the entire bill that has only been introduced atm as shown in the image just above from congress.gov.

Now, people only see this as a means to ban Tiktok, but that’s just the mask this truly cruel bill is hiding behind.

To boil it all down, this bill lets the Secretary of Commerce to have the power to ban…basically ANYTHING on the internet.

This includes hardware like video game consoles or Wifi networks as well as software and applications such as VPNs.

It also gives the government the power to monitor, basically everything you do online, private messages, posts on social media, streams, you name it, they can monitor it.

And the punishment for using, say, a VPN to access Tiktok, will result in 20 years in prison with a 1/4 million fine, a full million if you did it on purpose.

Now, I please ask you all to go to your representatives and tell them about how you don’t want this bill to be passed whatsoever. Heck, if you have to, (passively) threaten them with supporting their opponent in the next primary in any way they can. Just remember to be respectful and civil.

If you don’t want to do that, I respect that decision, and I understand that you wouldn’t want to deal with politics. But, I at least ask you to signal boost this post by reblogging it to your own followers and give any other thoughts about this that you might have in the tags or just normally.

I don’t want this lovable hellsite we all call home and made such good friends and memories on to be under the eyes of those pedophilic heathens who can’t seem to even know how to unlock a smartphone.

I thank you all for reading this, and I hope you all have a good day/night.

#us politics #usa #restrict act #senate 686 #tiktok #tiktok ban #tumblr #internet #first amendment #freedom of speech #pls share

[cheshire-j]

PLEASE READ

So as of tomorrow, the Kids Online Safety Act, is set for markup as of July 27 at 10:00 am. And for those who aren't aware, this bill, if passed, does not protect kids. If merely eradicates privacy, freedom of speech, and unlawfully searches and seizes everything you say and do on the web.

It will censor everything the government does not like and if you want "unrestricted access" you will need to prove you are above the age of 18, which will most likely mean you will need to upload some kind of ID. Additionally, if you need to upload your ID, there is no guaranteed protection that your image or the ID itself will not be swiped or sold like how Instagram/Facebook/Twitter did when they sold data to the Russians.

This will also be harmful to kids, especially those to have a bad living situation. KOSA does nothing but police the Internet for everything you say and do on the Internet. It will censor medical information, history, information, and restrict and limit, if not outright ban what can be posted on social media.

Sites like Ao3 (Archive of Our Own), Wattpad, Tiktok, Tumblr, etc.... EVERYTHING will be affected, art especially. And what's more, is KOSA passes, it will be a gateway to pass all the other bad internet bills like the RESTRICT ACT, EARN IT ACT, COOPER DAVIS, etc.

The Internet will turn into a hellscape for everyone; kids, companies, and adults alike!

The picture above, from @dontdelete.art, is a call to action in protesting these bad internet bills. As of today, July 26, we need to protest against this bill for our privacy and our freedom. Call your representatives and senators, AND ALSO call the Commerce Committee as they are the ones overseeing this mark up meeting.

The Commerce Committe's numbers are:

Majority: 202-224-0411

Minority: 202-224-1251

Call them and tell them you oppose KOSA, tell them the dangers, tell them how it breaks our first and fourth ammendment rights and how it violates our privacy.

We only have one more day before it goes to mark up, so let's make it count. Spend today speaking out on KOSA, post on social media talking about the dangers of KOSA, call and email your representatives, senators, and the committee!

DON'T SIT IDELY BY, MAKE TODAY COUNT!

#wattpad #fanfiction #archive of our own #kosa #restrict act #earn it act #politics #artists on tumblr #artistsupport #bad internet bills #stop kosa #activism

[lazy-cat-corner]

Hello, hey, hi down here! This tiktok ban concerns you too because it’s not a “tiktok ban” congress is pushing, it’s CENSORSHIP! You know? That thing you guys post about here every day?

You don’t think your cute little fics are next or anything deemed “inappropriate?” Think again. They will have the right to control your access anytime for any reason.

“Oh but I’m not American, it’s not my problem.” Plenty of countries are already expressing interest in similar policies! If America gets this, you better believe you’re next and it’ll be an even easier fight! This matters! Banning of any material online will ALWAYS be your problem. Because if it’s tiktok, you think they’re gonna let Discord go? Twitch? Reddit? One by one they’ll remove any competition or threat to Facebook Meta.

#restrict act #government surveillance #tiktok ban #censorship #social media #tiktok #instagram #facebook #twitter

[healingheartdogs]

Actually incredibly concerning and scary how much I am NOT seeing people talk about the RESTRICT outside of TikTok because they're being successfully distracted by our politicians framing this as just a TikTok ban. If you have not read this bill yet I am begging you to do so and then contact your representatives about it. This is a gross overreach by our government and clearly violates the first amendment in this country. If this bill passes it will give our government free reign to censor or ban any internet service with over a million users -- including things like video games, not just apps like TikTok -- with NO OVERSIGHT AT ALL. Punishments for trying to get around these bans and censors can be up to a million dollars or UP TO 20 YEARS IN PRISON.

Seriously, read this bill, spread information to your circles, and HARASS YOUR REPS ABOUT THIS. Call them up and tell them if they support this bill you will actively campaign for their competition in the next election. If you don't like phone calls, email them. If you don't like typing emails then get ChatGPT to make one up for you and all you have to do is send it. This is TIME SENSITIVE. We need to make as much noise about this as possible ASAP. This bill is a direct attack on the first amendment and on FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act. This is SCARY.

This is a bipartisan issue that will affect all of us. It doesn't matter what political party you stand for, both Dems and Repubs are supporting this violation of our rights and censorship of the internet. Meta is hardcore lobbying for this bill and politicians on both sides are happily taking their bribes to fuck us over. Make noise about it, please.

#tiktok #tiktok ban #restrict act #politics #ndr #not dog related

[captainxtra]

This awful bill must be stopped!

A tracker of said bill:

For the record, the political stances of said twitter poster do not reflect my own 1-1 by any means.

I do agree that this Bill must be stopped and nothing beyond that.

April 2nd Edit!

The EFF has a system in this article you can use to locate and contact your Reps!

#restrict act #censorship

[amalgamasreal]

#s.686 #tiktok ban #tiktok #tiktok senate hearing #restrict act #restrict bill #patriot act #patriot act 2.0

[enigma2meagain]

“Stop Internet Censorship” Master List

The following is a master list for all of the major Internet Censorship and Surveillance Bills between 2022 to 2023, with the most major bills that are currently active posted below. They will each link to the Tumblr posts that I have made in the past related to them, with all of the relevant information associated.

This was made because I feel people need to get a sense for just how interconnected they really are, how much Congress and third parties are trying to desperately gain full control and access to our information and silencing anything they don’t want to see and hear, and having a centralized hub of information for them will make it easier for people to find them.

The Major Bills:

EARN IT Act: 2022 version of EARN IT Act

                      2023 version of EARN IT Act (No text yet, but it’s pretending to be about preventing child abuse online this time)

     Enigma2Me Post on EARN IT Act

     fullhalalalchemist Post on EARN IT

     Condemnation of the EARN IT Act 2020 Coalition Letter

     STOP EARN IT Act LINKTREE

     Engadget: EARN IT Act reintroduced for the Third Time

------

Kids Online Safety Act: Current Draft of 2023 KOSA bill

     Enigma2Me Post on Kids Online Safety Act

     STOP KOSA LinkTree

------

RESTRICT Act: Read Bill Here.

       Enigma2Me Post On RESTRICT Act

      LoganGalbraith’s Post on RESTRICT Act

       Truthout Article 4/02/2023: Restrict Act Critics Call the Far-Reaching “TikTok Ban” Bill a “Patriot Act 2.0”  

------

STOP CSAM Act:

      Electronic Frontier Foundation: Take Action on STOP CSAM/EARN IT

      TechDirt Post Against STOP CSAM Act

------

So if you’ve seen the above, you’re probably asking: What can we do about it?

1) Spread the Word online!

Twitter Hashtags

For Earn It: #EARNITAct, #STOPTheEARNITAct, #NoEarnItAct

For KOSA: #KOSA, #KidsOnlineSafetyAct, STOPKOSA

For RESTRICTAct: #RESTRICTAct, #STOPRESTRICTAct

2) PLEASE call your Senators.

Find your 2 senators numbers here. Fax them, email them. Tell them they MUST oppose this bill. Calmly make it clear to them that if they support this bill, then you will vote for someone else who doesn’t go along with this blatant act of authoritarian intent.

3) CONTACT any major human rights and cybersecurity related organizations and let them know about this bill. Get this out to any local news groups that you can.

The following Google Doc contains a list of every major organization we could think of to contact, and will be updated as we find more allies in the fight against censorship and surveillance.

ANTI-CENSORSHIP MASTER LIST

Also Contact the organizations on these 2020 letters to get them to publicly speak out against the EARN IT Act like they did back then.

But for those who want to have official organizations to work with (and who usually have petitions except TechDirt), the following usually are up to date on info:

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Fight For the Future

Techdirt

#RESTRICT Act #EARN IT Act #Stop Kids Online Safety Act #stop internet censorship #stop restrict act #stop earn it act #FUCK BLUMENTHAL #fuck surveillance #fuck censorship

[readingfanficismyhobby]

For everyone who loves fanfiction, tiktok, tumblr, and other fandoms sites I have some information that you should see.

There are bills like KOSA, the RESTRICT ACT, and others that might be passed which could affect all your favorite social media sites, and even ao3. These bills can also damage online privacy, security, and access to certain helpful sites such has suicide prevention resources (this refers to KOSA in particular). The dangerous part is that these bills pose as something helpful, when in reality it will be used in ways that harm others. For example, KOSA claims to make kids safer but it actually restricts access to LGBTQ+ content and other life saving resources.

You can go to a website called “badinternetbills.com” to learn more and take action. Please email and/or call your representatives to prevent these bills from being passed!

#kosa #kosa bill #restrict act #ao3 #politics

[elreyrata]

Hiya Guys! Do you like medias like Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, Ao3, Wattpad, and more? Well I have some terrible news! The government and a bunch of other shitty and terrible organizations such as the heritage organization are trying to push the KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) bill this month, which basically gives the government COMPLETE control over the internet and can censor whatever they want. And what they want to censor is queer and trans media to “protect the children” when that’s not the case, they just want to get rid of everything they don’t like that’s on the internet.

Oh let’s not forget about the restrict act…

So anyway if you wanna keep ur media and not have it censored and monitored by the US government sign these petitions to make sure these terrible bills don’t get passed.

#ao3 #wattpad #twitter #tumbler #tiktok #queer media #instagram #media #restrict act #stop kosa #kids online safety act

[fullhalalalchemist]

🚨🚨🚨Congress hiding behind "protecting" LGBTQ+ to push for censorship bills that would harm us

May 8, 2023

The EARN IT Act isn't the only bill Congress is rushing through this session that's secret goal is to censor and surveil Americans, especially queer ones.

KOSA (s.1409), or the Kid's Online Safety Act, is being hailed across the mainstream media and congress as the best bill to "protect children online from algorithmic harm" by essentially, blocking content that gives minors anxiety, depression, eating and substance abuse disorders, online bullying and harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse, suicidal behaviors, and addiction. It's gives the FTC, who are politically appointed by the president, and all 50 state attorney generals enforcement power to do this. As long as they can justify a website 'harmed' a minor by having content that leads to 'anxiety, sexual exploitation, and suicidal behaviors', they will push lawsuit over lawsuit to that site until it censors that content for the minor.

Oh, but that's not it, either. HOW will websites determine who is and isn't a minor? Well don't worry, because the bill says "age verification isn't required". That however does nothing to stop websites from pushing age verification. When they're about to be held liable and sued for millions, when there's an age verification lobby that has pushed these bills successfully in half the states, when websites should know "reasonably" that theres a minor, they are GOING to go for age verification. Multiple experts agree that this would happen.

Last year, nearly 100+ LGBT and human rights orgs sent a letter opposing KOSA. They were ignored and Senator Blumenthal (same guy who is pushing the EARN IT Act) met with different orgs to "update the language". Except nothing in the update language changes any of it's impact. Sure, they removed "grooming" from being a target of this bill and instead are focusing on "mental health". Except, the Missouri Attorneys General, in his emergency order banning gender affirming care, cited a number of medical studies effectively claiming that access to gender affirming care is causing young people to experience mental health issues. They will use ANY excuse to censor content.

This is the tumblr purge 2.0 but for the entire internet. It's just as bad as the EARN IT Act. And it has IMMENSE levels of support. You have the national Eating Disorder Coalition, child advocacy orgs, the freaking American Psychological Association, LIZZO!!!! supporting this. It needs IMMENSE levels of backlash from us, the grassroots, the people.

The best way to fight back is to CALL YOUR SENATORS. It's now going to go to the commerce committee for markup, after it will head to a vote. This is going to be fasttracked and most likely voted on this month or June. It's all hands on deck.

Link to call script to read off alongside numbers to call:

A bunch of petitions you can sign (takes less than 5 min)

Open Letter Against KOSA

Petition 1

Petition 2

Petition 3

Petition 4

Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409

And more information here: Linktree

This is a great TLDR article to read: Vox Article

TLDR; Congress's new bill KOSA that has an immense amount of bipartisan support will lead to internet censorship by giving all state attorney generals, even the ones in Texas and Florida, power to sue websites for "harmful" content and decide what is "dangerous" for minors, force websites to make you upload your govt ID online, and lead to widespread abuse of queer youth. We have to fight back NOW or else we will see an internet-wide purge of any adult and queer content online, globally.

#earn it act #KOSA #kids online safety bill #internet censorship #restrict act

[tomato-kitten]

Okay so haven’t really seen this posted on here much. But even if you hate tiktok you need to give a shit about the “tiktok ban” also know as the restrict act. The government wants to control the damn internet and the bill is a violation of our first and fourth amendment rights. Call your fucking representatives. Tell them you are against the restrict act and you will volunteer and fundraise and vote for their opponent in the primaries if this bill passes. Be calm an collected. Make them shit themselves.

#restrict act #tiktok ban #freedom of speech

[cheshire-j]

KOSA UPDATE

It passed the Commerce Committee markup with a unaminous vote. But this shit is far from over.

Keep calling your senators and representatives, email them, and POST about the KOSA bill and its dangers!

KOSA is dangerous as it now threatens end to end encryption, which means EVERYTHING we have internet is in threat of being compromised. We NEED to do something about it and even if you have anxiety, you can do something about. I did, and I felt like I was going to die as I was doing it, but I did it!

If you're not comfortable with calling, email them, sign petitions, post about it on social media. Blow KOSA up, it worked last time and that's why it didn't pass. So let's do it again!

We need action, our privacy and our safety is at stake! This goes beyond violating our 1st and 4th amendments!

STOP KOSA

STOP EARN IT ACT

STOP RESTRICT ACT

These bills are a threat to kids AND adults and they need to be stopped! Keep calling, keep emailing, keep being a pain in their ass!

Edit: No further moves are going to be made on KOSA until after August as Congress is on recess, but it WILL come back in September. So we need to keep pushing, we need to be loud! Keep calling and email your representatives and senators!

#wattpad #fanfiction #archive of our own #kosa #politics #earn it act #restrict act #protest #stop kosa #bad internet bills #stop bad internet bills

[thoughtportal]

take action @ badinternetbills.com

send postcards and emails like this:

I oppose all bills that weaken end-to-end encryption, infringe upon teenagers’ constitutional right to free speech on the internet, and enable censorship of valuable online resources for abortion seekers and LGBTQ+ communities. If you truly care about young people’s experience on the internet, you should pass comprehensive data privacy legislation and oppose EARN IT, KOSA, the RESTRICT Act, STOP CSAM, the Cooper Davis Act, and age restrictions on social media.

#tiktok #stop kosa #kosa bill #collective action #call to action #call your senators #restrict act #internet privacy #LGBTQ #stop CSAM #censorship #surveillance

[starlover2]

#earn it bill #internet censorship #earn it act #stop kosa #fuck the censors #internet privacy #earn it #stop casm #lgbtq #lgbt #KOSA #Kids online safety act #restrict act #kosa #Please reblog #please spread awareness #Please sign #Fight for the future #Privacy is a human right

[bobwess]

Fighting the RESTRICT Act

You've probably heard by now that there is a "TikTok ban" being floated in the Senate.

You've probably also heard that it isn't that simple. The bill doesn't do much for security but it DOES give the US Government the power to collect as much data as they want while also giving them the power to ban any social media platforms they deem a threat to safety with scarily few guidelines on what constitutes "a threat". It's the patriot act of the modern era. We really REALLY don't want the government having that kind of power.

Imagine whatever party you don't like getting in power in the branches of government. Now imagine what it would look like if they had the power to collect as much data from your social media blogs as possible before banning their least liked ones altogether. Catastrophic. How can you help fight it? Fill out two simple email forms. Use this website to look up your two Senators. Just select your state. There is a "contact" link under their photo. It will bring you to a form to fill out that automatically emails your representative. Ask in the body that they vote against the RESTRICT act. Send it to one and then the other. It's that simple and it really goes a long way to showing that this matters to people.

Stuck on what to write? I'm copying what I wrote below the cut if you just want to copy/paste that and be done with it.

(Title can be: Vote "no" on RESTRICT act)

I urge you to vote “no” on the RESTRICT act!

It's not about TikTok, it's about everything else in the bill! It gives broad (and vague) guidelines to follow while failing to actually address the real concerns about data safety on ALL social media platforms foreign and domestic.

I’m writing today to beg you to vote no on any bill that would give the federal government the power to ban entire social media platforms.

Both the DATA Act in the House and the RESTRICT Act in the Senate are designed to allow the government to ban TikTok in the US and would likely result in bans of many other businesses and platforms as well. A ban like this would violate the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.

If these bills move to a vote, I ask you to vote “no.” In a clumsy attempt to protect the data of US persons from the Chinese government, these bills will instead limit our right to express ourselves — both online and off.

Let's talk to some experts that can help design a bill that actually protects all our data from ALL who would abuse it in this country and out, without giving the government a pass to ban whatever they see fit.  

Thank you.

#RESTRICT act #fight back #tiktok ban #patriot act 2.0