The Civic Node

Bad Internet Bills — Fight for the Future Campaign Hub

5 min read

Original source

Summary

Campaign hub maintained by Fight for the Future cataloging the slate of US federal internet legislation the group opposes — Section 230 sunset proposals, KOSA, TAKE IT DOWN, EARN IT, COOPER DAVIS, age-gating bills, STOP CSAM, and the SCREEN Act. Frames each bill as either a censorship vector, an encryption-breaking surveillance vector, or both, and surfaces 472,000+ recorded actions from supporters. Functions as the master index for the “bad internet bills” advocacy ecosystem and the umbrella under which most other sources in this ingest cluster operate.

Key Points

  • Section 230 sunset: Trump and Senate Judiciary Democrats (notably Durbin) are pushing to end Section 230 protections; without it, platforms must choose between unmoderated chaos and publisher liability — both kill ordinary user speech.
  • Online ID checks (19 states + federal SCREEN Act): Drivers’ licenses or face scans to access websites; vulnerable to hacking; biased facial recognition denies access; deters lawful adult use; can be used to gate reproductive health and LGBTQ+ content.
  • KOSA: Framed as a child-safety bill but creates broad censorship authority for state AGs; opposed by 90+ LGBTQ and human rights groups.
  • TAKE IT DOWN: 48-hour NCII removal mandate with no encryption exception — forces companies to abandon E2EE to moderate DMs; no safeguards against abuse of takedown reports.
  • EARN IT (third reintroduction): Conditions Section 230 immunity on E2EE-undermining content scanning; treated as the main encryption-killing vehicle.
  • Cooper Davis: Fentanyl-pretext surveillance expansion targeting messaging apps; opposed by NAACP LDF and other criminal justice groups.
  • STOP CSAM: Like EARN IT, uses CSAM as the lever to force E2EE weakening; would actually make CSAM cases harder to prosecute (FOSTA/SESTA repeat).
  • Age-gating bills: Utah’s “social media bedtime” law and parental-control mandate spawned copycats in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and federal proposals from Hawley.
  • The campaign explicitly aligns with fan-fiction communities (AO3, Tumblr fandom) and TikTok creators as the most vocal grassroots opposition — see testimonials from “Christian,” “Edward,” “Gabriella,” “Harper,” “Misha.”

Newsletter Angles

  • Power / Politics: This is the unified theory of the “bad internet bills” cluster — every individual bill is a piece of a coordinated state-power expansion (censorship + surveillance) that pretends to be about kids or trafficking. The cross-bill pattern is the story.
  • LGBTQ+ erasure as deliberate side effect, not bug: Heritage Foundation and KOSA sponsors have said the quiet part out loud — they want these laws used to suppress trans and queer content. File it under emerging “Online Censorship Coalition” pattern.
  • Right-left convergence: Trump and Durbin agree on Section 230 sunset. The bills are bipartisan despite being opposed by virtually every digital rights and civil liberties group. That’s the editorial tension.
  • The site is itself a piece of campaign infrastructure — worth treating as evidence of how digital rights orgs are now organizing more like protest movements (Signal broadcast groups, fan-community alliances) than think tanks.

Entities Mentioned

Concepts Mentioned

Quotes

“Listen, I’m not gonna lie - all I really want is to just to be able to talk to my friends without worrying. There’s so much online BS that makes me give up more and more on life… But it’s because I can be online and talk with other people where I never could’ve. I have opportunities to help people now, places to be, events to start and be with others.” — Christian (testimonial)

“I get about 80% of my news about current events from Tiktok, 10% from Tumblr, and the rest from researching things in more depth that I originally saw on TikTok. Losing these sources of information would be devestating for me and all the other users who get their news there because we don’t trust, for very good reason, mainstream networks.” — Gabriella (testimonial)

Notes

This is advocacy material — Fight for the Future is the publisher and an interested party. Treat the framing as opinionated but the bill catalog as factually correct (citations link to primary sources, EFF, NYT, Vox, etc.). The site has been live and updated since at least 2023; the 472K action count is cumulative.

Many of the linked secondary sources are also being ingested in this batch:

  • “Congress is flooded with bills childproofing the Internet” (The Verge)
  • “Officials say social media is hurting teens. Scientists say it’s complicated” (WaPo)
  • “Echoes of History in New National Push to Shield Children Online” (NYT)
  • “LGBTQ Youth Are Under Attack” (Vice/Evan Greer)

Treat this page as the hub source for the cluster — the other sources are spokes elaborating specific bills or impacts.

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