Summary
Evan Greer op-ed in Vice (December 2022) opposing inclusion of KOSA in the year-end omnibus defense spending package. Argues KOSA’s “duty of care” mechanism would empower GOP attorneys general (Paxton, Rutledge) to target trans and queer resources, and that age verification compliance would require expanded surveillance. Calls for ADPPA data privacy, AICOA antitrust, and OAMA app-market bills instead.
Key Points
- Club Q mass shooting context (5 killed at queer nightclub in Colorado, late 2022).
- KOSA’s duty of care is “nebulous” — defined in court, but enforced by state AGs who’ve made explicit their intent to target LGBTQ content.
- Heritage Foundation openly called for KOSA to be used against trans community.
- SESTA/FOSTA parallel: platforms respond to legal risk by restricting speech, not fixing business models.
- KOSA’s parental-tools mandate creates avenues for abuse — hostile parents, non-custodial parents, ex-partners with account access.
- End-to-end encryption at risk: compliance pressure pushes against E2EE adoption.
- Biometric age verification vendors pitching face-scan-every-visit.
- 100+ human rights orgs signed opposition letter (ACLU, GLAAD, GLSEN, National Center for Transgender Equality, American Library Association, Access Now).
- Greer concludes as parent of a tween: real problems deserve better-designed policies — ADPPA, AICOA, OAMA.
Newsletter Angles
- This is the foundational text of the “why Democrats pushing KOSA” argument — Greer’s Vice piece is cited repeatedly in later Fight for the Future work. Worth treating as primary.
- The duty of care attack: this is the cleanest technical argument against KOSA. The mechanism is structurally open to bad-faith enforcement.
- The alternative-bills list: ADPPA / AICOA / OAMA rarely gets mainstream coverage. The “what would a real answer look like” frame is editorially underfilled.
Entities Mentioned
- Evan Greer / Fight for the Future
- Heritage Foundation
- Ken Paxton — Texas AG
- Leslie Rutledge — Arkansas AG (at the time)
- ACLU, GLAAD, GLSEN, National Center for Transgender Equality, American Library Association, Access Now
- Club Q — site of mass shooting
- Marsha Blackburn, Richard Blumenthal
Concepts Mentioned
- KOSA / Kids Online Safety Act
- Duty of care
- FOSTA
- End-to-end encryption
- Age verification / biometric
- Parental control tools
- ADPPA — American Data Privacy Protection Act
- AICOA — American Choice and Innovation Online Act
- OAMA — Open App Markets Act
Quotes
“This duty of care approach is foundationally wrong, and there is not much that could save it.”
“Our kids deserve to be safe. They also deserve to have basic human rights, and the ability to express themselves.”
Notes
Opinion piece by the primary organizer on this issue. Dec 2022 — early in the KOSA lifecycle; predates multiple amendments. Serves as founding document of the LGBTQ-opposition case.