Summary
Fight for the Future (Greer, Rose) Teen Vogue op-ed, October 2025 — the Trump-2 update to their long-running LGBTQ-and-bad-internet-bills argument. Identifies three vectors by which Democrats are enabling Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ tech agenda: (1) Section 230 attacks led by Dick Durbin, Amy Klobuchar; (2) age verification laws (e.g., Kansas’s broad “homosexuality” definition); (3) reintroduction of KOSA backed by Richard Blumenthal and Chuck Schumer. Uses the Kimmel/Colbert cave and FTC anti-trans workshop as evidence of how the toolkit would be weaponized.
Key Points
- Charlie Kirk death and subsequent right-wing blaming of trans community as frame.
- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Klobuchar (D-MN) openly describe Section 230 as a problem; Klobuchar called it “a problem for our democracy” in Politico interview.
- ABC/Disney suspended Jimmy Kimmel over Kirk comments; CBS paid $16M to settle Trump’s 60 Minutes defamation case rather than fight.
- Tesla Takedown protest organizers sent April 2025 letter to Durbin explaining Section 230 repeal would kneecap their organizing.
- Project 2025 describes all queer/trans content as “pornography” and proposes criminalizing it.
- Michigan bill would ban “depiction, description or simulation” of trans people as “pornographic.”
- Kansas age-verification law defines “harmful to minors” to include non-sexual “acts of homosexuality.”
- FTC July 2025 anti-trans “workshop” on gender-affirming care; RFC suggesting “false or unsupported claims” about gender-affirming care.
- 17 state AGs blasted FTC’s unsupported claims.
- GLAAD told WaPo they have “renewed concerns” about KOSA given FTC weaponization.
Newsletter Angles
- This is the definitive Trump-2 reframe of the KOSA/Section 230/age-verification package. Pair with 2022 Greer Vice piece to show the argument’s evolution.
- The Kimmel/Colbert/CBS precedent set: the exact use case for a KOSA/FTC-empowered internet already happened in broadcast TV in 2025. Not speculation.
- The GLAAD reversal: GLAAD “sitting on sidelines” for some of KOSA’s history is itself a political story — what changed their calculation.
- FTC as political weapon: the FTC has been repurposed. Track whether Khan-era FTC structure is still recognizable.
Entities Mentioned
- Donald Trump
- Charlie Kirk
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)
- Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
- Marsha Blackburn
- Jimmy Kimmel / ABC
- Stephen Colbert / CBS
- FTC — as Trump-2 political weapon
- Project 2025
- Heritage Foundation
- GLAAD
- ACLU
- Fight for the Future — Evan Greer, Janus Rose
- Tesla Takedown — protest organizers
- Michigan state rep Josh Schriver — trans porn-ban bill sponsor
Concepts Mentioned
- Section 230
- Age verification / online ID checks
- KOSA
- Duty of care
- Project 2025
- State-AG enforcement of internet content
- FTC weaponization
Quotes
“Online censorship is one of the many levers of state power right-wingers have been pulling to try and snuff out queer and trans existence.”
“Section 230 is the one thing stopping Trump from doing the same thing to internet platforms that he tried doing to Kimmel and did to Stephen Colbert.”
“By speaking out, it’s the kids who are protecting us from them.”
Notes
Advocacy op-ed, October 2025, clearly positioned — this is the most current and most sharply argued Fight for the Future piece in this ingest batch. Worth treating as the definitive statement of their post-Trump-2 position. Ties Section 230 / age verification / KOSA into a single coherent censorship architecture, which is analytically useful even if the tone is partisan.