Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) has come out against a sweeping censorship bill which could imperil the future of free speech on the internet.
Johnson slammed the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety Act (“KOSA”) as “very problematic” and indicated he would not bring it for a vote. The upper chamber’s version of KOSA would create a nebulous “duty of care” for tech platforms, which critics warn would incentivize censorship of speech critical of the authoritarian left.
MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider praised Speaker Johnson’s decision in an X post, calling him “the best Speaker in my lifetime.” Schneider added, “We can protect kids from voracious tech oligarchs while also protecting free speech rights. He gets it.”
Johnson’s new comments on KOSA were made in an interview with Punchbowl News. Punchbowl reported that the statement by Johnson “likely spell[s] doom this year for the bill,” as the Speaker indicated he was not amenable to changing his position, “at least not on the version that passed the Senate in July.”
The Senate version of KOSA, which was authored by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would make tech companies liable if the content shared on their platforms causes a child “psychological distress” or “anxiety.” The upper chamber passed the bill last July over the vociferous objection of Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY).
At the time, Paul warned: “this bill opens the door to nearly limitless content moderation, as people can and will argue that almost any form of content could contribute to some form of mental health disorder.”
Punchbowl also reported that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) had urged the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee to craft its own version of KOSA rather than approve the one that passed in the Senate.
The KOSA version which the Energy & Commerce Committee then passed was drastically different from its Senate counterpart. The House edition changed the “duty of care” measures Paul had objected to, instead focusing on combating the criminal exploitation of children by internet predators.
Johnson and Scalise’s positions mirror those of Media Research Center Founder & President Brent Bozell. In a Sept. 25 statement, Bozell cautioned: "Protecting children is extremely important, but we should not fall into the trap of allowing Big Tech to censor us, which we know will happen on issues like gender ideology and abortion. I support the current House bill. If the Senate’s censorship provisions are added to the bill under the cloak of darkness, conservatives will have to oppose it.”
Johnson previously proclaimed: “Big Tech has an overt bias for the Left. Their censorship is an assault on free speech.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand they not cave to Senator Blumenthal’s demand for censorship. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
