Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) sounded the alarm about the lame-duck Democrat-led Senate moving earth and heaven to secretly pass legislation that poses an impending threat to Americans’ freedom of speech.
Paul warned via X that Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-CT) newly re-introduced Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a censorship-prone bill, could be snuck into a larger bill in the final days of Democratic control. “Reminder: KOSA poses such a dire threat to our First Amendment rights that House and Senate leadership must not agree to add it at the last minute to larger pieces of legislation, like the Defense or government spending bills,” Paul wrote Monday in a post sharing an article by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Reminder: KOSA poses such a dire threat to our First Amendment rights that House and Senate leadership must not agree to add it at the last minute to larger pieces of legislation, like the Defense or government spending bills. https://t.co/ngbuaTlBn7
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 9, 2024
Echoing Paul’s sentiments, MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell rebuked Blumenthal’s “last minute ploy to impose sweeping internet censorship.” He added in a Tuesday X post:
“Blumenthal’s new version of KOSA pressures tech companies to censor any content that could be a ‘contributing factor’ to ‘anxiety.’ These nebulous terms enable government censors and state prosecutors to coerce tech platforms into expanding their already extensive censorship operations. This will likely silence those who warn of the dangers of childhood trans surgery, those who argue against drug proliferation and those who so much as mention pro-life alternatives to abortion.”
‘Trojan Horse’ for Censorship: See Bozell’s Full Take Down of Blumenthal’s Controversial KOSA Bill
In response to Paul’s post, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, also condemned KOSA in a post on X: “Keeping kids safe online is a noble and important goal but giving government bureaucrats control over speech is not the American way.”
Initially introduced by Blumenthal and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), KOSA contained a so-called Duty of Care provision that would have made Big Tech companies liable for content shared on their platforms that caused “psychological distress” or “anxiety” to children. This, as Paul and Bozell correctly pointed out, would have triggered even more rampant Big Tech censorship. With this in mind, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) led the House of Representatives into stripping out the controversial “Duty of Care” provision from the bill earlier this fall.
Flashback: House Committee Greenlights Kids Online Safety Act—Questions Remain
At the time, MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider praised Johnson for refusing to allow the Senate version of KOSA through the House. After calling Johnson the “best Speaker in my lifetime” Schneider said, “We can protect kids from voracious tech oligarchs while also protecting free speech rights. He gets it.”
ICYMI: House Speaker Mike Johnson RIPS ‘Very Problematic’ Senate Censorship Bill KOSA
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
