ICYMI: Conservative Commentator and Legal Scholar Josh Hammer Urges House to Pass Kids Online Safety Act
September 12, 2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Josh Hammer, senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of “America on Trial with Josh Hammer” and “The Josh Hammer Show,” urged the House to pass the Kids Online Safety Act.
This legislation, introduced by U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), passed the Senate 91-3 and would provide young people and parents with the tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to protect against online harms. If signed into law, it would be the first major reform to the tech industry since 1998.
Below are excerpts of yesterday’s episode of “America on Trial with Josh Hammer.
Josh Hammer Says KOSA is “as Bipartisan as it Gets” in Washington, D.C.
“The Kids Online Safety Act – or KOSA for short – was approved by a 91-3 vote in the U.S. Senate. That is about as bipartisan as it gets these days in Washington, D.C. What would the Kids Online Safety Act actually do? Well, it would force the Big Tech platforms or social media oligarchs to take ‘reasonable steps to prevent harms to children such as bullying, drug addiction, and sexual exploitation,’ and it would broaden existing federal privacy protections to include kids and teens, 16-years-old and younger.”
Big Tech Has Colluded with the Federal Government to Censor Americans
“Have we not seen enough evidence over the years… involving Big Tech collusion with the federal government to censor, the ‘censorship industrial complex.’ Have we not gotten more than enough evidence by now to know that Big Tech is not necessarily our friend... Big corporations, the Fortune 500, not only are they not the allies of the American right and the conservative cause and, indeed, of the Republican Party at this point, they are something closely approximating the enemy.”
Big Tech Has Taken Advantage of Vulnerable Teenage Girls Leading to Unprecedented Rates of Depression and Suicide
“What's happening with Big Tech exploiting our children is horrific. Instagram and Tiktok, perhaps above all. Teenage girls in particular are the most vulnerable demographic out there when it comes to the garbage, and yes, garbage that is posted regularly on Tiktok, that the Instagram algorithms regularly show them based on how they interact with the posts and stories that they see there. They are made to feel insecure. They are made to feel vulnerable. They are made to feel they are inadequate, not good enough. And tragically, those resulted in historically unprecedented rates of depression and yes, indeed, tragically, suicide rates when it comes to teenage, adolescent and young girls and young women in particular.”
Josh Hammer to Speaker Johnson: Now is the Time to Bring KOSA for a Vote
“In an election year, there are very few opportunities to pass any kind of legislation, really whatsoever, other than those that are deemed ‘must-pass’ and that fund the federal government. If you want to get a legislation, a bill, passed – let alone one that passed by a bipartisan margin of 91-3 in the House, this is the time to do it… Right now, the onus is on Mike Johnson, Speaker Mike Johnson, to bring this thing up for a vote.”
Click here to listen to the full episode.
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