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Comment by agentifysh | Hacker News Reader

Curious, what is driving this "you need permission to use the internet" bills suddenly ?

Really miss the old internet.

As wealth inequality and corruption based economic policies push people further and further into a corner the state will have a greater need to identify any nascent organization of political movements that threaten the status quo earlier so these can be strangled in their cribs.

As I recently observed [1], there is a lot more of this sort of coordination than people realize. I personally know of about three groups trying to get some cross-state initiatives implemented at the state level, and I'm not even particularly looking for such things.

It is not a coincidence. It means there is some organization out there pushing these. In general, "organization" here applies very broadly; there are some cases where it pretty much is just more-or-less normal people who organize to get something done. I wouldn't expect this particular thing is that for a second, of course. I'm just saying in general the term applies broadly. Someone is organized and trying to push this.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46873297

Can you name the groups? (Assuming they are sufficiently public, corporate/political entities)

The "Sound Money Foundation" is trying to improve the ability to use gold and silver directly as currency at a state level, for example: https://soundmoneyfoundation.org/sound-money-movement-chalks...

There are definitely coordinated efforts to harmonize state gun laws, but I'm not sure exactly who is the central node, if there is one. (Some of it is expansion of rights in a way most of HN would hate, some of it is just harmonization of pointless-for-any-side differences.) The individual states credit different organizations for the specific laws if you look at them. I've seen some of the individual participants talk about their own efforts but not anyone who said there was a central org. There could conceivably not be in this case.

On a more HN-friendly note, the Right to Repair is being pushed at the state level: https://www.repair.org/blog/2025/2/24/ptkkw1yziw8xv7u9iwhooh... (and that site in general, but that seems a good recent overview) I know of that one through some HN posts.

I suspect the organization pushing the age verification is less interested in being public.

A running theme with these people is that while this is certainly a lot of work, it is also in a lot of ways easier than you think to get a lot of states to push a law through than it is to get the Federal government to do it. Whether this is a recruitment pitch that stretches the truth or the actual truth, I'll leave it to you to decide. I don't know enough myself to judge.

The rise of anti-Establishment politics led the Establishment to strike back, and they play for keeps.

That said I still expect mandatory age verification/ID for the internet to fail legal challenges in the US as there is broad precedent for both anonymous speech rights and children’s speech rights under the first amendment.

The anti-Establishment people that were only anti-Establishment until they had power, then they are very much pro-Establishment.

The writing has been on the wall for years with a desire among states to identify individuals using the internet. Whether or not we will continue to win the fight against it is up in the air.

Back in August SCOTUS declined to enjoin a similar law in Mississippi but for procedural reasons, and Kavanaugh wrote as part of the denial that he believed the law was probably unconstitutional. That makes me optimistic for the us on this matter tbh.

https://courthousenews.com/supreme-court-greenlights-social-...

Look at any HN thread about social networks. It's the good old "why won't anybody think of the children" thing.

It's right wing censorship plain and simple. Unfashionable to state this.

While this particular bill is all R sponsors, current censorship efforts are bipartisan inside the US and even international in scope. The one ray of hope is that left and right can’t agree on what should be censored or how, or even what constitutes “censorship.”

IMO when both-sides-ing a debate, it would be helpful to provide more specific examples to support the claim. Especially when your first few words acknowledge the apparent one-sided nature.

Just look at the Senate votes for these bills/laws.

If you need examples for left wing censorship in the US: the federal government (primarily through CISA) worked for years through NGOs to pressure companies on moderation policy, going so far as to suggest particular accounts or individuals needed scrutiny. California is currently suing several website operators for offering blueprints for 3D printed guns. A few blue states are experimenting with hate speech bills again (typically focused on islamophobia or antisemitism), although they will likely face a successful 1A challenge if they pass.

Both Ds and Rs have been attacking Section 230; Mark Kelly wants to strip those protections when sites “amplify content that caused harm.” KOSA is a looming bipartisan threat.

Left radicals are as virulently against free speech as those on the right, often calling for allies to “shut down” or even physically harm opponents.

Schools are a particularly difficult battleground for free speech, with actions against scholars from both left and right: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/scholars-under-fire

If you are left wing, you probably don’t think some of these are censorship, others do, that’s why I said it was a good thing that left and right disagree with each other here. In many ways they cancel each other out, although they do a lot of damage to free speech along the way.

It’s also true that currently in the US the primary threat comes from the right, as a consequence of the right being in power. Internationally it is reversed.

You weren’t around when Tipper Gore was raising the alarm about Ice T’s “Cop Killer” (now “ICE Killer” since he has been playing a cop on TV for a quarter century) or NWA and “F%%% the Police”

I caught the tail end of the civil rights movement and I've never been fussed about white folks whining about black music. It's just what they do.

I am 51 and my still living parents grew up in the Jim Crow South and they witnessed the “Albany Movement” (my home town) first hand.

But to be fair, it’s also generational thing. My parents were just as put off by the rap music of the day.

Gore is at best a centrist

And not born in Edinburgh, either.

Yes. Right wing.

This isn't about ideology. This is about money and control.

which 'wing' cheered loudly when every platform openly suppressed their political opponents during the last decade, and frothed in impotent rage when one of those platforms unexpectedly changed hands and ceased the censorship?

somehow, censorship is only bad when the wrong side does it. when the correct side does it, it's justified and necessary for your democracies to survive.

I sometimes wonder how serious these sorts of sentiments are. Like, when you claim something easily disproven and openly partisan, do you know that and do it anyway, or is your internal dialog one of righteous outrage?

for example, go ahead and easily disprove that Twitter, Google, and Facebook had banned the sitting president of the United States in January 2021, simultaneously and voluntarily.

So a couple platforms banning one guy from continuing to attempt an insurrection of the federal government counts as suppressing your political opponents?

Would you assert that politicians are by definition untouchable, no matter what they do? Literally. I know your man bragged about this, but was he joking or not?

right. in other words, it was justified and necessary for your democracy to survive.

next example: which 'wing' cheered at COVID misinformation, such as the lab leak theory, being voluntarily suppressed by every platform?

I think it's questionable whether the censorship has ceased. It's just done less transparently and blamed on "the algorithm". There's an article about it now on the front page of HN.

Not disagreeing with the need of a reminder that there was censorship from the left though.

I don't know. Which wing, and what's an example of the suppression they did openly?

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