Political Quotes

“Mr. President, as a parent of young children, I certainly understand the impulse to shield children from harmful or inappropriate content online. That is why I wrote section 230 of the Communications Act back in 1996--to empower companies to offer tools that allow families to decide what content to block and filter for their children. However, the Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net Act goes far beyond empowering parents and protecting kids--or any compelling governmental interest. Instead, it would violate the privacy rights of every single American by requiring invasive and data-abusive age verification technology to access a broad swath of lawful adult content on the internet. Indeed, it would encourage platforms to verify any internet user attempting to access a broad array of websites that might host deemed-harmful content using the most common form of verification--a government-issued ID. Requiring websites to collect the IDs of everyone attempting to view adult content will inevitably lead to a privacy, national security, and counterintelligence disaster when adversaries and criminals obtain those records. In addition, it would incentivize platforms to censor anything that might fit the bill's broad definition of content harmful to minors, to avoid investigations and fines, even if that content is perfectly legal.…”