Bad news... Snap, the maker of Snapchat, has endorsed the Kids Online Safety Act. They probably think the costs of compliance will drive upstart competitors out of business.
The good news? We can still fight. At the very least, the Senate could make the bill less awful.
@charliejane In a way, this is how FOSTA passed. Everyone was against it, then FB's COO, Sheryl Sandberg (who used to be a staffer for Clinton), endorsed it at the last minute to try to weather the Cambridge Analytica scandal, even though they knew very well it was a bad idea to do.
Maybe, corporate short termism (and parasitism, as they take the short term PR "win", while leaving others to continue to push against it). As in FB's case, it won't really save them. You have to remember FB was one of the companies which tried to pitch "safety", even when it clearly meant violating people's rights (and was of quite questionable efficacy and proportionality), and now, they're being hung to dry with another hearing. No one is giving them a "pass". Nor did they get a "pass" in 2018.
We've also seen Snap showing up on an infamous "NGO" with a few governments, trying to pitch themselves as having a halo. Maybe, they think they can get a "pass", and that it'll be mainly for others, particularly rival companies who will have to deal with it. For the most part, they might even well be right, on the rival companies part.
It also seems they've been pushing for years to salvage their reputation for "sexting". At times, it's been pretty over the top (at times, their actions have had negative implications of their own). They also don't seem to be a terribly successful company, to start with, perhaps, this is a marketing ploy for an increasingly irrelevant company.
It's also rich for Snap to talk about "safety" when they were involved in the "speed filter" case...
