A media release issued on March 7 by the company of U. S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez ( D- N. Y. ) included remarks made by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a team with a history of supporting LGBTQ rights that were formerly known as Morality in Media, that were quoted as Morality in Media.
The concerns a republican, bicameral that was introduced by Ocasio- Cortez to fight the proliferation of non- sexual, biologically obvious “deepfake” media — created by” software, machine learning, unnatural intelligence, or any other computer- generated or scientific means” — by establishing a federal civil right of action for victims.
” Rep. Ocasio- Cortez is leading a nonpartisan act to prevent nonconsensual algorithmic sex that centers individuals ‘ civil right of action”, the congresswoman’s chief of staff, Mike Casca, said in a speech to the Washington Blade on Saturday. ” Companies from left, right, and center help it”.
Separately, Casca stated in a conversation about these subjects on X that he disagrees that quoting a team in a launch is an endorsement of that group, particularly given the time when military support is required to move anything in the house and the senate, but that he is still “partnering” with them.
Ocasio-Cortez’s company made remarks that were not offensive and pertinent to the law, according to NCOSE CEO Dawn Hawkins. For example, she said “it is past time that our laws get up and hold the perpetrators of this misuse accountable”, calling the measure” a vital step ahead” in securing” justice for survivors through legal remedies”.
NCOSE has attempted to distance itself from the organization’s and its leadership’s declared anti-LG positions in the past, but there is sufficient evidence that the organization’s tale about how its ideology changed.
In December 2023, Hawkins wrote a statement on behalf of her business that vowed to fight against the physical abuse of LGBTQ victims. She expressed “deep repent” that there were instances in our group’s history due to our leadership change in 2011 when remarks were made that were in fact anti-LGBT+.
Additionally, the statement noted that “our former namesake, Morality in Media ( MIM), was associated with actions that radically disregarded our current values,” including “possible advocacy against Disney’s extension of benefits to employees ‘ same-sex partners and “press arguing that homosexuality is connected to crime.”
The following facts cast doubt on the accuracy of these statements, along with Hawkins ‘ declaration that” we do not tolerate statements and actions by current employees that spread harmful misinformation and hate toward any particular group or individual”:
- Benjamin Bull, the current general counsel for NCOSE, was the head of the far-right legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an anti-LGBT hate group. The attorney also served as executive director for ADF International.
- Bull discussed the Supreme Court of India’s decision in an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly that reinstated the LGBTQ sex in 2013.
- Hadley Arkes, a conservative political scientist with ties to NCOSE ( he was listed as a board member on the organization’s 2022 990 form ), is a professor at Amherst College who supports the discredited practice of conversion therapy, which is prohibited in 20 U.S. states. When delivering in 2021, he said,” We’ve had many people who, with therapy and conversion, just have come out away from that life”.
- Arkes also opposes same- sex marriage. He compared the choice to marry gay and lesbian couples with the choice to shoot heroin during the same event in 2021. Close to the end of his two- hour lecture, the professor conceded that,” I think I’ve said enough to offend everybody tonight”.
- Errol Naidoo, an anti-LG minister who has blamed abortion and the “homosexual agenda” for” a culture of death” in his country, delivered the keynote address at a conference that Hawkins co-hosted in South Africa in 2022. He was quoted in a Nigerian newspaper as saying,” I hate gays. It runs against God’s wishes”.
- Also delivering a presentation during the conference was Sharon Slater, president of Family Watch International. The SPLC lists the organization as an anti- LGBTQ hate group, noting that Slater has claimed LGBTQ people are more prone to disease, more promiscuous, and likelier to engage in pedophilia.
- Slater has also fought for the legalization of LGBTQ speech in African nations like Uganda and established close relationships with those who support the law that, as amended last year, imposes homosexuality as a death sentence ( and the death penalty in some cases ).
The Kids Online Safety Act, another bipartisan legislative initiative to combat the sexual exploitation of minors, is a major supporter of NCOSE in addition to the DEFIANCE Act, which was introduced last week by Ocasio Cortez.
LGBTQ and civil rights organizations objected to earlier iterations of KOSA because they worried that the law might restrict access to queer youth from online communities or queer people from gaining access to online communities.
On Feb. 15, however, a coalition of seven national LGBTQ organizations wrote to U. S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal ( D- Conn. ), who introduced KOSA along with Republican U. S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn ( Tenn. ), informing him that they would no longer oppose the bill.
Signed by GLAAD, GLSEN, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and The Trevor Project, the letter thanked Blumenthal for “hearing our concerns” and “updating the legislation to address potential adverse consequences for LGBTQ+ youth”.
Congress has been working for years to pass legislation to stop market-dominant tech platform companies from gaining ground on their products and hold these companies accountable for the harms they have caused. More recently, many lawmakers have come to consensus on the need for a bipartisan federal privacy law and regulations governing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, but none have so far been successful.
Support among Republicans and Democrats for bills like KOSA and the DEFIANCE Act were bolstered by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the end of January, where the senators grilled the CEOs of TikTok, Discord, Snap Inc. ( Snapchat ), X ( formerly Twitter ), and Meta ( which owns Facebook and Instagram ).
In the meantime, the Republican-controlled U.S. House is preparing to vote on a bill that would require the Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok or halt the well-known video sharing platform in the U.S.
Although the Senate Democrats would have to oppose the bill, bipartisan support comes from the concerns raised by TikTok about the harms suffered by American users, despite the lack of supporting evidence for some of these claims.
