BILL: Should We Reduce Online Privacy in Fight Against Child Abuse? - EARN IT Act of 2023 - S.1207

The Bill

S.1207 - Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2023 or the EARN IT Act of 2023

Bill Details

• Sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on April 19, 2023
• Co-sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) 
• Committee: Senate - Judiciary
• House - Not Yet Voted
• Senate - Not Yet Voted
• President - Not Yet Signed

Bill Overview

• Reintroduced from previous sessions, the legislation incentivizes the tech industry to take online child sexual exploitation seriously. 
• The bill removes blanket immunity for violations of laws related to online child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
• It amends Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that users are legally responsible for the content they upload and not the platforms themselves.
• Service providers and platforms will now be responsible for helping to combat child sexual exploitation and to eradicate CSAM.
• Establishes a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention that will be responsible for developing voluntary best practices. 
• Provides recourse for survivors and tools for enforcement.

What's in the Bill?

Establishes a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention

• The Commission will consist of the heads of DOJ, DHS, and FTC, along with 16 other members appointed equally by Congressional leadership.
• These members will include representatives from law enforcement, survivors and victims' services organizations, constitutional law experts, technical experts, and industry leaders.

Repeals Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 

• Passed in 1996, Section 230 clarified the responsibilities of online platforms and users online. Under the bill, users are legally responsible for the content they upload and not the platforms they use to upload.
• Section 230 helps guarantee free speech and digital privacy online and protects users from censorship.
• Currently, all online platforms are automatically given Section 230 protection — the EARN IT Act seeks to change that.

Creates a set of "best practices"

• Online platforms will have to abide by a set of "best practices" in order to "earn" Section 230 protection. The best practices would require tech companies to build "backdoors" into their encryption schemes should the government demand access to unencrypted user data.
• In the fight against child abuse, the bill would target encryption, ultimately impacting online privacy and security for all users and citizens.

Involves Congress in monitoring

• Federal law already requires that providers report any CSAM they find to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The NCMEC is already receiving nearly one million reports per month. 
• Congress will have a more active hand in compelling platforms to monitor and report on user data.

What Supporters are Saying

• The EARN IT Act is supported by more than 150 groups, survivors, and stakeholders, including NCMEC, Rights4Girls, and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
• Sen. Graham said:

"To all the victim groups and law enforcement entities urging Congress to do something about the scourge of child sexual abuse material and the exploitation of children on the internet: we hear you. The days of children being exploited on the internet and their families being unable to do anything about it are coming to an end."

• Sen. Blackburn:

"Online platforms have made it easier for pedophiles to groom and exploit children. There is no excuse for the tech industry not to secure the platforms that enable abusers. The EARN IT Act will push Big Tech to take the necessary steps to make it safer for kids to get online."

• Sen. Blumenthal said:

"The EARN IT Act imposes basic accountability on tech companies that are complicit in the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. The internet is infested with millions of images of children who have been brutally assaulted and exploited, and who are haunted by a lifetime of pain after these photographs and videos are circulated online."

What Opponents are Saying

• The bill is opposed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and a coalition of 132 LBGTQ+ and human rights organizations, all of which have signed a group letter opposing EARN IT.
• Opponents are against public officials being given the authority to undermine encryption. The bill will effectively force tech companies to weaken their encryption or face lawsuits.
• Some critics believe it will take the onus off of tech companies and will place the responsibility of monitoring child abuse materials onto Congress, a body that lacks the expertise to fulfill this obligation.
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues that the bill's purported goal distracts citizens from its privacy-threatening purposes:

"Unfortunately, these bills threaten the privacy, security, and free expression of digital communications for all users, including children. Giving states and private litigants the power to threaten private companies with criminal prosecution and costly civil litigation unless they scan all of users' private messages shows blatant disregard for the millions of law abiding people who depend on secure messaging to safely communicate."

• The EFF said the bill is misleading:

"It doesn't equip law enforcement agencies with resources to investigate claims of child exploitation or training in how to use online platforms to catch perpetrators. Rather, the bill's authors have shrewdly used defending children as the pretense for an attack on our free speech and security online."

• Riana Pfefforkorn from the Stanford Internet Observatory said:

"If providers such as Google or Facebook were required by law to do the mass warrantless scans of all content on their systems that they presently do voluntarily, that would violate the Fourth Amendment."

Tell your reps to support or oppose the bill

—Emma Kansiz 

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