Bipartisan Senate Bill Would Blow Hole in Section 230 Protections

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from legal liability for content posted by third parties, has long been considered the foundation of free communication on the internet. But a new bill introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday—and backed by both Republicans and Democrats—would strip away many of those crucial protections. Instead the bill, titled the EARN IT Act, would allow internet companies to “earn” their liability protections by following “best practices related to identifying and reporting online child sexual exploitation.” The supposed “best practices” would be defined by a newly created government body, to be known as the National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention. Companies would be required to “certify” that they comply with the commission’s “best practices,” in order to maintain legal immunity from “child sexual abuse material statutes.” Among the bill’s sponsors is first-term Missouri Republican Josh Hawley, who last year introduced even more drastic legislation that would effectively eliminate Section 230, and require companies like Facebook and Google to show that they are not “politically biased.” Other primary sponsors of the bill included Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Dianne Feinstein of California, along with the Judiciary Committee’s Chair, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden—one of only two senators to vote against the FOSTA/SESTA legislation in 2018, which first chipped away at Section 230 protections—quickly issued a statement opposing the EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) bill. Wyden called the bill “a transparent and deeply cynical effort by a few well-connected corporations and the Trump administration to use child sexual abuse to their political advantage, the impact to free speech and the security and privacy of every single American be damned.” Major Hollywood studios, including Disney and Fox, have long sought to roll back Section 230, which they see as allowing copyright violations of their corporate-owned content. The digital rights group Electronic Freedom Foundation, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, called the bill an attack on the right to encryption, a tool which provides safety for “activists, domestic violence victims, and millions of others who rely on strong encryption every day,” the ACLU said. Photo by Will Brady / Wikimedia Commons Public Domain