Stop the EARN IT act

The EARN IT act, a bipartisan bill making its way through Congress, seeks to effectively outlaw strong encryption and user privacy under the guise of reducing online child abuse.

I don't doubt that child abuse online is a problem, but that was already covered under section 2258A of the Communications Decency Act. And, oddly enough, there haven't been any prosecutions under that section. So a couple of things could have happened:

• There is a lot of CSAM happening, but it's not reported, and service providers are negligent
• There really isn't a lot happening, and most stuff is taken down already

So in short, there are two problems, and two solutions. And neither of those solutions is the EARN IT act. First, if there's a lot happening, just prosecute. Enforce the specific exemption for section 230 immunity and prosecute the providers responsible. And, if there really isn't a lot happening, figure out why instead of taking a stab at user privacy.

TL;DR: The EARN IT act wants to outlaw encryption, doesn't solve the problem it says it will, and it's all around useless at best and a disaster at worst.

Here are some more links that sum this up in way more detail than I did. TODO