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The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

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Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#151

Post by Diesel555 »

pishpash wrote: post #145
Diesel555 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Section 230 is from 1996. For reference myspace launched in 2003. It has been modified since, but not in a way relative to this discussion. Section 230 classifies providers such as Facebook and Twitter as "interactive computer services" and not "information content providers." This protects them from lawsuits based on the content they provide. I'm not arguing that Facebook should be held to the same standard as the p…

If they curate and editorialize they are partly content providers. Where to draw the line is not clear.

I agree. My final recommendation was to treat them with the same responsibilities as media companies which still have a lot of protection, but not as many protections as social media companies.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#152

Post by zamalek »

mrandish wrote: post #10

While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, the critiques I've read don't get much into the real "why" behind this legislation continuing to be pushed so forcefully. The pretext is, of course, "protect the children" and more generally law-and-order with a bonus side-helping of "stop those awful social media giants." While these justifications are (hopefully) obvious misdirection t…

> These people seem incapable of understanding the existential threat to free society and democracy posed by limiting everyone's ability to communicate private thoughts.

The truly idiotic thing about it is that they aren't really: cryptography knows no jurisdiction, it's just mathematics. They are limiting the power of law abiding citizens to communicate freely, nobody else.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#153

Post by defiUs88 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #118
catlifeonmars wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is how it's supposed to be. According to you, which is OPs point exactly. The discussion needs to be framed in a way that stakeholders are walking in common ground, not yelling at each other at a distance from their respective ideological ivory towers. FWIW I happen to agree with you, but IMO “this is how it’s supposed to be” is not a productive argument.

Nobody should have to walk common ground with the likes of the CIA and NSA. They should have to walk common ground with us. Whatever people decide, they should obey unquestioningly and without complaint. We don't want to hear about how encryption makes their job harder. They need to deal with it and stop trying to undermine our freedoms. It's honestly offensive that they're trying to regulate this stuff for the nth t…

No post body was provided.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#154

Post by BoorishBears »

csomar wrote: post #140
mrandish wrote: post #10

While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, the critiques I've read don't get much into the real "why" behind this legislation continuing to be pushed so forcefully. The pretext is, of course, "protect the children" and more generally law-and-order with a bonus side-helping of "stop those awful social media giants." While these justifications are (hopefully) obvious misdirection t…

> the critiques I've read don't get much into the real "why" behind this legislation continuing to be pushed so forcefully. I think, what most people are missing, is that Democratic (the free world) governments have lost control of the narrative. It's not that there wasn't corruption before, but people trusted the government more back in the day. Before the immersion of social media, information moved slowly. There w…

This entire comment is the definition of FUD.

It's not that complicated:

Politicians don't know technology

Politicians hear there's this thing that lets bad guys have fully secure conversations that even 3 letter agencies can't crack.

Politicians see blocking that as a political win.

-

All of this nonsense about corruption... you think politicians are successfully going to get social media giants to intercept DMs that say bad things about them?

Or this is the first step to a CPP-esque lockdown on free speech?

That's fantasy at best and a disturbing level of paranoia at worst.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#155

Post by zozbot234 »

Diesel555 wrote: post #141
mrandish wrote: post #10

While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, the critiques I've read don't get much into the real "why" behind this legislation continuing to be pushed so forcefully. The pretext is, of course, "protect the children" and more generally law-and-order with a bonus side-helping of "stop those awful social media giants." While these justifications are (hopefully) obvious misdirection t…

Edit: See thread below, the EARN IT act does not in any way reclassify the designation of social media companies under section 230 or solve the issues mentioned in this post with 230. The change to 230 just provides exceptions for CSAM. However, keep reading if you want background on 230 and why many people are trying to change it. I want to provide some background on section 230 which the EARN IT act proposes to ame…

EARN IT is tightly focused on the perceived issue of CSAM material, exploitive "grooming" of minors via the Internet, and the like. It would do zilch to incent large social media companies against using algorithms that implicitly promote outrage-inducing content, much of it naturally being fake news and misinformation. It would also make it harder for smaller, more independent actors to counter these dynamics - because increased, more complex regulation and heavier liability always hinders smaller actors to the benefit of larger ones. You're conflating two issues which have very little to do with one another.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#156

Post by withinboredom »

pessimizer wrote: post #82
akomtu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gov isnt worried about criminals or terrorists: those guys are easy to deal with. The gov is worried about organised protests, like those canadian truckers, because protesters are protected by laws. Encrypted communications is an obvious enabler of such protests.

The individuals in the government are worried about all threats. Canadian truckers are certainly one of them, but not a very important one other than they gum up commerce and may eventually develop into a riot.

Criminals and terrorists don’t use public comms to communicate (at least the smart ones). They use dead drops, trusted couriers, and in-person talking.

Protestors by default must communicate in the open, and to each other. They are much more disorganized.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#157

Post by tagoregrtst »

bsder wrote: post #104
NewMountain wrote: post #92

For those living in California: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me A copy of my note if you would like a template: ``` Dear Senator Feinstein, I am deeply disappointed with your support of the EARN IT act and am expressing my deep concern and disapproval of such a bill. Congruent with the recent report released by Stanford, I am expressing my deep disappointment in your sponsorship of the EAR…

Sadly, Feinstein doesn't give one iota of damn ... unless she is being wiretapped. And, at this point, I'm not sure that she actually even knows what she is doing. However, too many people are on the gravy train that are preventing her from resigning.

Feinstein is the senator I dislike the most. Even after she complained like a baby that the FBI had surveilled her (what did she expect?) it didn't affect her political positions one bit.

She cant loose the elections because shes a Dem from CA. She cant get primaried because shes in the hands of the SV

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#158

Post by loteck »

snarf21 wrote: post #144
loteck wrote: post #24

The 3 Techdirt links in the article are especially helpful for catching up. EARN IT is another skirmish in the 30+ year old Crypto Wars. For those who care about defending privacy and encryption, exhaustion is not an option. Power-hungry governments must be viewed similarly to an APT in this context. They are following their very nature, and they will never stop inventing new approaches. There is no other option exce…

While I agree with you, I think the last 5 years have shown that exhaustion wins. It is just a matter of time. People won't stay vigilant. They just want to provide a life for their family. Life is hard enough without having to stop clueless and bribed politicians from ending freedom on a weekly basis.

I think the last 30 years of failed government efforts to effectively end the use of secure encryption contradict your opinion. Those battles were won by vigilant defenders. You can and should join them if it's important to you.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#159

Post by phatfish »

charcircuit wrote: post #61

We should design cryptosystems that include functionality that support warrants as opposed to being antiencryption and removing encryption.

In a perfect world a agree with this. But the power this gives governments is so great that I don't see how it wouldn't end up abused.

In the analogue days "wire tapping" regulated it's self because of the manual nature, and a warrant attempted to ensure enough evidence was required to actually target an individual.

With digital communications the same thing can be done leaving almost no trace against an entire population.

Governments have a LONG way to go to prove that "three letter agencies" won't abuse a system that is setup to provide legal wire taps for digital communications.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#160

Post by cnelsenmilt »

omeze wrote: post #73
treis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a free society and democracy before the internet.

Sort of. Look up Western Unions role in the 1876 US election[1]. Stolen communications to support a specific candidate and a compromise between political parties on military presence sounds like a very precarious position for free society to be in. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/how-the-robber-b... (also referenced in Tim Wu’s The Master Switch)

One way to look at it then is that we have dealt with similar issues before and survived.
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