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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

#21

Post by ocdtrekkie »

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…

> While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF,

It's worth noting that the companies destroying democracy that this bill regulates (Google, Facebook, etc.) are major donors to all of these organizations.

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

#22

Post by jjulius »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #21
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…

> While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, It's worth noting that the companies destroying democracy that this bill regulates (Google, Facebook, etc.) are major donors to all of these organizations.

"See, we donate to these organizations, we're not that bad, promise!"

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

#23

Post by uoaei »

uejfiweun wrote: post #16

It seems like this Stanford page has clearly taken a side on the issue. Does anyone have a link to a solid unbiased discussion of the pros and cons of this? It's got bipartisan support, so clearly there are legitimate arguments in favor of these changes, would be interested to hear what they are.

> It's got bipartisan support, so clearly there are legitimate arguments in favor of these changes

I don't see how the conclusion follows from the premise.

It doesn't seem appropriate to assume that politicians are acting in good faith dialectical fashion, based on literally every observation we've ever made of their actions vs their rhetoric.

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

#24

Post by loteck »

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 except to stay organized and always ready to engage.

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

#25

Post by loteck »

uejfiweun wrote: post #16

It seems like this Stanford page has clearly taken a side on the issue. Does anyone have a link to a solid unbiased discussion of the pros and cons of this? It's got bipartisan support, so clearly there are legitimate arguments in favor of these changes, would be interested to hear what they are.

Let's have no fear to face down our opponents' claims. Senators pushing this bill laid down their claims in a document [0], and everyone should put on their critical thinking caps and grapple with it.

[0] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21194217-earn_it_act...

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

#26

Post by fallingknife »

prepend wrote: post #2

I wish they would address real problems like arbitrary enforcement of TOS that damages users with no recourse. There’s no regulation for what happens when Google or Facebook or whatever deletes or blocks an account and provides no support. Child abuse is serious, but not that common and this law will do little to change that. The lack of a UCC-style law for big tech platforms affects way more people. This seems like…

Squelching small players is the intent. Large institutions are easy to exert political control over. It's hard to exert political control over masses of individuals. It benefits the Republican party when you get your news from FOX. It benefits the Democratic party when you get your news from CNN. It does not benefit the Democratic or Republican party when any individual can broadcast their views to millions of willing listeners on a platform like Youtube. This is why you only ever hear about "misinformation" coming from small time players. When CNN/FOX et al. do it (which is constantly), they get a free pass. Both parties share an interest in monopolizing information flow to their followers, which is why they both support this law.

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

#27

Post by c0balt »

umbauk wrote: post #13
ridaj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no regulation for what happens when Google or Facebook or whatever deletes or blocks an account and provides no support. Yes there is, per the trade regulations you're entitled to a refund . Wait I'm only partly sarcastic. If you think you're entitled to anything provided as a free service then the problem starts there. Do I miss the days when ISPs provided email as part of your subscription? Then made you…

Well one could argue Google and FB services are not free. Those 2 companies are 2 of the most profitable, valuable companies in the world. If they are providing their services for free, how can that be? Our attention and information is what they profit from, and that should not be undervalued. They are certainly not providing these services to us out of the goodness of their hearts.

I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment but I don't think this will hold up in case of account deletions or bans.

Let say your 'attention', using the service, is used to pay for 'goods', account/ access to service.

How is the revenue derived fron 'attention'? By the attention being spent on preselected content, e.g. ads, that are choosen by the platform. One could argue that revoking access to a service from the platform side is okay since the attention is not being 'spent' after the removal or ban.

It might be feasible to expect that services, like an email account, are not taken away abitrarly but 'just because it's profitable' is not a sound argument. Making yourself dependent on a platform is not the problem of the platform.

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

#28

Post by wbsss4412 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #21
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…

> While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, It's worth noting that the companies destroying democracy that this bill regulates (Google, Facebook, etc.) are major donors to all of these organizations.

Seems the world isn’t all black and white.

It’s not like those companies have “destroy democracy” as their mission.

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

#29

Post by uejfiweun »

loteck wrote: post #25
uejfiweun wrote: post #16

It seems like this Stanford page has clearly taken a side on the issue. Does anyone have a link to a solid unbiased discussion of the pros and cons of this? It's got bipartisan support, so clearly there are legitimate arguments in favor of these changes, would be interested to hear what they are.

Let's have no fear to face down our opponents' claims. Senators pushing this bill laid down their claims in a document [0], and everyone should put on their critical thinking caps and grapple with it. [0] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21194217-earn_it_act...

Thank you, something like this is exactly what I was looking for. Balances out nicely with the original posted link.

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

#30

Post by loteck »

jimbob45 wrote: post #8

Graham (R-SC) Blumenthal (D-CT)* Durbin (D-IL) Grassley (R-IA)* Feinstein (D-CA) Cornyn (R-TX) Whitehouse (D-RI) Hawley (R-MO) Hirono (D-HI) Kennedy (D-LA)* Casey (D-PA) Blackburn (R-TN) Masto (D-NV)* Collins (R-ME) Hassan (D-NH)* Ernst (R-IA) Warner (D-VA) Hyde-Smith (R-MI) Murkowski (R-AK)* Portman (R-OH)* * are up for re-election this year. Bit of a pain to find this information really - couldn't find a single new…

By all means contact and organize on Senators, it's good practice. In my experience they are completely unresponsive to anything smaller than the largest and most funded groups. Still, making noise is only good.

You may find your local house rep to be much more persuadable and willing to listen to your educated points of view. Getting their position stated publicly and on the record in either direction can be very meaningful.

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