EARN IT Act: Encryption and Privacy under fire
Following in the footsteps of the PATRIOT Act, American policymakers are pushing new legislation to make internet communication more transparent, all under the guise of preventing child sexual abuse.
Companies will either have to comply with a set of "best practices" — allowing the government greater access to user communication data — or forfeit their Section 230 protections, which legally separates an online platform from the actions of its users.
This would mean that companies don't comply will become legally liable for any activity of their users, likely to drown them in an avalanche of litigation.
Given the current administration's previous attempts to break end-to-end encryption, it's almost out-of-the-question that EARN IT is a thinly-veiled attack on encrypted communication platforms, using Child Abuse as the new "Terrorism" carte blanche.