A weakened version of the EARN IT Act advances out of committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve a bill that would weaken Section 230 protections to ensure social media companies remove child abuse imagery from their platforms. The EARN IT Act is intended to curb the spread of child abuse images on social media, but has undergone a number of significant changes on its way to a full Senate vote. The version that emerged from the committee follows the legislative framework of FOSTA, or the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, from 2018. While FOSTA created a carve-out in Section 230 for online conduct that “promotes or facilitates prostitution,” EARN IT would create a similar carve-out for child abuse imagery online. That is significantly milder than earlier versions of the bill, which would have presented immense new risks for platforms like Facebook and YouTube. The bill still pokes holes in Section 230 and allows states to sue tech companies based on a variety of state laws.