Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, free end-to-end encrypted
messaging app Signal has seen a surge in traffic.
On Wednesday, however, the nonprofit behind the app published a blog post,
raising the alarm around the EARN IT Act:
“At a time when more people than ever are benefiting from these (encryption)
protections, the EARN IT bill proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee
threatens to put them at risk.”
Although the goal of the legislation, which has bipartisan support, is to stamp
out online child exploitation, it does so by letting the US government regulate
how internet companies should combat the problem—even if it means undermining
the end-to-end encryption protecting your messages from snoops.
If the companies fail to do so, they risk losing legal immunity under Section
230 of the Communications Decency Act, which can shield them from lawsuits
concerning objectionable or illegal content posted on their websites or apps.
https://signal.org/blog/earn-it/
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