Will This Act Help Protect Children From Sexual Content Online?
By Movieguide® Staff
Senators Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham reintroduced the EARN IT Act this week, which incentivizes social media platforms to crack down on child sexual abuse material online.
“We have been planning for a long time [to reintroduce it],” Blumenthal told The Hill. “We now have an overwhelming number of co-sponsors.”
The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act was advanced unanimously through the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 but didn’t get a floor vote.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation praised the EARN IT Act as the “best piece of tech accountability.”
“With child sexual abuse material (CSAM) exploding on the internet, tech companies should eradicate it from their platforms. But tech companies currently have no incentive to prevent or eliminate CSAM. The EARN IT Act is the best piece of tech accountability legislation to ensure tech companies do the right thing,” said Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
“We are pleased that this updated EARN IT Act addresses others’ concerns about encryption. But most importantly, this bill will ensure that tech companies finally address, prevent, and end this horrific criminality. Tech has the capability of doing so but needs Congress to hold it accountable,” Hawkins said.
However, some industry leaders argue that the EARN IT Act could make the internet less safe for users, disincentivize encryption, and complicate the prosecution of child sex offenders.
“We’re seeing a renewed effort to push the EARN IT Act without addressing the bill’s central problems,” said Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of the industry-funded group Net Choice. “The EARN IT Act continues to threaten encryption and privacy features and would make the internet less safe for us all, including our kids.”
Movieguide® has previously reported on the many dangers young people face on social media:
Teenagers who spend more time on social media have increased depression, according to recent studies. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study placing suicide as the second leading cause of death amongst individuals aged 10-34.
Social media is not the direct cause but rather the correlation between the spike in depression and its use. The basic human to human interaction has been lost on many levels through social media.
Cyberbullying effects 60% of all students. This leads to one in four girls self-harming, and one in ten boys doing the same.
Bergen Facebook Scale (BFAS) is a scale developed by scientists to measure addiction in people who use Facebook. The sole purpose of the scale was to see the increase of addiction to Facebook over time. The results concluded that Social media is more addictive than cigarettes, according to an additional study done by the University of Chicago.
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