New Bill Threatens Journalists' Ability To Protect Sources (techcrunch.com) 97
A draft bill, first proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in January, intends to combat online child exploitation but could introduce significant harm to journalists' ability to protect their sources. TechCrunch reports: Under the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (or EARN IT) Act, a government commission would define best practices for how technology companies should combat this type of material. On the surface, EARN IT proposes an impactful approach. A New York Times investigation in September found that "many tech companies failed to adequately police sexual abuse imagery on their platforms." The investigation highlighted features, offered by these companies, that provide "digital hiding places for perpetrators." In reality, the criticized features are exactly the same ones that protect our privacy online. They help us read The Washington Post in private and ensure we only see authentic content created by the journalists. They allow us to communicate with each other. They empower us to express ourselves. And they enable us to connect with journalists so the truth can make the page. This raises the question of whether the bill will primarily protect children or primarily undermine free speech online.
It should be pointed out that EARN IT does not try to ban the use of these features. In fact, the bill does not specifically mention them at all. But if we look at how companies would apply the "best practices," it becomes clear that the government is intending to make these features difficult to provide, that the government is looking to discourage companies from offering -- and increasing the use of -- these features. By accepting EARN IT, we will give up our ability -- and our children's future abilities -- to enjoy online, social, connected and private lives. Four of the "best practices" relate to requiring companies to have the ability to "identify" child sexual abuse material. Unfortunately, it's not possible to identify this material without also having the ability to identify any and all other types of material -- like a journalist communicating with a source, an activist sharing a controversial opinion or a doctor trying to raise the alarm about the coronavirus. Nothing prevents the government from later expanding the bill to cover other illegal acts, such as violence or drugs. And what happens when foreign governments want to have a say in what is "legal" and what is not?
It should be pointed out that EARN IT does not try to ban the use of these features. In fact, the bill does not specifically mention them at all. But if we look at how companies would apply the "best practices," it becomes clear that the government is intending to make these features difficult to provide, that the government is looking to discourage companies from offering -- and increasing the use of -- these features. By accepting EARN IT, we will give up our ability -- and our children's future abilities -- to enjoy online, social, connected and private lives. Four of the "best practices" relate to requiring companies to have the ability to "identify" child sexual abuse material. Unfortunately, it's not possible to identify this material without also having the ability to identify any and all other types of material -- like a journalist communicating with a source, an activist sharing a controversial opinion or a doctor trying to raise the alarm about the coronavirus. Nothing prevents the government from later expanding the bill to cover other illegal acts, such as violence or drugs. And what happens when foreign governments want to have a say in what is "legal" and what is not?
'For the Children' (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: 'For the Children' (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: 'For the Children' (Score:5, Informative)
First they came for the Jews, you do nothing, then they come for your neighbor, and you do nothing, then they came for you and nobody helped.
Actually, it's a summary of a sermon by Martin Niemoller [wikipedia.or].
Re: 'For the Children' (Score:2)
Re: 'For the Children' (Score:2)
And the Jews were not the first they came for either.
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Ecuador threw him under the bus. "The media" seemed to me to always be of two minds about him - they appreciated his goals, but disapproved of his methodology. It sort of overran theirs. They saw him as cutting them out, and making a lot of "collateral damage" at the same time.
I do recall a few editors/writers having a tantrum when he published the information he got from Russia in 2016. But there had always been a few editors having tantrums at him. WikiL kept doing exactly what they always did - publish w
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If there was any truth to some of the stories, the ungracious prickery might have been a sign of declining mental health after spending so long confined to a small part of one building.
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Letting the CIA in to bug his room is throwing him under all three axles, then reversing back over him. By the time London police got to him he already looked like zombie Santa Claus and probably had every shit he took recorded in 3D.
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Eliminating Abusive or Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) was proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and sponsored by senators from both sides of the aisle such as Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The bill is also supported by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
What is the Blumenthal guy?
This has support on both sides.
Re:'For the Children' (Score:5, Interesting)
Everytime you hear that or something to that effect watch out. Something nasty is coming down the line that needs this sort of shield.
Indeed, you have to wonder if they are presenting the law so they can hide something they're doing and figure out a way around it. It's always the right screaming 'sex crime we need to curtail free speech' whilst accusing the left.
This is what 'Eternal vigilance' means.
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Re:'For the Children' (Score:4, Insightful)
Haven't we given law enforcement enough power to stop online exploitation of children? At this point it is more a matter of law enforcement doing their job correctly while abiding by the existing laws. They can infiltrate Tor networks, take over websites and continue operating them to trap more users, and set out lures to bring in as many people as they can (even those with no history of priors of any kind).
Re:'For the Children' (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's cops though. Cops don't make laws. Legislatures do. At what point do people who are not cops say, "okay, it's already against the law, and you have extraordinary powers to stop it. Thats enough"?
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Are they the ones who write legislation like this for their pet congresscritters though? They have many priorities.
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Freedom of Speech: For Fox only (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Freedom of Speech: For Fox only (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of Speech: For Fox only (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking a someone that hates, loathes, and abhors Republicans, I am shocked by the Democrats ability to ignore the massive amounts of dirty laundry in their own party. I mean, there are only so many 'Troll' tags to go around. Sure, that keeps the ego intact and enables self-righteousness for another day, but eventually you guys are going to have to face up to it. And while there's more ugliness on the Republican side than one can imagine, how do you live with the volumes that exist on your own side? I mean, more Democrats than Republicans opposed the Civil Rights Bill as recently as the 1960's.
I understand trying to bury this information by trying to mod it out of existence, I mean, hell, I might be tempted to do the same ... but when you're sitting home alone and offline, how do you justify it to yourselves?
People reminding others of it is not the problem ... that the party has such an evil record on civil rights is the problem. I don't think "they do it too" is the path to absolution.
You all owe a debt of gratitude to whoever created the great opiate known as the 'Troll' button, second only to the creator of the snarky one-liner which has more or less made self-critique thoroghly unnecessary for the past 20 years.
Re:Freedom of Speech: For Fox only (Score:4, Insightful)
When I started reading your post, I thought you were headed in an insightful direction, but boy did it decline fast. If you want to discuss Democrats failing to have the moral high ground, it would make sense to 1) keep it contemporary and 2) make it something related to the actual subject at hand. For instance, others pointed out that this bill, and many others like it, enjoy bipartisan support and that both parties fail to uphold civil liberties.
Your whole bit about pre-Civil Rights Bill Democrats is a red herring. Preemptively complaining about getting modded troll seems to indicate that you knew you were trolling. Whatever, I'll bite.
I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come
That is what LBJ said after signing the Civil Rights Bill. I don't think any modern Democrat is okay with the history of the party, but the fact of the matter is that since LBJ signed that bill his prediction has come true. The racists jumped ship and it has become very difficult for Democrats to win in the South as a result. When people vote it makes sense to vote based on the current issues, not based on the issues over sixty years ago. Black people tend to vote Democratic because Democrats serve their interests now. The Southern Democrats who fought to secede from the country are all dead. Lincoln and all the abolitionists Republicans are all dead.
And while there's more ugliness on the Republican side than one can imagine, how do you live with the volumes that exist on your own side? I mean, more Democrats than Republicans opposed the Civil Rights Bill as recently as the 1960's.
Look at your quote: "volumes that exist on your side" in one sentence, "opposed the Civil Rights Bill as recently as 1960's" in the next. You're conflating the past with the present (and I don't know how old you are, but 1964 isn't what I consider recent when considering politics).
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And while there's more ugliness on the Republican side than one can imagine, how do you live with the volumes that exist on your own side? I mean, more Democrats than Republicans opposed the Civil Rights Bill as recently as the 1960's.
I understand trying to bury this information by trying to mod it out of existence, I mean, hell, I might be tempted to do the same ... but when you're sitting home alone and offline, how do you justify it to yourselves?
It's trolling because while true, it's not only completely
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Re: Freedom of Speech: For Fox only (Score:2)
It's almost like there's no substantive difference between imbecilic labels like "right" and "left"...
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Examples? They may object so some limited varieties, similar to conservatives. Or are you mistaking the "please use the right gender pronoun" on college campuses as your example of "liberal"?
Free speech is about the government not being able to prevent your speech, and this article is a bill about a government bill. Whereas a college student shouting at you to use a different word is not the government, and the best solution there is to just move on or express your own right to speech unhindered by gover
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Examples?
Sacha Baron Cohen's op-ed in WaPa calling for government censorship of social media [washingtonpost.com] was generally by the left.
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It's funny how Republicans bleat about the freedom of speech only when making racist remarks, promoting slavery and other deeply beloved conservative things.
Interesting. The “news” crafted this to look like a Republican bill when it’s actually a bi-partisan one.
I guess we just saw how they do it.
When you tell people what they want to hear, you don’t have to try very hard to get them to believe it.
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FWIW, the Democrats fought a war to preserve slavery, birthed the KKK, and counted as a member of Congress a KKK member into the 21st Century.
Want to see something really scary? Look at a chart of Black living standards and incarceration rates since Democrats began pretending to champion minority rights in the 60’s.
“The confederate flag is evil”, says members of the party it’s synonymous with.
Massive, massive cognitive dissonance.
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FWIW, the Democrats fought a war to preserve slavery, birthed the KKK, and counted as a member of Congress a KKK member into the 21st Century.
That's why I said "conservatives". Democrats had been conservatives up until around 1970, then they switched places with Republicans. Lincoln would recoil in horror if he saw the footage from the last couple of RNCs.
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"The news" (Tech Crunch) didn't craft this to look like anything. All they did was name the author.
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Re: Ridiculous (Score:2)
Yay prison state!!
Now with 1E38 more Whac-a-Mole! (Score:2)
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Unless they store everything, and can bring it up from an index should you ever become important. Then it becomes a good reason to stay in line and be as unimportant as you can, which is a loss of the ability to effect any change in society at all.
Hint: The government can store massive amounts of surveillance today. Petabyte after petabyte of it. Storage is cheap.
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Threatens Journalists' Ability (Score:2)
Thinking back I can not recall the last article by a journalist? right! that was not undisclosed Official, because they were not authorized to talk, just anonymous, etc
I mean really! when was the last time you saw a well written, documented, supported real hard news story from the main stream media?
For me no source named, just the supposed journalist option wrapped up in a pretend news item.
Just my 2 cents
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Just my 2 cents ;)
Hehe I was going to mod you up - then I checked your previous comments - and they all sign off "Just my two cents"
While I didn't really check too much into your comments; you lost the mod up by repeating that sign off
But that is just my 2 cents
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Cable news, on the other hand, is trash. All of it.
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As long as there are partisan journalists on both sides to dig out the dirt on politicians on their respective other sides, democracy is preserved.
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Cable news, on the other hand, is trash. All of it.
There's this awesome documentary called Anchorman 2 that explains why.
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Enron crisis, 2001?
Re: Threatens Journalists' Ability (Score:2)
Well, it this works like with my dad, an actual old-school investigative journalist, ...
The problem is that the old school editors are gone, and replaced by the new breed of complete pussies, who are infinitely afraid the terrorists are gonna kidnap them, the corporations are gonna sue them, the governments are gonna disappear them, and such.
Them in their comfy armchairs at home!
It's the current anxiety epidemic that started in 2004 (+/- 5 years). What also caused SJWs, p.c. politicians and corporations, th
Re: I can't tell you what pornography is (Score:2)
Well, they ARE the experts in perverted sexual rituals and child rape! ^^
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It's not about the children..or the journalists (Score:1)
Freedom of Speech: For Liberals Only (Score:1)
It's funny how Liberals bleat about the freedom of speech only when making racist remarks, promoting crime and other deeply beloved liberal things.
And if slashdot is not biased, explain how you rate mine down, but this up - https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
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It's funny how conservatives live in their own little version of reality.
What liberal "racist remarks" are you talking about ? Claiming that whites are not the superior race ?
Are KKK members liberal now ? Are white supremacist neo-nazis liberal now ?
And please give an example of liberals "promoting crime".
As for slashdot being "biased", it's a well known fact that reality has a liberal bias.
And also, sometimes, people are being modded down simply because their posts are so idiotic that they are considered t
Proof (Score:4, Insightful)
It's sad how convenient you forget the blatant racism in the Democrat party
SICKENING: Louis Farrakhan Says ‘I’m Not An Anti-Semite, I’m ANTI -TERMITE’, Jews Are Stupid
https://www.theyeshivaworld.co... [theyeshivaworld.com]
How about Al Sharpton?
Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as ‘white interlopers’ and ‘diamond merchants’;
Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton was found guilty of defamation by a jury in a New York court arising from the false accusation that former Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones, who is white, raped and assaulted a fifteen year-old black girl;
You thought we woud forget?
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Louis Farrakhan is not a very good example of someone who represents Democrats: [wikipedia.org]
By 2011, Farrakhan was no longer supporting Obama, whom he called the "first Jewish president", due to Obama's support for the 2011 military intervention in Libya, which Farrakhan strongly opposed due to his own support for Muammar Gaddafi
During the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, Farrakhan praised Republican candidate Donald Trump as the only candidate "who has stood in front of the Jewish community and said 'I don’t want your money.'" While he declined to endorse outright, he said of Trump "I like what I'm looking at."
Concerning Al Sharpton, you could use all sorts of examples of him saying dumb things, but that example and no others I'm aware of are of him "making racist remarks, promoting crime;" however, he does often discuss "deeply beloved liberal things."
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Concerning Al Sharpton, you could use all sorts of examples of him saying dumb things, but that example and no others I'm aware of are of him "making racist remarks, promoting crime;" however, he does often discuss "deeply beloved liberal things."
Ok, read this -
https://www.amren.com/news/201... [amren.com]
Then - https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com]
And Damn, isn't it odd how this happened? https://www.nationalreview.com... [nationalreview.com]
If he were white he'd be in jail.
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And if slashdot is not biased, explain how you rate mine down, but this up - https://yro.slashdot.org/comme [slashdot.org]... [slashdot.org]
The conservatives here save all their mod points for articles with "Trump" in the title.
How many children will you trade? (Score:2)
I understand you need privacy so that you can leak classified info to the press, and read you Washington Post, and that this privacy is so important? But in the name of that privacy, how many children will you trade to be sexually exploited, tortured, and killed for that privacy? If your answer is zeri, then why are you debating this?
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I notice you didn't answer the question. Everything is a trade off? So does that mean you feel child exploitation is acceptable? Please clarify.
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Looking around the world, it's clear the government's ability to look transparently into peoples' activities is used to oppress.
But I'm sure that won't happen here eventually because...hmmmm. Seems all human history suggests it will happen at some point.
Maybe best not to introduce a tyrant power, just like most of the Bill of Rights prevented, for the same reason.
Don't worry, the panopticon is coming, where they can push a button and a live database reports your position, thanks to cameras and face recogni
Re: How many children will you trade? (Score:2)
Go home, Nazi. You're not welcome here. No one is fooled by your bleating. Your lies and bad intentions are obvious. No one here wants what you're selling.
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You should look into moving to China. It sounds like they run things according to your standards.
Impactful (Score:2)
reporting billthreat doubleplusungood refs unword "impactful" rectify rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling
Re: Impactful (Score:2)
I'm sorry you're an illiterate.
Why is Only Graham Mentioned? (Score:2)
When the bill has bi-partisan support?
Eliminating Abusive or Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) was proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and sponsored by senators from both sides of the aisle such as Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The bill is also supported by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
Re:Why is Only Graham Mentioned? (Score:5, Informative)
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation is one of those organisations with a deliberately misleading name. There are a lot of ones like that. No-one is going to trust a political pressure group or a lobbying company, so they pick names that make them sound like something more respectable.
It's a socially very conservative, anti-sex pressure group better known by their former name: Morality in Media. They used to forces primarily on calling for tighter regulation to ban pornography, something that the defined in very broad terms, along with routinely demanding the government act to keep dirty words and disrespect for Christianity off of television. They were also one of the organisations campaigning against same-sex marriage.
Some years ago they underwent a complete transformation. Their positions didn't change, but their rhetoric did - in order to appear more credible they dropped all their overt signifiers of political allegiance. No more proud and overt displays of religion, less use of clearly moralistic language, even going so far as to rename themselves. They adopted a lot of language that would be more associated with left-wing groups. It's a facade though, intended to give them an appearance of academic credibility. Look a little deeper, and it's the same old judgemental prudes behind that facade.
Every year they publish their 'Dirty Dozen' list - a list of the twelve companies or organisations they believe have done the most to corrupt American sexuality. The list usually includes the American Library Association and EBSCO information services - the latter because they refuse to produce censored versions of scientific journals for use in schools that strip out all research related to human sexuality.
Don't be fooled, this isn't just the Republicans (Score:2)
Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) both introduced this bill. This is a bipartisan effort to delegate a very important aspect of lawmaking authority into the hands of a committee with no separation of powers and no oversight. Various other aspects of online privacy and security are threatened by the EARN IT Act such as end-to-end encryption which could be effective outlawed by the committee created by this bill.
This sets an extremely dangerous precedent and should not be allowed to pass. I live in
Why do companies have to police? (Score:2)
Isn't that what they already are paying taxes for the police for??
Or is it because they generally steal infrastructure by not paying taxes?
Cause there's your problem then!
Consider the state of "journalism" today... (Score:1)
99% of it is simply political propaganda.
News agencies are simply clubs with which to bludgeon political enemies.
Were this 50 years ago, I'd probably feel differently
But the last 20 years has essentially convinced me that almost nothing of any real value will be lost.
Cynical? Maybe...
Will capitalism provide? (Score:1)
The real horror here isn't the US government forcing tech giants to censor everything, as horrible as that is. It's the 'we own the internet' propaganda from the US government. Other countries will surrender their privacy to American Facebook/Twitter/Instagram and the US government, or make their own social networks in a hurry. It will interesting to see if capitalism provides.
Deliberate Misdirection (Score:2)
It's dangerous because, as others have pointed out, it lays a 'foundation for censorship' that can be "amended" at some future date, or "re-interpreted" by an administration in power. That's a near-vertical slippery slope...
It's pointless because it tackles the symptoms, not the cause. It goes after the "delivery mechanism middleman" and not the source of the problem.
Here's another way of looking at this. Suppose you work in a sp
Good (Score:1)
Every other discipline has to cite their sources. No bullshit allowed. Journalism is the only place where they get away with crap and they do it all the time. "An un-named source," "An Anonymous source," "An un-named Government official" said {Bullshit}. Especially right after Trump was elected we had this all the time and they were all lies. Some people probably still believe a lot of them.
Turns out their sources were often the reporter's own opinion.
Make them keep track of sources or don't report the stor