URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

The EARN IT Act (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal’s EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of “protecting kids” to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works – without fear of liability for any “failure.” Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on “obscenity” as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill? EARN IT is actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don’t know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the “make child pornography worse” bill, but here we are.

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

(202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven’t seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

“It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists”. That part isn’t good.

That part is bad for everyone. If that’s true, then it means the committee is the same as the supreme court justices: Appointed until they quit or die. Because they aren’t elected, their political views don’t reflect the majority of our country either. They are brought in by people in politics, and whoever is in the very slight majority at the time.

That means that whichever political party is in power at the time would have complete and utter control over any and all information in the US and, in turn, most of the world.

In this digital age, that means they would control almost all of the news, media, advertisements, and information that we possibly would end up seeing.

That means that not only would that committee control our source of entertainment and media, they would control what we can see (and in turn: attempt to purchase), what we think by influencing opinions, and more.

Even if you don’t like LGBTQ stuff (why are you on tumblr then? this is like lgbtq the website) then you would still be at risk of losing any and all information that you support in life because it would be completely destroyed.

No privacy, no secrecy, you can’t hide anything from the government, and they can hide whatever they want from you.

It may sound good to some people, but this act would practically destroy any and all matter of internet freedom anyone has the second it’s implemented.

If it gets added then there is no way anyone, even people outside the US, would be able to have any freedom online and, by extension, offline as well.

Those dystopian novels/movies you’ve read/seen/heard about? This is the first big step to those very futures. If this all goes through, we could very well not be able to stop any kind of complete and utter control from one side of US politics over not just the country, but possibly a large portion of the world.

Reblogging again because this is so so so important

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed in 1818 and makes it illegal for people in the US to “take,” which means killing, injuring, or possessing, migratory birds in most circumstances. That includes accidental take, such as in oil spills, bioaccumuliation of poisons, or building on bird habitat. 

New proposed rules would make accidental takes legal. This change would mostly impact industries (and of course, the birds that they kill), and has nothing to do with people who pick up bird remains on purpose.

If you like birds you should probably speak out in favor of the MBTA. While those of us who collect feathers and such may find parts of it over-reaching, we also can’t just sit back and allow unchecked “industry” to kill swaths of birds in huge numbers with no penalty just because they weren’t killed “on purpose.”

Please understand that “accidental take” isn’t being proposed in order to protect you if you accidentally hit an owl with your car or have a secret little collection of found songbird feathers on display in your dining room.

I’ve worked for the the Division of Natural Resources. I’ve worked for the State Parks department, and I’ve worked as a bird rehabber.

Owls get hit by cars all the time. 9/10 of our raptors we treated at any time were car victims. No one is pressing charges.

And no one cares if you have a Blue Jay feather in your dresser with some cool rocks you found in a hike. We Don’t Care.

This proposal isn’t to protect you for these things.

Do you know who wants to be exempt from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act?

Oil & Gas, who see hundreds of millions of birds die horrible deaths in their sludge pits every year in the U.S.

If industries like Oil and Gas become exempt from MBTA laws and aren’t taken to task for accidental take, they Will not take responsibility for this impact in the environment. In fact, they’ll only get worse.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is one of the ONLY wildlife laws in the world that ACTUALLY has some teeth, as we say in Wildlife. Meaning, if you violate it, there may actually be consequences you can’t buy your way out of with wealth.

Do not let this administration change that. Tell them that they better not dare.

Listen to me:

In 2015, oil companies fought against having to cover their waste pits with nets. A multi-billion dollar industry that couldn’t be bothered to spend the money. To take the responsibility.

They will not do good deeds on their own. The MBTA exists in the first place because of the greed that decimated our birds before, the greed that drove entire species such as the Passenger pigeon extinct.

Without it, greed will prevail again.

PLEASE leave your comment on the US Fish and Wildlife website and let your voice be heard. Speak for the birds.

Please! I hardly ever reblog anything but this is so important to the environment and I could not have stated it better.

Yoooo they literally say on their own damn website that this is an atrocity:

“An estimated 500,000 to 1 million birds are killed annually in oil pits and evaporation ponds.  In one study, 51 % of all birds found at oil and gas facilities were in heater-treaters, 30% in various pits, 4% in wastewater ponds, 4% tanks and trays, and 1% spills.  More birds are likely found in heater-treaters compared to other sources as they are contained and are not vulnerable to scavenging by predators. In pits and ponds, many birds likely go undetected because they sink, are scavenged by predators, or picked up by people.  Thus, current estimates of bird deaths at these sites probably underestimate the true impact.“

I’m quoting their shit back at them in my comment.

Also, write your comment like a persuasive essay - this isn’t a vote, it’s a battle to change some damn minds.  The “Commenter Checklist” (PDF warning) flat out says one well-supported comment is more effective than a thousand form letters.

@pangur-and-grim   I know you are a delightful and crispy Canadian, but could you spread this hot American mess to help us not kill our dinosaurs?

The first time I saw this post I didn’t realize anyone could comment, but it turns out you can no matter where you live and it’s anonymous, so Please do!

Guys we have until March 19 2020 @ 11:59 pm. Pls comment on the site

For your convenience, here is a link directly to the comment page!

With the solar eclipse coming up this month, here’s some things to keep in mind

Do Not: Buy a strange looking plant from an old Chinese man running an exotic flower shop

Do: Invade the fire nation while they are at their weakest

This literally the only time to reblog this y'all