WASHINGTON — The Woodhull Freedom Foundation has launched a petition demanding that senators meet with its representatives and other groups concerned about the controversial EARN IT Act.
A rep of the national sexual rights advocacy organization explained that the EARN IT Act “would make internet platforms legally liable for any illegal sexual content posted to their platforms or service — even if they aggressively block and immediately remove such content.”
The rep added that the proposed law “incentivizes internet platforms to broadly censor legal speech under the pretense of pursuing illegal content.”
Woodhull President and CEO Ricci Joy Levy called the EARN IT Act “an attack on internet freedom, an attack on the First Amendment and an attack on human rights.”
The legislation, Levy continued, “allows the government to strong-arm private companies into censoring legal speech that the government itself is prohibited from censoring. We can and should work to stop illegal content, but such efforts should not be used to silence legal sexual expression.”
At a time when anyone can upload an image and have it appear instantaneously online, the Woodhull rep noted, “EARN IT would leave almost every site vulnerable to bad actors and immediate legal liability. To avoid any potential liability, platforms would have little choice but to block any account sharing sex-related content.”
The EARN IT Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in early 2022 on a unanimous vote. Since then the bill has attracted additional bipartisan co-sponsors in both the House and Senate.
EARN IT has been opposed by a wide range of organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Sex Workers Project, the Free Speech Coalition, Fight for the Future, Reframe Health and Justice, GLAAD, the Wikimedia Foundation, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and dozens of other sex worker, civil liberties and free speech groups.
“With election season upon us and a growing political panic around sexual expression, it’s more important than ever for us to educate our legislators on the dangers of this bill,” said Levy. “Our petition will help us show legislators the scope of the human rights opposition to this bill. EARN IT would be a dramatic escalation of government censorship we saw with FOSTA, a bill that has harmed countless people.”
Woodhull encourages those concerned about the EARN IT Act to read the organization's opposition letter and sign the petition here.