"Given that many US government leaders have led decades-long history of opposition to private use of digital encryption, cybersecurity and privacy advocates fear that the EARN IT Act commission is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Their concern is that EARN IT is an attempt to hide an attack on the use of encryption among the legitimate concerns of the proliferation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online, says Riana Pfefferkorn, associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.
"There is a sense that tech companies are too big for their britches, and someone should stick it to them," Pfefferkorn says, thanks to the spread of hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation online. "EARN IT will hurt all of us, but it won't financially hurt the companies, and it won't help catch the bad guys. It's the wrong tool to indulge that understandable impulse in the year of our lord 2020.""