This Graham/Blumenthal duo is out to finish off the remainders of the independent internet in the name of children. Even separately from encryption, it is likely that the required technical threshold (likely non-trivial ML models) and the legal complexity of automatically censoring user uploads will be above the capabilities of most small independent forums, remaining popular independent sites like Mastodon instances, 4chan (which has already been effectively demonetized by the advertisers), etc. The authors of the bill don't mind: it's easier to deal with the professional lobbyists of a couple of monopolistic giants than with a bunch of nuisance small websites.
Even the title of the bill is so infuriatingly patronizing and un-American. "You want to stay out of jail? Why don't you EARN IT by letting us snoop in on your customers?" Disgusting.
Part of me wonders if this will just accelerate the usage of protocols that don't have a centralized entity to host content. If there's no need for the Section 230 protection, this adjustment is irrelevant.
Or, aside from that... section 230 was only needed in the first place because otherwise providers couldn’t moderate without being considered publishers. If section 230 goes away or is weakened too much, wouldn’t the simplest way for providers to avoid liability be to stop moderating altogether? Surely it’s not what we want, but it might be what we get.
Attorney General Barr: We're having a really hard time gathering evidence against child predators because of all this end-to-end encryption.
Also Attorney General Barr: Sure, Epstein's New Mexico ranch was an epicenter of his elite child trafficking ring but there's really no need for the FBI to raid it anytime soon.
