Up you beautiful bastards, hope you've been a fantastic Sunday today. We're going to do something a little bit different from the rest of the week.

We're going to be talking about something other than the coronavirus. It turns out there is some news like that these days.

This is something that's been happening over the past couple of weeks, but it's kind of slipped through the cracks, understandably.

And so the thing we're talking about here is the eliminating abusive and rampant neglect of Technologies Act, which, ha, is a mouthful. So thankfully it's been nicknamed the Earnit Act, so we do not have to lose 10 seconds of our life every time that we reference it.

And this act has been slammed by critics saying that this is a threat to privacy.

It was introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, along with Senators Josh Hawley and Diane Feinstein.

It's a bipartisan, you see Democrats and Republicans there.

And the Ernet Act says that it aims to establish a National Commission on Online Child Exploitation Prevention, which sounds simple enough, but it is highly controversial.

And this is because it deals with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which essentially boils down to the fact that any interactive computer service,

like an app or a social media site, cannot be held liable if one of its users post something illegal. Though, there are exceptions to

this, like federal crimes, copyright, and things related to sex work. And basically, the Earned Act

would mean that companies would have to earn the protections of Section 230 rather than be automatically

granted them. Section 230 has seen a lot of changes over the years and has faced no shortage of problems. On one hand, it's seen as a staple of the First Amendment being used online.

Basically, think of it this way.

If companies like Facebook and Twitter, for example, can be held liable for content that its users share,

they would be far more likely to moderate speech on their platforms to save themselves, thus,

kind of limiting free online speech.

But, on the other hand, many believe that it gives these tech companies too much broad power, too much flexibility, and the ability to lead potentially harmful content

up. And so the Earned Act is taking a jab at a pretty loaded and highly debated rule here. And

that's also not even where the controversies end, because many have also called it a sneaky

attempt to end encryption. Which, quick, oversimplified definition here, encryption basically jumbles

up plain text into ciphertext and protects the data and messages you send and receive.

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