Jennifer and Lauren, two of our executive board members, went to Washington D.C. with International Justice Mission to ask our NY representatives to co-sponsor the EARN IT Act. The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act seeks to counter the Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC) in four ways:
Establishing a national commission of diverse stakeholders to identify best practices for tech companies to combat OSEC.
Motivating tech companies to be more proactive by limiting previous liability protections, allowing survivors of OSEC to seek legal recourse, and encouraging tech companies to identify, report, and remove OSEC.
Standardizing reporting requirements from these companies to improve the consistency, quality, and timeliness of information they provide when reporting apparent abuse.
Updating the terminology describing criminal activity from “child pornography” to “Child Sexual Abuse Material” (CSAM) - this is really important to abuse survivors.
OSEC is a fast-growing, borderless form of sex-trafficking. Just in the Philippines, 1 in 100 children were trafficked to produce sexual exploitation material in 2022. The EARN IT act has bipartisan support, and it also has some opponents (like the ACLU and GLAAD). We received mixed reactions from the different representatives we met with on the Hill. We encourage you to reach out to your policymakers - ask them to support, and even co-sponsor, this bill. As Kate Case described them, “our law makers - the very people who have been given the power on earth to protect the most vulnerable.” The mission of IJM is to make justice unstoppable - change is possible when we all use our voices!