Bad Internet Bills

CONGRESS: SAY NO TO BAD INTERNET BILLS

459,599 ACTIONS

Congress wants to hand Trump even more power for censorship and surveillance by passing dangerous internet bills that attack Section 230 and require online ID checks. Tell Congress they can’t pretend to stand up to Big Tech while taking our rights away!

Fill out the form to automatically email your lawmakers and voice your opposition to all of these bills at once.

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CONGRESS: SAY NO TO BAD INTERNET BILLS

459,599 ACTIONS

Fill out the form to automatically email your lawmakers and voice your opposition to all of these bills at once.

Thanks for signing the petition!

Please consider sharing this page with your friends and family.

Get Updates on Bad Internet Bills

We’re using Signal to send end-to-end encrypted updates and actions on important campaigns. Scan the QR code or click the button below to join our Urgent Actions broadcast group.

Join the Protest

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The Bills

Take a few minutes to take part in our individual, dedicated actions against KOSA, EARN IT, STOP CSAM, and many more. The more actions you take, the more noise you make about these bad bills.

SECTION 230

protects free speech online

ONLINE ID CHECKS

compromise privacy and enable censorship

KOSA

harms kids and teens’ access to lifesaving LGBTQ resources and sex education.

SCREEN ACT

would mandate privacy-invasive online ID checks on sites, killing anonymity online

TAKE IT DOWN

threatens end-to-end encryption and opens the door for even more censorship of policed content online.

EARN IT

undermines end-to-end encryption, making everyone less safe.

COOPER DAVIS

opens the door for increased surveillance of messaging and damages encryption that ensures digital security online

AGE-GATING BILLS

limit teenagers’ online access and force everyone to give ID to use social media.

STOP CSAM

weakens end-to-end encryption and gives new surveillance powers to law enforcement.

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Send us your content!

Want to add your voice to the wave of opposition to these bills? Send us any content you make and we’ll showcase it on our site or socials. Email us [email protected] or tag us @fightfortheftr. And check out what other folks are posting.

Section 230

Threats by Trump and Congress to sunset Section 230 would end online free expression as we know it. Section 230 is a legal compromise that protects platforms from lawsuits over third party content while still allowing them to engage in content moderation. Without it, platforms would be forced to choose between acting as publishers, allowed to pick and choose what they host but legally liable for whatever they publish, or anything-goes platforms unable to engage in even basic spam mitigating content moderation. Regular people would be unable to post on publisher curated websites and would have their voices drowned out by scams and hate speech on unmoderated platforms.

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Online ID Checks

Online ID check laws combine surveillance and censorship. These laws, adopted by 19 states, require residents to provide sensitive information, such as a driver’s license or a face scan, simply to access websites and apps. ID check systems are vulnerable to hacking, putting this sensitive data at risk. Unreliable and biased facial recognition technologies can deny residents of these states access to large sections of the net. Requiring a website to implement an online ID check discourages users from interacting with it, harming both users and content creators. These bills allow the government to limit access to reproductive healthcare information and online LGBTQ communities. The SCREEN Act promises to bring these requirements to the entire country.

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KOSA

KOSA claims to make kids safer, but it’s really a dangerous censorship bill that would give the government unprecedented control over the internet. This would put youth in danger by preventing them from accessing potentially life-saving resources. Lawmakers concerned about online safety should reject KOSA and instead work to protect all internet users from abusive tech companies by passing a Federal data privacy law.

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SCREEN Act

The SCREEN Act would instate nationwide age verification requirements for websites that lawmakers deem “harmful to minors.” But far from promoting safety, it would force websites to contract with shady third-party verification companies to collect and store incredibly sensitive identifying info, like our drivers’ licenses and passports, in insecure databases. With backing from far-right politicians and conservative anti-porn groups, it’s clear what this bill is really intended to do: censor our access to the Internet while collecting our data in droves.

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Take it Down Act

This bill would require platforms to remove nonconsensually distributed intimate imagery (NDII) within 48 hours of notice by a user, but provides no exception for encrypted private messages. This means companies would be required to abandon end-to-end encryption so they can read and moderate your DMs. The bill also has no safeguards against false reports being used to remove protected and already often censored speech, like sex education, reproductive healthcare resources, or just talking about LGBTQ communities online. Trump himself has already signaled how this will be wielded against anyone who opposes him, exposing the flaws of this approach.

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EARN IT

TheEARN IT Act of 2023 threatens to undermine online encryption by punishing companies that provide encryption services. And by repeating the same mistakes as a previous bill called SESTA/FOSTA, it would lead to widespread Internet censorship and crackdowns on marginalized communities. When EARN IT was previously introduced in 2020 and 2022, it was shelved in the face of overwhelming public outcry and opposition from human rights groups. Now, lawmakers are introducing EARN IT for a third time, hoping to pass it and break the internet while we’re distracted.

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Cooper Davis

The Cooper Davis Act is a misguided attempt to address the public health crisis caused by fentanyl in many communities in the US. The bill does more h a rm than good: opening the door for increased surveillance of messaging and damaging encryption that ensures digital security online, another EARN IT Act copycat bill. More surveillance will not solve a public health crisis. End-to-end encryption is not a public safety threat. Secure, private messaging protects people’s privacy and should be protected.

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AGE-GATING BILLS

Regressive states across the country are taking away teenagers’ online rights. It started in Utah with two laws that create a mandated social media “bedtime” and give parents complete control over their kids’ accounts, messages, and passwords. Utah lawmakers claim their curfew-and-control bills help children, but these bills actually make children less safe by increasing state and parental surveillance and restricting access to community. To make matters worse, legislation like this is spreading. Arkansas has passed a copycat bill. Louisiana and Texas are trying to follow Utah’s lead, and it’s been introduced federally in Congress.

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STOP CSAM

STOP CSAM wouldn’t actually stop CSAM. Instead, it would make CSAM cases harder to prosecute—like SESTA/FOSTA before it—while reducing privacy protections in ways that would harm vulnerable people. Like EARN IT, STOP CSAM undermines end-to-end encryption, a technology that’s vital for LGBTQ+ youth, survivors of interpersonal violence and stalking, abortion seekers and providers, and activists. Weakening E2EE as a means to funnel more information to law enforcement also sets an alarming precedent for government surveillance. All of us, including children, need to be able to communicate in the digital age without our conversations being spied on.

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Supporting Organizations

Organizational Opposition to #BadInternetBills

Check out what internet users have to say about the #BadInternetBills

Listen, I’m not gonna lie - all I really want is to just to be able to talk to my friends without worrying. There’s so much online BS that makes me give up more and more on life... But it’s because I can be online and talk with other people where I never could’ve. I have opportunities to help people now, places to be, events to start and be with others. I care about my rights because the folks on the internet give me a reason to keep going.

Christian +Read More

The internet has a ton of information for suicide prevention tips and advice that even the most depressed person can use.

Edward +Read More

I became aware of these attacks on digital rights through people I follow on Tumblr and TikTok. Reading about the Bills they’re trying to pass right now and the implications is honestly terrifying. I get about 80% of my news about current events from Tiktok, 10% from Tumblr, and the rest from researching things in more depth that I originally saw on TikTok. Losing these sources of information would be devestating for me and all the other users who get their news there because we don’t trust, for very good reason, mainstream networks.

Gabriella +Read More

I feel like bills like KOSA will take communities and resources away from kids who desperately need it and have grown up knowing the internet is an outlet for them. They post art and videos, they ask questions and answer them, they interact with those who have similar interests all using the internet. It’s valuable and I want to protect that.

Harper +Read More

I care about defending our rights in the digital age because it gives agency to your everyday person on the worldwide web. By introducing a bill like EARN It that may potentially suffocate grown adults, we risk silencing freelance journalism, and the voices of unseen minorities and marginalized groups. It hasn’t been proven that mass web censorship or surveillance of any kind can be performed in a way that’s fair and just, and keeps the rights of web users intact. The scope is too broad, and the internet is ever-evolving even second to second. The line between well-intentioned intervention to protect the vulnerable, and intentional censorship in order to control citizens in private spaces and criminalize free speech is too thin, and is the building blocks to creating a divided digital space- those who don’t realize they’re being controlled, and those that do.

Misha +Read More