Once Again, Google Caves To Political Pressure And Supports Questionable STOP CSAM Law

It's not surprising, but still disappointing, to see companies like Google and Meta, which used to take strong stands against bad laws, now showing a repeated willingness to cave on such principles in the interests of appeasing policymakers. It's been happening a lot in the last few years and it's happened again as Google has come out (on ExTwitter of all places) to express support for a mixed batch of child safety" bills.

If you can't see that screenshot, they are tweets from the Google Public Policy team, stating:

Protecting kids online is a top priority-and demands both strong legislation and responsible corporate practices to make sure we get it right.

We support several important bipartisan bills focused on online child safety, including the Invest in Child Safety Act, the Project Safe Childhood Act, the Report Act, the Shield Act, and the STOP CSAM Act.

We've talked about a couple of these bills. The Invest in Child Safety Act seems like a good one, from Senator Ron Wyden, as it focuses the issue where it belongs: on law enforcement. That is, rather than blaming internet companies for not magically stopping criminals, it equips law enforcement to better do its job.

The Shield Act is about stopping the sharing of nonconsensual sexual images and seems mostly fine, though I've seen a few concerns raised on the margins about how some of the language might go too far in criminalizing activities that shouldn't be criminal. According to Senator Cory Booker last week, he's been working with Senator Klobuchar on fixing those problematic parts.

And the Project Safe Childhood Act also seems perfectly fine. In many ways it complements the Invest in Child Safety Act in that it's directed at law enforcement and focused on getting law enforcement to be better about dealing with child sexual abuse material, coordinating with other parts of law enforcement, and submitting seized imagery to NCMEC's cybertip line.

But, then there's the STOP CSAM bill. As we've discussed, there are some good ideas in that bill, but they're mixed with some problematic ones. And, some of the problematic ones are a backdoor attack on encryption. Senator Dick Durbin, the author of the bill, went on a rant about Section 230 last week in trying to get the bill through on unanimous consent, which isn't great either, and suggests some issues with the bill.

In that rant, he talks about how cell phones are killing kids because of some crazy person on the internet." But, um, if that's true, it's a law enforcement issue and the crazy person on the internet" should face consequences. But Durbin insists that websites should somehow magically stop the crazy person on the internet" from saying stuff. That's a silly and mistargeted demand.

In that rant, he also talked about the importance of turning the lawyers loose" on the big tech companies to sue them for what their users posted.

You'd think that that would be a reason for a company like Google to resist STOP CSAM, knowing it'll face vexatious litigation. But, for some reason, it is now supporting the bill.

Lots of people have been saying that Durbin has a new, better version of STOP CSAM, and I've seen a couple drafts that are being passed around. But the current version of the bill still has many problems. Maybe Google is endorsing a fixed version of the bill, but if so, it sure would be nice if the rest of us could see it.

In the meantime, Durbin put out a gloating press release about Google's support.

For too long, Big Tech used every trick in the book to halt legislation holding social media companies accountable, while still trying to win the PR game. I'm glad to see that some tech companies are beginning to make good on their word to work with Congress on meaningful solutions to keep children safe online. I encourage other tech companies to follow Google's move by recognizing that the time for Big Tech to police itself is over and work with Congress to better protect kids."

Can't say I understand Google's reasons for caving here. I'm sure there's some political calculus in doing so. And maybe they have the inside scoop on a fixed version of Durbin's bill. But to do so the day after he talks about turning the lawyers loose" on websites for failing to magically stop people from saying stuff... seems really strange.

It seems increasingly clear that both Meta and Google, with their buildings full of lawyers, have decided that the strategic political move is to embrace some of these laws, even as they know they'll get hit with dumb lawsuits over them. They feel they can handle the lawsuits and, as a bonus, they know that smaller upstart competitors will probably have a harder time.

Still, there was a time when Google stood on principle and fought bad bills. That time seems to have passed.