[alibero]

The part of the bill that mentions E2EE (Section 5) is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, namely the famous Section 230 which contains: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

So the EARN-IT act would seem to me to modify Section 230 to not apply in cases of child sexual exploitation law, importantly "any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material". However despite this amendment, using E2EE would not "serve as an independent basis for liability of a provider", whatever that means.

This seems more notable to me than the whole "creating a committee to create best practices" sections but I could be misreading or misinterpreting the bill honestly, I'm no expert.

[IncRnd]

In this case, your quote is only one third of the content. You are not quoting the first sentence or the last part, which is why the quote doesn't make sense.

Your quote should read the following, where I've italicized the two parts you left out, "NO EFFECT ON CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION LAW.—Nothing in this section (other than subsection (c)(2)(A)) shall be construed to impair or limit— any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material, as defined in section 2256(8) of title 18, United States Code;"

[alibero]

Yes, I skipped or paraphrased those parts of the bill to keep things short in a way that I thought made sense. But I think the message is unchanged with the full text. Namely that Section 230 would be amended to also state:

"NO EFFECT ON CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION LAW. Nothing in this section [NB Section 230] (other than subsection (c)(2)(A)) shall be construed to impair or limit ... any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material, as defined in section 2256(8) of title 18, United States Code;"

And so Section 230 protections to content providers would cease to apply* in cases of child secual exploitation law, I think.

* EDIT: Except for those points that would be added to Section 230 specifically regarding E2EE

[IncRnd]

Good point. For this, I read the wording as Section 230 will not "impair or limit" child exploitation laws, not that Section 230 will cease to apply.