SUMMARY The Department of Justice has announced the settlement of Missouri v. Biden and Children’s Health Defense v. Biden, two landmark cases that alleged the Biden administration pressured social media companies to suppress disfavored speech by American citizens The settlement continues the Trump administration’s efforts to unwind federal support for online censorship The United States…
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SUMMARY In March, 405 cybersecurity and privacy experts from 30 countries signed an open letter warning about how mandating age verification could break the internet’s security model. Countries across the world and many states in America have pushed for mandatory age verification at the device, app, or website level. Free speech groups have argued that…
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A European nonprofit that was supported by American taxpayers via the Biden Administration’s office of Public Diplomacy at the State Department, credited civil society for convincing the European Commission to issue its $140 million fine against X, the first such penalty levied under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). “Civil society” is shorthand for the…
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The United Kingdom government is seeking to expand its draconian Online Safety Act without oversight from elected MPs, through legislative amendments that would allow ministers to change key internet laws without passing new primary legislation through Parliament. This would give the government virtually unlimited powers to expand online censorship laws. The proposed changes come as…
Read articleSUMMARY Many American states and foreign countries have moved to age-gate online services, or ban under-16s accessing social media. Most of the proposals have come from countries in Europe, where regulators usually have a more active role in regulating technology. They coincide with the German Chancellor’s call to end online anonymity for political speech. Although…
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Colorado lawmakers are advancing a sweeping proposal that would embed age verification requirements directly into smartphones, tablets, and computers sold in the state. Senate Bill 26-051, titled “Age Attestation on Computing Devices,” would require operating system providers such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft to collect a user’s date of birth during device setup and generate…
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SUMMARY 81 House Republicans voted with Democrats re-fund the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED is a nonprofit funded by Congress since the 1980s, and a major source of US foreign soft power. NED has been repurposed from an anti-Soviet Cold War to combatting disinformation, resulting in the censorship of Americans. The NED funded…
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has publicly said he wants to see people use their real names when participating online, arguing that anonymity online contributes to misinformation and social division. He stated that he wants “to see real names on the internet” and to know who is speaking in public discussions, drawing a parallel with political…
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SUMMARY Morgan McSweeney is the founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit with UK and US offices that successfully censored Robert F. Kennedy Jr in 2021, and sought to “kill Musk’s Twitter” in 2024. The US State Department has sought to deport CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed over his role in the…
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The United Kingdom’s expanding online censorship regime may soon take aim at one of the internet’s most widely used privacy tools. In a new policy statement framed around “giving children the space to grow,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer – currently embroiled in scandal over his former U.S. ambassador’s links to Jeffrey Epstein – signaled that…
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