SUMMARY Canada’s new cyber-security law, Bill C-8 (An Act Respecting Cyber Security), hands a cabinet minister the authority to order any telecom provider to cut off service to any named individual. The power requires no warrant, no prior judicial review, and under a gag order that can bar the provider from saying why. A new…
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The UK government has announced plans to ban children under the age of sixteen from accessing major social media platforms from 2027. The proposal is the latest in a series of measures that have dramatically expanded Britain’s regulation of the internet over the past decade. Because many of the companies affected are American technology firms…
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SUMMARY The UK government plans to ban under-16s from major social media platforms from 2027. The proposal relies on age-verification systems to determine who can access online services. Young people would lose access not only to entertainment, but also to online communities, educational resources, and digital public spaces. The most significant long-term consequence may be…
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SUMMARY Tremau, a French company founded in 2021 as the DSA was being negotiated, claims that its systems process more than 1 billion pieces of content every month. American platforms including Bluesky, Pinterest, Eventbrite, Ko-fi, and Kik have used Tremau’s services, illustrating how U.S. companies are increasingly outsourcing moderation and compliance functions to European firms.…
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SUMMARY Radicalized by the censorship industry, including former members of the Biden Administration, European states have become increasingly hostile to Silicon Valley companies. A €300 billion ($350 billion) blueprint, backed by the governments of France, Germany, and the EU’s Industry, Research, and Energy committee proposes that Europe replaces every part of the American tech stack,…
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SUMMARY The UK’s Online Safety Act has emerged as one of the greatest global threats to online free speech, with UK regulators recently using it to force X to re-engage with the censorship industry. The nonprofit Carnegie UK played an outsized role in influencing the act, conceiving of the “duty of care” framework at the…
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Germany’s network of state media regulators — the Landesmedienanstalten — is assembling a regulatory framework that would compel social media platforms to algorithmically privilege government-sanctioned news sources. Under the proposed rules, platforms including X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram could be legally required to elevate “reliable” media outlets in their feeds, recommendations, and search rankings, with…
Read articleOn May 17, TikTok removed a campaign video by Reform UK’s Shadow Home Secretary, Zia Yusuf, in which he criticized mass migration and announced the party’s policy of placing illegal-migrant detention centers in constituencies that vote for pro-migration parties. Yusuf reported that TikTok subsequently removed a second video of his, outlining the policies he would…
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SUMMARY UK media regulator Ofcom has forced X into a stricter Online Safety Act compliance regime, requiring 24-hour average review of reported “illegal terrorist and hate content.” Ofcom has also compelled X to formally engage with outside “expert organizations” – the professional disinformation and hate speech monitoring industry built up under the Biden Administration. Among…
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In a recent address to fellow disinformation researchers, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) co-founder and CEO Imran Ahmed delivered what amounted to a victory speech, telling the assembled audience that the long campaign to dismantle online speech protections has finally reached the enforcement phase. Critics of the “disinformation industry” have long described a sprawling…
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