SUMMARY A new investigation identifies €56.76 million in contracts and grants linked to implementation of the EU Digital Services Act. The figure is not a pot of DSA fines handed directly to NGOs: it combines multi-year awards to advocacy groups, consultancies, technology suppliers and an EU agency. The DSA separately makes the largest platforms finance…
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SUMMARY Congressman Michael Rulli has introduced the federal GRANITE Act, which would prevent US courts from recognising or enforcing foreign censorship judgments, fines, orders or demands that conflict with the First Amendment. The bill would also allow Americans targeted by foreign censorship measures to seek a declaration in federal court that those measures are unenforceable,…
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SUMMARY California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 2624, extending special state privacy protections to employees and volunteers working for organizations that provide services to immigrants. The legislation originally allowed protected workers to issue demands preventing people from posting their images or personal information online for four years, even without establishing any threatening intent. Democratic…
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SUMMARY The European Commission pressured Meta and TikTok to increase monitoring and cooperate with fact-checkers following the mass crossing of migrants into the Spanish territory of Ceuta. The platforms activated “crisis protocols” and established an ad hoc escalation mechanism involving the Commission, Europol and fact-checkers. Meta placed warnings above searches for “Ceuta,” directing users towards…
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SUMMARY Newly released messages show Anthony Fauci, Vivek Murthy and Rochelle Walensky privately discussing concerns and uncertainties surrounding COVID vaccination during pregnancy in January 2021. At almost the same time, senior Biden White House officials began pressuring Facebook and other technology companies to take increasingly aggressive action against COVID and vaccine-related speech. Jeff Zients, Biden’s…
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SUMMARY British campaign group 5Rights has become one of the leading organizations promoting UK-style online child-safety regulation in the United States. The organization was founded by Baroness Beeban Kidron, a Crossbench peer who helped create Britain’s Age Appropriate Design Code and has separately introduced legislation regulating age-assurance technology. 5Rights has involvement in at least 42…
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SUMMARY The Digital Age Assurance Act of 2026 (S. 5090), introduced July 22 by Sens. Andy Kim, Cynthia Lummis, Adam Schiff and John Barrasso, would move age checks from individual websites down to the operating system layer. The bill contains some data-minimization language. It bars selling age data, using it for profiling or targeted advertising,…
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In April, the FTC notched up one of the most important wins for online speech in recent years: a consent decree with three major ad agencies (Dentsu, WPP, and Publicis Groupe) requiring them to refrain from colluding to suppress ad revenue to disfavored online content. Under the agreement, the agencies agreed to stop collaborating on…
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Censorship disputes often arrive as questions of liability allocation: when material crosses a boundary it was not supposed to cross, which party in the chain of transmission pays for it. Answer “the publisher” and you get a system that polices publishers. Answer “the transit provider” and you get a system in which every platform, internet…
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SUMMARY Clean Up the Internet was founded to combat anonymous trolling, misinformation and what it called the deterioration of online discourse. The group was launched by an experienced regulatory lawyer, supported by a foundation he helped govern, and advised by figures from law, campaigning, academia and technology policy. Its political supporters repeatedly cited abuse, mockery…
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