By Jacob Mchangama “The Left started it.” That was the common retort from right-wing X accounts like Libs of TikTok and their supporters, who attempted and often succeeded at getting people fired for making tasteless social media posts about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump back in July. Most of their victims weren’t public figures […]
By Jacob Mchangama X is the bastion of free speech on the Internet. At least that’s what Elon Musk and his raucous supporters would like you to believe any time one dares to point out his hypocritical, arbitrary, and often self-serving content moderation actions after taking over the social media platform. This week’s decision from […]
By J.D. Tuccille It’s no secret that governments around the world are chiseling away at people’s liberties. Rights advocates document a nearly two decade decline in freedom. Civil liberties activists warn of a worldwide free speech recession. And while American restrictions on government power hold the line better than pale equivalents elsewhere, the political class seems determined […]
By Joan Barata After two years of intense negotiations, the new United Nations (UN) Convention on “Strengthening international cooperation for combating certain crimes committed by means of information and communications technology systems and for the sharing of evidence in electronic form of serious crimes” (also known as the Cybercrime Convention) was adopted by consensus by […]
By Jeremy Schulman In December, Trump adviser Kash Patel set off alarm bells when he said that if the former president returns to the Oval Office, his new administration might prosecute media figures and others “who lied about American citizens.” “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Patel told Steve […]
By J.D. Tuccille It’s appropriate that, days after the French government arrested Pavel Durov, CEO of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, for failing to monitor and restrict communications as demanded by officials in Paris, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that his company, which owns Facebook, was subjected to censorship pressures by U.S. officials. Durov’s arrest, […]
By Tim Keary Key Takeaways Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski has left Europe following the arrest of the Telegram CEO by French authorities. Pavlovski said French authorities have “crossed a red line”. The arrest of Durov has sparked a significant backlash from free speech advocates. Prominent figures like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin have criticized the […]
By Tim Keary The risk of AI systems being used to enable censorship is often overlooked. On the vendor side, so much focus is placed on safety and content moderation that the output of these tools often displays ideological biases, often outright blocking legitimate outputs. [ . . . ] How AI Vendor’s Content Moderation […]
By J.D. Tuccille Earlier this month, European Union Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton raised eyebrows when he publicly warned Elon Musk to respect the E.U.’s censorship laws during a then-pending interview with U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump. Even for the E.U., which has been slipping not-so-slowly towards soft totalitarianism, the attempt to extend E.U. jurisdiction […]
By Julia Tar Civil society groups and academics have criticised European Commissioner Thierry Breton’s recent letter to Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, arguing that it misinterprets the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and threatens free expression. The Open Letters In one of the letters, dated Wednesday (21 August), signed by The […]