Disney gave in to threats from FCC chairman and occasional speech regulator Brendan Carr this evening, announcing that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be pulled off the air “indefinitely.” Carr was unhappy that Kimmel characterized the alleged shooter of Charlie Kirk as “anything other than” a member of the “MAGA gang” and threatened to pull broadcast […]
Holding a principled commitment to the First Amendment is a challenge. Even so, it’s been bemusing to watch the Republican Party – which has spent years demanding legal cover for sending spam emails, sabotaging public health, and avoiding social media moderation – launch a full-scale broadside against it over the past week. Authorities are just […]
The post was up on Natalie’s private Facebook page for 20 minutes – a crude joke about Charlie Kirk’s death. When her husband suggested the comment was a bit much, she deleted it. The next day, Natalie received the first email telling her to kill herself. It didn’t even take 24 hours to go viral. […]
In wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s public killing, around two dozen Republican lawmakers are pushing for House leadership to create a new select committee that would investigate “The money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.” The letter amounts to a request for subpoena power to […]
In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting, some political figures are threatening a crackdown on free speech – a cause Kirk claimed to fight for. Members of Congress, the State Department, and President Donald Trump have all attacked people who celebrated Kirk’s death online or criticized him while he was alive, in […]
Bluesky will block access from Mississippi IP addresses in response to a new state law requiring age verification and parental consent for underage users. The decision, outlined in a blog post, will stand until courts decide the fate of the law. “Mississippi’s approach would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky,” says the post, in ways […]
In the fascinating new reality of the internet, teen girls can’t learn about periods on Reddit and indie artists can’t sell smutty games on Itch.io, but a military contractor will make you nonconsensual deepfakes of Taylor Swift taking her top off for $30 a month. Early Tuesday, Elon Musk’s xAI launched a new image and […]
On Monday, the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a complaint against Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr. The filing, sent to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel at the DC Court of Appeals, alleges that Carr had repeatedly broken basic principles of conduct as a licensed attorney, including by leveraging his power to control media […]
On July 25th, the UK became one of the first countries to widely implement age verification. Its Online Safety Act requires sites hosting porn and other content deemed “harmful” – including Reddit, Discord, Grindr, X, and Bluesky – to verify that users are over the age of 18. The early results have been chaotic. While […]
President Donald Trump and other Republicans have railed for years against foreign regulation of US tech companies, including online safety laws. As the US fights a global tariff war, it may bring those rules under fire – just as some of them are growing teeth. Over the past weeks, Trump has touted a blitz of […]