Favorite The news is in trouble. It’s not just the mass closures of newsrooms – it’s also the physical and ideological attacks on journalists.News websites are plastered with ads, but more than half of the money those ads generate is siphoned off by ad-tech companies, with the lion’s share going to just two companies, Google…
All posts tagged Big Tech
The Law Should Not Require Parental Consent for All Minors to Access Social Media
Favorite Numerous state laws passed this year, and bills proposed in Congress, would set onerous new restrictions on what young people can do online, depriving teenagers of their First Amendment rights to express themselves, access protected speech, engage in anonymous speech, and participate in online communities. They also enforce a presumption that parents of minors…
The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online
Favorite Congress has resurrected the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that would increase surveillance and restrict access to information in the name of protecting children online. KOSA was introduced in 2022 but failed to gain traction, and today its authors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), have reintroduced it with slight…
EFF to Ninth Circuit: Twitter Has First Amendment Right to Ban Users, Including Presidents
Favorite Time and time again, we have said–and courts have ruled–that social media platforms have the First Amendment right to ban users. We have argued that banned users cannot successfully sue platforms for acting as government censors without showing that the platforms willfully and fully ceded their editorial discretion to the government. But nevertheless, the…
An Urgent Year for Interoperability: 2022 in Review
Favorite Walled gardens can be great: we all like it when Stuff Just Works because a single company oversees all its elements. Walled gardens can be terrible: when all of our data, our social relations and our educational, romantic, professional and family ties are trapped inside a company’s silo and the company does something…
A Promising New GDPR Ruling Against Targeted Ads
Favorite Targeted advertising’s days may be numbered. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters report that the European Data Protection Board has ruled that Meta cannot continue targeting ads based on user’s online activity without affirmative, opt-in consent. This ruling is based on the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is a big step…
How to Make a Mastodon Account and Join the Fediverse
Favorite This post is part of a series on Mastodon and the fediverse. We also have a post on understanding the fediverse, privacy and security on Mastodon, and why the fediverse will be great—if we don’t screw it up, and more are on the way. You can follow EFF on Mastodon here. The recent chaos at Twitter is…
Leaving Twitter's Walled Garden
Favorite This post is part of a series on Mastodon and the fediverse. We also have a post on privacy and security on Mastodon, and why the fediverse will be great—if we don’t screw it up, and more are on the way. You can follow EFF on Mastodon here. A wave of people have announced that they’re leaving…
Is Mastodon Private and Secure? Let’s Take a Look
Favorite This post is part of a series on Mastodon and the fediverse. We also have a post on why the fediverse will be great—if we don’t screw it up, and more are on the way. With so many users migrating to Mastodon as their micro-blogging service of choice, a lot of questions are being…
The Fediverse Could Be Awesome (if we don’t screw it up)
Favorite This post is part of a series on Mastodon and the fediverse. We also have a post on security and privacy on Mastodon, and more are on the way. Something remarkable is happening. For the past two weeks, people have been leaving Twitter. Many others are reducing their reliance on it. Great numbers of…