More than four years after its enactment, FOSTA remains an unconstitutional law that broadly censored the internet and harmed sex workers and others by chilling their ability to speak, organize, and access information online. And the fight to overturn FOSTA… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act’
EFF to European Court: No Intermediary Liability for Social Media Users
Courts and legislatures around the globe are hotly debating to what degree online intermediaries—the chain of entities that facilitate or support speech on the internet—are liable for the content they help publish. One thing they should not be doing is… Read More ›
Plaintiffs Press Appeals Court to Rule That FOSTA Violates the First Amendment
Two human rights organizations, a digital library, a sex worker activist, and a certified massage therapist on Monday appealed a ruling that denied their constitutional challenge to FOSTA (Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act), an overbroad… Read More ›
The Kids Online Safety Act Is a Heavy-Handed Plan to Force Platforms to Spy on Young People
Putting children under surveillance and limiting their access to information doesn’t make them safer—in fact, research suggests just the opposite. Unfortunately those tactics are the ones endorsed by the Kids Online Safety Act of 2022 (KOSA), introduced by Sens. Blumenthal… Read More ›
EFF Sends Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee to Oppose EARN IT
On Wednesday, February 9, EFF sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee to strongly oppose S. 3538, the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2022 (EARN IT Act). EFF opposed the original and amended versions… Read More ›
2021 Was the Year Lawmakers Tried to Regulate Online Speech
On the biggest internet platforms, content moderation is bad and getting worse. It’s difficult to get it right, and at the scale of millions or billions of users, it may be impossible. It’s hard enough for humans to sift between… Read More ›
Lawmakers Choose the Wrong Path, Again, With New Anti-Algorithm Bill
Facebook needs to be reined in. Lawmakers and everyday users are mad, having heard former Facebook employee Frances Haugen explain how Facebook valued growth and engagement over everything else, even health and safety. But Congress’s latest effort—to regulate algorithms that… Read More ›
Records Shed New Light on Trump White House Officials’ Efforts to Punish Social Media
Within a day of Twitter fact-checking President Donald Trump’s May 2020 false tweets about mail-in voting, federal officials began trying to find out how much government agencies spent to advertise on social media. This inquiry was likely part of a… Read More ›
Bring on the Publicity Trolls: Federal Appeal Court Ruling Drastically Undermines Online Speech
In a disastrous ruling for online expression, innovation and competition, a federal appeals court has held that internet intermediaries are on the hook for expensive litigation and potential damages for violating a person’s “right of publicity,” (i.e., the right to… Read More ›
Right or Left, You Should Be Worried About Big Tech Censorship
Conservatives are being censored Claiming that “right-wing voices are being censored,” Republican-led legislatures in Florida and Texas have introduced legislation to “end Big Tech censorship.” They say that the dominant tech platforms block legitimate speech without ever articulating their moderation… Read More ›