Favorite We don’t know a lot more about when government jawboning social media companies—that is, attempting to pressure them to censor users’ speech— violates the First Amendment; but we do know that lawsuits based on such actions will be hard to win. In Murthy v. Missouri, the U.S. Supreme Court did not answer the important…
All posts tagged Social Networks
Victory! Supreme Court Rules Platforms Have First Amendment Right to Decide What Speech to Carry, Free of State Mandates
Favorite The Supreme Court today correctly found that social media platforms, like newspapers, bookstores, and art galleries before them, have First Amendment rights to curate and edit the speech of others they deliver to their users, and the government has a very limited role in dictating what social media platforms must and must not publish.…
What’s the Difference Between Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads?
Favorite The ongoing Twitter exodus sparked life into a new way of doing social media. Instead of a handful of platforms trying to control your life online, people are reclaiming control by building more open and empowering approaches to social media. Some of these you may have heard of: Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. Each is…
The Surgeon General's Fear-Mongering, Unconstitutional Effort to Label Social Media
Favorite Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s extraordinarily misguided and speech-chilling call this week to label social media platforms as harmful to adolescents is shameful fear-mongering that lacks scientific evidence and turns the nation’s top physician into a censor. This claim is particularly alarming given the far more complex and nuanced picture that studies have drawn about…
The U.S. House Version of KOSA: Still a Censorship Bill
Favorite A companion bill to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was introduced in the House last month. Despite minor changes, it suffers from the same fundamental flaws as its Senate counterpart. At its core, this bill is still an unconstitutional censorship bill that restricts protected online speech and gives the government the power to…
Biden Signed the TikTok Ban. What's Next for TikTok Users?
Favorite Over the last month, lawmakers moved swiftly to pass legislation that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States, eventually including it in a foreign aid package that was signed by President Biden. The impact of this legislation isn’t entirely clear yet, but what is clear: whether TikTok is banned or sold to new…
Lawmakers: Ban TikTok to Stop Election Misinformation! Same Lawmakers: Restrict How Government Addresses Election Misinformation!
Favorite In a case being heard Monday at the Supreme Court, 45 Washington lawmakers have argued that government communications with social media sites about possible election interference misinformation are illegal. Agencies can’t even pass on information about websites state election officials have identified as disinformation, even if they don’t request that any action be taken,…
Analyzing KOSA’s Constitutional Problems In Depth
Favorite Why EFF Does Not Think Recent Changes Ameliorate KOSA’s Censorship The latest version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) did not change our critical view of the legislation. The changes have led some organizations to drop their opposition to the bill, but we still believe it is a dangerous and unconstitutional censorship bill…
Congress Should Give Up on Unconstitutional TikTok Bans
Favorite Congress’ unfounded plan to ban TikTok under the guise of protecting our data is back, this time in the form of a new bill—the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” H.R. 7521 — which has gained a dangerous amount of momentum in Congress. This bipartisan legislation was introduced in the House just…
EFF to D.C. Circuit: The U.S. Government’s Forced Disclosure of Visa Applicants’ Social Media Identifiers Harms Free Speech and Privacy
Favorite Special thanks to legal intern Alissa Johnson, who was the lead author of this post. EFF recently filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit urging the court to reverse a lower court decision upholding a State Department rule that forces visa applicants to the United States to…