Why should you care about data brokers? Reporting this week about a Substack publication outing a priest with location data from Grindr shows once again how easy it is for anyone to take advantage of data brokers’ stores to cause… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Social Networks’
Article 17 Copyright Directive: The Court of Justice’s Advocate General Rejects Fundamental Rights Challenge But Defends Users Against Overblocking
The Advocate General (AG) of the EU Court of Justice today missed an opportunity to fully protect internet users from censorship by automated filtering, finding that the disastrous Article 17 of the EU Copyright Directive doesn’t run afoul of Europeans’… Read More ›
VICTORY: You Can Now Make Your Venmo Friends List Private. Here’s How.
It took two and a half years and one national security incident, but Venmo did it, folks: users now have privacy settings to hide their friends lists. EFF first pointed out the problem with Venmo friends lists in early 2019… Read More ›
For Many, the Arab Spring Isn't Over
Ten years ago today, Egyptians took to the streets to topple a dictator who had clung to power for nearly three decades. January 25th remains one of the most important dates of the Arab Spring, a series of massive, civilian-led… Read More ›
It’s Business As Usual At WhatsApp
WhatsApp users have recently started seeing a new pop-up screen requiring them to agree to its new terms and privacy policy by February 8th in order to keep using the app. The good news is that, overall, this update does… Read More ›
How COVID Changed Content Moderation: Year in Review 2020
In a year that saw every facet of online life reshaped the coronavirus pandemic, online content moderation and platform censorship were no exception. After a successful Who Has Your Back? campaign in 2019 to encourage large platforms to adopt best… Read More ›
European Commission’s Proposed Digital Services Act Got Several Things Right, But Improvements Are Necessary to Put Users in Control
The European Commission is set to release today a draft of the Digital Services Act, the most significant reform of European Internet regulations in two decades. The proposal, which will modernize the backbone of the EU’s Internet legislation—the e-Commerce Directive—sets… Read More ›
Federal and State Antitrust Suits Challenging Facebook’s Acquisitions are a Welcome Sight
Antitrust enforcers charged with protecting us from monopolists have awoke from decades-long hibernation to finally address something users have known, and been paying for with their private data, for years: Facebook’s acquisitions of rival platforms have harmed social media users… Read More ›
Trump’s Ban on TikTok Violates First Amendment by Eliminating Unique Platform for Political Speech, Activism of Millions of Users, EFF Tells Court
We filed a friend-of-the-court brief—primarily written by the First Amendment Clinic at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law—in support of a TikTok employee who is challenging President Donald Trump’s ban on TikTok and was seeking a temporary restraining order… Read More ›
After This Week’s Hack, It Is Past Time for Twitter to End-to-End Encrypt Direct Messages
Earlier this week, chaos reigned supreme on Twitter as high-profile public figures—from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos to President Barack Obama—started tweeting links to the same bitcoin scam. Twitter’s public statement and reporting from Motherboard suggest attackers gained access to… Read More ›