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1 month ago | 
eff.org | Jillian York |Paige Collings
In times of conflict, the internet becomes more than just a tool—it is a lifeline, connecting those caught in chaos with the outside world. It carries voices that might otherwise be silenced, bearing witness to suffering and survival. Without internet access, communities become isolated, and the flow of critical information is disrupted, making an already dire situation even worse.
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1 month ago | 
eff.org | Jillian York |Paige Collings
Last month saw digital rights organizations and social justice groups head to Taiwan for this year's RightsCon conference on human rights in the digital age. During the conference, one prominent message was spoken loud and clear: Alaa Abd El-Fattah must be immediately released from illegal detention in Egypt.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
eff.org | Jillian York |Paige Collings |David Greene
Earlier this week, when Meta announced changes to their content moderation processes, we were hopeful that some of those changes—which we will address in more detail in this post—would enable greater freedom of expression on the company’s platforms, something for which we have advocated for many years.
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Dec 27, 2024 | 
eff.org | Paige Collings
EFF has spent this year urging governments around the world, from Canada to Australia, to abandon their reckless plans to introduce age verification for a variety of online content under the guise of protecting children online. Mandatory age verification tools are surveillance systems that threaten everyone’s rights to speech and privacy, and introduce more harm than they seek to combat.
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Dec 19, 2024 | 
eff.org | Paige Collings
As the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have failed to secure the release of British-Egyptian blogger, coder, and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, UK politicians call for tougher measures to secure Alaa’s immediate return to the UK.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
eff.org | Paige Collings
Age verification systems are surveillance systems that threaten everyone’s privacy and anonymity. But Australia’s government recently decided to ignore these dangers, passing a vague, sweeping piece of age verification legislation after giving only a day for comments.
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
eff.org | Paige Collings
Canadian lawmakers are considering a bill, S-210, that’s meant to benefit children, but would sacrifice the security, privacy, and free speech of all internet users. First introduced in 2023, S-210 seeks to prevent young people from encountering sexually explicit material by requiring all commercial internet services that “make available” explicit content to adopt age verification services. Typically, these services will require people to show government-issued ID to get on the internet.
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Sep 12, 2024 | 
eff.org | Paige Collings
Earlier this year, the Oversight Board announced a review of three cases involving different pieces of content on Facebook that contained the phrase “From the River to the Sea.” EFF submitted to the consultation urging Meta to make individualized moderation decisions on this content rather than a blanket ban as the phrase is a historical call for Palestinian liberation and not an incitement of hatred in violation with Meta’s community standards. We’re happy to see that the Oversight Board agreed.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
eff.org | Paige Collings |Jillian York
This is part one of an ongoing series. Government involvement in content moderation raises serious human rights concerns in every context. Since October 7, social media platforms have been challenged for the unjustified takedowns of pro-Palestinian content—sometimes at the request of the Israeli government—and a simultaneous failure to remove hate speech towards Palestinians.
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Jul 17, 2024 | 
eff.org | Paige Collings |Daly Barnett
Data sanctuary is strongest if there is less data to protect. That’s one more reason why Congress and the states must enact comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation that limits how businesses collect, retain, use, and share our data. A great way to stop anti-trans officials from seizing data from businesses...
