Category: Science and Technology

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The European Union’s “European Media Freedom Act” became binding law across all member states on August 8, but behind its name lies a set of provisions that could restrict the very freedoms it claims to safeguard. We obtained a…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Roman Storm’s guilty verdict is sending shockwaves through privacy advocates and the open-source development community, with many warning it could change how the US criminal justice system treats creators of decentralized tools. A federal jury in New York on…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Robby Starbuck’s settlement with Meta marks one of the first high-profile cases in which a person has taken legal action against an AI system for defamation. Starbuck, a conservative activist and former congressional candidate, sued Meta in April after…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Britain’s Online Safety Act has claimed its first major courtroom victory over one of the internet’s most collaborative platforms, with the High Court rejecting the Wikimedia Foundation’s legal challenge. The ruling leaves intact a law that is a blueprint…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. British police have been quietly tapping into the nation’s passport photo database for hundreds of facial recognition searches, sparking fierce warnings from privacy campaigners about the scale of state surveillance creeping into everyday life. What began as a rare…

The United States is apparently moving toward a future where semiconductors might be able to report their whereabouts like snitches with a silicon conscience. Michael Kratsios, a senior official and one of the minds behind the federal government’s recently unveiled AI action plan, confirmed Washington is thinking about giving chips “better location-tracking” so they can…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The White House has decided that banks shouldn’t play political bouncer, at least the banks that answer to federal regulators. In a flourish of pen and podium, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that supposedly halts “politically motivated…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Britain’s intelligence apparatus was designed to do what one might reasonably expect: track terrorists and generally stop the kinds of people who enjoy blowing things up. But that was before the digital gaze turned inward. Today, it’s not jihadist…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. If you support privacy, you probably aren’t using Instagram anyway, but if you have friends and family that still use it, you want to let them know about this new invasive feature Instagram is introducing. Meta is rolling out…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Gina Carano’s high-profile legal fight with Disney and Lucasfilm has come to a close, ending years of dispute over her removal from The Mandalorian. The former MMA fighter had accused the studios of discrimination and wrongful termination after she…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. As European authorities accelerate efforts to introduce centralized digital identity frameworks, Mastercard is working aggressively to insert itself into the core of this transformation. The payments giant presents its involvement in the EU’s digital ID agenda as a natural…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Washington is taking aim at Europe’s internet censorship regulation, with the Trump administration launching a coordinated diplomatic push against the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). US officials argue the law places unreasonable burdens on American technology firms and…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. At Raymond James Stadium this season, facial recognition is moving one step closer to becoming a routine part of public life. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have introduced “Express Entry,” a system that scans attendees’ faces at the gate in…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s attempt to suppress an animal rights advocate’s comments on its social media pages has been declared unconstitutional by a federal appeals court, reinforcing the limits of government control over public discourse online. Madeline Krasno, a…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Lawmakers from the House Judiciary Committee returned from Europe, warning that a wave of new laws across the EU and the UK is tightening government control over online speech, and that the consequences will not stop at Europe’s borders….

If you’ve been out of the loop, Collective Shout, the Australian activist group that proudly bills itself as a haven “for anyone concerned about the increasing pornification of culture,” has now upgraded from shaking fists at billboards to strong-arming some of the biggest payment processors in the world. They are taking credit for a recent…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Across the United States, lawmakers have been pushing to make adults hand over government IDs before they can visit legal adult sites. Florida has now jumped into the fray, not only enacting such a requirement but also suing some…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Russian police have arrested two young women after a social media video showed them near a blazing oil depot in Sochi, the scene of what officials said was a Ukrainian drone strike. The arrests highlight how quickly state surveillance…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. California’s attempt to regulate political speech on major social media platforms has been blocked in federal court, with a judge ruling the state’s latest “deepfake” law clashes with protections already established by Congress. Assembly Bill 2655 attempted to compel…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Trump administration is reportedly moving to address allegations that major banks are discriminating against certain groups and cryptocurrency firms with an executive order that could impose heavy penalties on financial institutions found to be refusing service based on…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. For half a century, Germany’s privacy laws were treated like sacred scripture. Politicians swore by them, courts fortified them, and bureaucrats turned them into a national export. Other countries rolled out surveillance programs; Germany rolled out lectures about why…

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. In the UK, a college lecturer says he has been “hunted out of his job” for defending the right to speak about controversial court cases. Simon Pearson, 56, taught English to non-native speakers at Preston College until earlier this…