TikTok incapable of delivering both user privacy *and* user safety, retains capability to surveil user communicationshttps://alecmuffett.com/article/148043#EndToEndEncryption #censorship #china #surveillance #tiktok

TikTok incapable of delivering...

It's way easier for lazy politicians to enact laws to outlaw, censor, and surveil under the guise of a moral panic than to enforce antitrust regulations and interoperability and algorithmic transparency mandates...

"While social media bans may seem like a prudent measure to protect children, they are not only ineffective, they endanger both children and adults. There is little evidence that social media is driving any type of widespread mental health crisis in children. Studies have repeatedly shown the opposite. Removing anonymity from the web, which will inevitably happen when tech companies are required to identify and ban children, allows for easier government tracking and censorship of journalists, activists and whistleblowers, who rely on online anonymity.

And while some claim the laws would curb big tech’s power, only the largest tech companies have the resources to shoulder the extensive costs of age verification systems. Non-profit and indie platforms could be forced to close, consolidating big tech’s power further. Mass surveillance systems, once constructed, could also be easily leveraged by governments and bad actors.

If we want to fix the problems with social media, the place to start is through comprehensive data-privacy reform and consumer protections. Governments could also take action to break up big tech companies and prosecute them for anti-competitive behaviour. Lawmakers, who claim to care about children, could pass broader social and economic policies that we know would meaningfully improve children’s lives. Social media is a lifeline, especially for marginalised youth such as LGBTQ+ teens. Any policies that limit online access should centre on the most vulnerable children and adults.

To enact the social media bans being proposed around the world requires some system of age verification, which inherently means expanding surveillance technology."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/02/ban-children-social-media-biometic-data-surveilled

#AgeVerification #SocialMedia #Politics #Censorship #Surveillance

And then, @mullvadnet? ❤️

https://youtu.be/rwhznrpgl7k

#MastoGood #FuckCensorship #UK #VPN #Ads #Censorship #MassSurveillance

According to @fight@mastodon.fightforthefuture.org :

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to a full committee markup on the package of "child safety" bills they discussed back in December this week (KOSA, App Store Accountability Act, SCREEN Act, etc.).

This will bring us that much closer to an extremely censored internet that will not keep kids safe. It's mass surveillance and censorship.

Please call your Senators and Representatives ASAP!

#Privacy #Censorship #FreeSpeech #DigitalRights #Internet #SocialMedia #AgeVerification #KOSA #KidsOnlineSafetyAct #US #UnitedStates

The world wants to ban children from social media, but there will be grave consequences for us all
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/02/ban-children-social-media-biometic-data-surveilled

#censorship #socialmedia #surveillance #biometric #privacy #saveourchildren

"Over the past year, more than two dozen countries around the world have proposed bans on #SocialMedia use for vast swathes of their public. These laws, often proposed under the guise of “child safety”, are ushering in an era of mass #surveillance and widespread #censorship, contributing to what scholars have called a “global #FreeSpeech recession”."

#UKPol

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/02/ban-children-social-media-biometic-data-surveilled

https://www.thebanner.com/education/k-12-schools/montgomery-county-high-school-books-curriculum-YA6OLARKZRBJLBBU5RGZXMKHIQ/?bis=article-action-link

[gift link] Students in #MontgomeryCounty #Maryland are increasingly not reading for fun, with "the influence of #socialmedia and #AI , #censorship threats, an emphasis on #standardizedtesting and digital lesson plans built off text excerpts" cited as reasons. Comments from teacher Stelzner raise questions about #tracking , given spread of student ability in classes.

I agree with the conclusion, that #reading #literature is very important for building empathy.

Social Media Bans are like the “Peanut Allergy” Bans of the 1990s/2000s: they will unnecessarily create a generation who cannot cope with the digital environmenthttps://alecmuffett.com/article/147662#SocialMedia #SocialMediaBan #censorship #ofcom

Social Media Bans are like the...

About the Age Verification bills in California and Colorado:

It seems few people are actually bothering to read the bills and instead just want to scream while running around in circles. Neither of the bills are mandating you give your ID/Face-Scan/Transactional Documents/etc. to be able to setup your computer.

The only thing you give is your birth-date/age, you are assigned an age-category, and apps and websites respond accordingly.

Don't get me wrong, there are still valid concerns about these bills, but few are actually discussing those concerns. Most are just assuming the worst and panicking.

Also, I don't know how these bills would be enforceable on Linux (or any decentralized, FOSS ecosystem).

#Privacy #FreeSpeech #Censorship #DigitalRights #Internet #AgeVerification #US #UnitedStates #California #Colorado

Glitter Stickers from the Gutter is Live AND funded!

THANK YOU

Here's the Kickstarter page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jenniegyllblad/glitter-stickers-from-the-gutter

#Stickers #Queer #Censorship #Kink #MastoArt #FediArt #Kickstarter

ALT

I STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE BLACK COMMUNITY'S OVERWHELMING SUPPORT OF THE PALESTINIAN STRUGGLE AGAINST
THE GENOCIDAL APARTHEID ETHNOCRATIC REGIME OF ISRAEL

#blackhistorymonth #blackhistory #solidarity #resistance #freepalestine #blackhistorymonth2026 #blackmastodon #racism #whitesupremacy #genocide @blackvoices @socialmedia @socialsciences @humanities #humanrights #socialmedia #mastodon #freespeech #censorship

California Pushing Age Verification… for Your Operating System

While California is pushing such a law, Colorado also followed suit with their own bill demanding the same.

https://www.freezenet.ca/california-pushing-age-verification-for-your-operating-system/

#Censorship #News #Privacy #Security #AgeVerification #Apple #California #Colorado #Microsoft #OS #Windows

Age limits on #socialmedia are:

DANGEROUS (proxies to #censorship)

UNENFORCEABLE (what's a "social media"?)

OBSOLETE (#AI is much worse)

and above all...

USELESSLY COMPLICATED & EXPENSIVE

Limits must be put BEFORE, and ONLY #parents can and must do it:

https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/dear-parents-social-media-are-yesterdays

Prove me wrong

> Condescending and Harmful: Australia’s Social Media Ban https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/26/condescending-and-harmful-australias-social-media-ban/

The headline sums it up. As I said when news of this first broke, the kids will just find ways around it anyhow.

#SocialMedia #Australia #hysteria #youth #teens #ban #censorship #tech #stupid

“DECLASSIFIED WINS BATTLE OVER ACCESS TO PARLIAMENT”

by Martin Williams in Declassified UK

@uk_politics
@DeclassifiedUK

“#DeclassifiedUK has won a seven-month battle to report from Parliament, after officials were accused of a ‘partisan attempt to suppress investigative journalism’.

[..]

But we obtained internal emails showing that the officials considering our application had cited the ‘particular standpoint’ of our coverage”

https://www.declassifieduk.org/declassified-wins-battle-over-access-to-parliament/

#Press #SocialMedia #UK #Parliament #Censorship #PalestinianGenocide #Genocide #Gaza #Labour #Starmer #PressFreedom

A state department spokesperson said it “consistently pushes back on #censorship and #digital #repression”, and that it is “reviewing and realigning US foreign assistance to move faster, operate more effectively, and innovate”. https://buff.ly/ucGPmnB

Freedom.gov? Why not freedom.eu?

There is not a single day passing without some completely insane idea coming from the White House on how to demolish the democracies in Europe a little bit more.

The newest idea was now uncovered by Reuters.

Apparently, the US State Department is planning to create a website which should make it possible, using VPN technologies, that people in Europe can see content which, in opinion of the US government, is being “censored” here. I really have to put this in quotation marks, yes. Because what the US government calls censorship is, in Europe, mostly simply illegal – and at least i thing thats correct. We are talking about hate speech, terror propaganda, or in case of Germany also Nazi symbols and so on.

We all know that the right to free speech in the USA is much more, how you say, generously interpreted. But mainly, it will be about money and influence, of course. What else would it be.

J.D. Vance already threatened Europse at last year’s Munich Security Conference that there could be consequences if US companies like X, Meta or Google would be regulated according to existing EU law. Pure blackmail, only for purpose of profit maximisation, because hate speech and outrage keeps us longer on such platforms, and this means more money for them.

Also, the propaganda of extremist parties is widely spread through these channels, which is quite enjoyable fur US rightwingers. And that Donald Trump has no problem with terror propaganda should be well known since the 06 january 2021.

I am honest, I would hope for a strong answer from a strong Europe. Except some countries with completely, lunatics a head of the parlament (i am looking at Hungary, just casually), we should all share more or less the same values, at least in theory.

So why are we not creating freedom.eu for the American people suffering from censorship. There they could inform themselves about modern democracies, the man-made climate change, or about the rights of minorities and marginalised groups like LGBTQIA+. Maybe we also sprinkle some information about public healthcare systems, just for educational purposes. We could also offer books for download which were removed from libraries in recent years by radical evangelicals. And at the end, maybe someone even finds the unredacted Epstein files. There is surely enough which is being kept away from the American people, sadly.

Unfortunately, this will probably not happen. The EU is standing much too much under the slipper of the USA, as one would say.

"Content about Gaza is also being restricted by age verification. Reddit users in the UK have to verify their age, using... Persona, in order to access... r/israelexposed ... Posts about Palestine on X have also been age gated"

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaign/stop-state-censorship-of-online-speech

So to view content about Palestine, you first need to hand your biometric data to #PeterThiel who supplies the Israeli military with data and A.I. tools thru #Palantir

#AGEVERIFICATION IS #CENSORSHIP

#ukpol #socialmedia #privacy #freepalestine

Some Italians report their impossibility to publish in their #Instagram stories the video of President #SergioMattarella, talking from the Supreme Council of Magistrates.

It seems they report the display of a #copyright breach of an Italian broadcast company, Mediaset Infinity. The problem is not present when people repost or comment it while connecting from #Italy.

I'm not an expert, but can anyone tell me why it happens just with the stories and just when people connects from Italy? Somebody claims it is matter of #censorship

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DU5aCgLiFXl/?igsh=MTd3ZHUwNzV0cDl0bQ==

#Instagram
#broadcasting
#freedom

ALT

Il grande paladino della libertà europea 🇪🇺
Compiaciuto dagli applausi di Nuova Delhi al pensiero di sfilarci un diritto fondamentale come un tappeto da sotto i piedi. Verifiche ID, VPN bandite e censura sono i grandi pilastri del nuovo internet che questi signori vorrebbero imporci. @internet #freespeech #VPN #privacy #censorship #macron

A. MUST. WATCH… till the end, it’s only 3:22 short.
(from Jung & Naiv on Youtube, 2026-02-12)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqjOw7QXrxs

>> Don‘t ask about #Palestine at #Berlinale! Tilo [Jung] attended today‘s press conference of the festival‘s jury and asked about the selective treatment of human rights. The Berlinale has famously shown solidarity with the people of Iran and Ukraine. But never with Palestinians. Jury president Wim Wenders refused to engage and actually said: „We have to stay out of politics“ 🤯

>> Tilo‘s question and the following got censorsed on the Berlinale official livestream which suddenly experienced „technical difficulties“. This footage comes from the Reuters news agency instead.

#berlinale2026 #gaza #WimWenders #censorship
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine

A reminder: Don't waste your political beliefs by putting them only on Facebook/Instagram. https://www.accessnow.org/publication/how-meta-censors-palestinian-voices/
#facebook #instagram #meta #censorship

I really recommend this article to people with "good intentions" who want to censor social media, impose age verification systems, and implement surveillance systems that violate basic human rights.

"Far from ‘drowning in evidence’, real researchers – not pop psychologists – are scouring a great desert looking for puddles. The majority of studies have found either no relationship between social media usage and mental illness, or effects so small that they are practically meaningless. A Journal of Public Health study published just last month which examined 25,000 young people in the UK found no correlation between time spent on social media and worsening mental health.

In addition to the proposed ban on social media, there has been an effort to reduce the use of smartphones by children by banning them in schools, on the basis that they disrupt learning. Again, there is little hard evidence to back this up. One large British study from last year found that schools adopting phone bans had no better student outcomes in terms of learning, behaviour or mental health than those without bans. In the US, as bans have proliferated, our standardised testing scores for youth have continued to decline. In my home state of Florida, testing scores reached their lowest levels in 20 years following the introduction of bans. Smartphone bans seem similarly ineffective in your country as well. This week, the British Medical Journal published a study finding that Britain’s school smartphone bans have shown ‘little impact on pupils’ mental wellbeing or quality of life’.

Some advocates argue that social media and smartphones promote bullying among kids. In fact, according to the US National Center for Education Statistics, bullying among youth declined during the smartphone and social media age, even with cyberbullying included into the figures."

https://spectator.com/article/there-is-no-evidence-that-social-media-harms-childrens-mental-health/?edition=us

#SocialMedia #MentalHealth #Teens #Bullying #SocialNetworks #Surveillance #Censorship #HumanRights

- "What are you in here for? Murder? Robbery?"

- "Worse, possession of zines"

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/16/daniel-sanchez-estrada-prairieland-trial-zines

"Sanchez Estrada is facing up to 20 years behind bars for allegedly moving a box of anarchist zines from his parents’ house to another residence"

Another activist was indicted for telling people how to delete messages and remove people from Signal group chats, which government lawyers argue is a first-degree felony

#freespeech #zines #anarchism #censorship #uspol #dystopia #prison #orwell