Free Speech Online

In a significant shift from its previous approach to elections, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is distancing itself from politics, which could have a profound impact on the 2024 U.S. presidential election. An analysis of posts by the Trump and Biden campaigns show both have faced a 60 percent drop in engagement between 2020 and 2024 on Facebook.

A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by X/Twitter, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a foreign censorship advocacy group that targeted Musk and his platform with a campaign attempting to shut down advertising.

Evidence uncovered by America First Legal reveals that the Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and State Department have been actively supporting a foreign-based organization in its efforts to censor Americans’ speech online.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has voiced support for Republican-led lawsuits accusing the Biden administration of unlawfully coercing social media platforms to censor content.

Internal documents obtained by America First Legal from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have revealed a disturbing initiative to promote widespread censorship practices across various sectors, aimed at suppressing independent perspectives and alternative narratives. Among the tactics included in the report, the agency advocates for “Advertiser Outreach” to cut “financial report” for those who don’t toe the government’s line.

Claiming it is targeting the growing threat of violent extremism, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have established mechanisms to share information and coordinate with gaming companies and social media platforms, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

Texas billionaire Josh Arnold joined the board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook; Arnold has donated millions of dollars to organizations dedicated to combatting “disinformation,” which often ends up stifling free speech.

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, is taking steps to strengthen its notorious “trust and safety” team, which was responsible for widespread censorship of conservatives under prior management, following the circulation of explicit AI-generated images of pop star Taylor Swift on the platform.

In a recent blog post, Linda Yaccarino, the woke CEO of Elon Musk’s X/Twitter, highlighted the company’s intensifying efforts in fighting hate speech and ensuring the safety of communities, calling it a “lifetime dedication.”

Ofcom, the UK’s broadcasting regulator has been hiring top staff from Big Tech firms as it prepares to enforce the Online Safety Act.

NewsGuard, a for-profit company that rates news websites and works closely with government agencies and major corporate advertisers, demands news websites follow government narratives, according to investigative reporter Lee Fang.

A recent initiative by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has ignited a debate over free speech and the regulation of online communication. Using the ominous term “Internet of Trust,” UNESCO plays a full spectrum deployment of techniques like ‘algorithmic suppression’ to diminish speech online that the UN doesn’t approve of.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) took to X/Twitter on Friday to reveal that internal emails show the Government Affairs teams at Google and its YouTube subsidiary had acknowledged that they were “seeking to work closely with the Biden administration on multiple policy fronts.”

Speaking at an event hosted by the Federalist Society earlier this month, FTC chairwoman Lina Khan hinted that Texas may be on the right track with its law challenging social media censorship, which is currently working its way through the courts.

Over a dozen British government departments reportedly compiled dossiers on the social media activities of those critical of the government.

A new report in CNBC confirms what many observers, including the House Judiciary Committee, have noticed: online censorship has become a global industry, worth billions of dollars. And with two major wars underway, one in Ukraine and one in the Gaza Strip, that industry is reportedly set to expand.

X/Twitter has reinstated the accounts of British conservative pundit Katie Hopkins and anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson, in a move that is likely to draw ire from pro-censorship organizations.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has released further evidence of the collaboration between the federal government and private institutions to censor the First Amendment protected speech of Americans, including new files show that the infamous Election Integrity Partnership, which targeted social media posts for censorship during the 2020 election, was created “at the request” of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). One of the examples of the censorship machine in action shared by Jordan is a request to censor a tweet by President Donald Trump including a link to a Breitbart News story.

A Democrat who helped prosecute January 6 participants is running for election to Congress against an incumbent Republican in a southern California seat, on a platform promising more tech censorship.

The international wing of the influential conservative legal advocacy group, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has praised Elon Musk for being a “global champion of free speech,” and urged him to launch challenges to state-backed censorship of online free speech around the world.

Consortium News, a news website focused on foreign policy founded by an award-winning journalist who helped break the Iran-Contra story in the 1980s, is suing NewsGuard and the U.S. government over alleged collaboration to suppress its reporting, which is critical of U.S. foreign policy.

The Media Research Center (MRC)’s Censortrack database, which tracks online censorship, has surpassed 6,000 cases. Examples include over 700 cases of criticism of incumbent President Joe Biden, as well as a variety of posts on political debates such as transgenderism and the coronavirus response.

Major media outlets are advocating for increased transparency and public access in the pivotal Google antitrust trial, citing concerns over the secrecy that the tial has remains shrouded by a veil of secrecy.

The top architects of the west’s social media censorship regime continue to complain about the success of the ongoing pushback against their industry, spearheaded by GOP congressional investigations and the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit.

Justin Trudeau’s government has mandated that podcasting platforms and streaming services register with the state broadcasting regulator.

The chairwoman of the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media, and Sports Committee has formally written to streaming platform Rumble asking whether it intends to demonetize comedian/commentator Russell Brand’s channel in the wake of rape and sexual assault allegations.

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, will reverse a ban on political ads that was imposed in the pre-Musk era, in a move that could have far-reaching significance as the next U.S. presidential election year approaches.

A Conservative politician was arrested in England for the hate crime of sharing a video showing the detention of a Christian street preacher.

Following Elon Musk’s announcement that the “block” feature would be removed from X (formerly Twitter), actor James Woods pointed out why he believed this was a bad idea. Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” responded, “then delete your account.” Musk then blocked Woods, popular conservative pundit and author Catturd, and other prominent users  who dared to make their opinion on his intensely unpopular idea known.

Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), has announced plans to remove the blocking feature from the platform, a move that the platform’s own “community notes” fact check feature claims may violate the policies of the Apple and Google app stores.

Elon Musk’s X platform, previously known as Twitter, is now seeking job applicants to stop disinformation and promote “credible” stories about the election, despite the Tesla CEO saying he had planned to make the social media platform more friendly to free speech.

Google-owned YouTube has announced a “long-term vision” for its “medical misinformation” policy, indicating that the platform will censor content it considers to be misinformation related to the prevention, treatment, or denial of “specific health conditions.”

Free speech friendly platform Minds.com has partnered with Livepeer to introduce a video live streaming feature in the platform, in response to user demand.

Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, has been intentionally slowing down the speed at which users can access links to certain news organizations and online competitors, including the New York Times and Facebook, a move that appears to be targeted at companies that Musk has a personal grudge against.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of the newly rebranded X (formerly Twitter), has come forward to explain the platform’s transformation and its increasingly stringent approach to censorship content it judges to be “lawful but awful.”

Newly disclosed emails from within Facebook (now known as Meta) reveal that the Biden administration and its appointed officials exerted significant pressure on the tech giant. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook frequently bent the knee to the White House demands, such as one case in which emails state executives were “ready to tell the White House that it had demoted a video posted by Tucker Carlson by 50% in response to the White House’s demands, even though the post didn’t violate any policies.”