Free Speech Online

British police have been accused of acting in a “Kafkaesque” manner after they arrested the parents of a nine-year-old girl over complaints they made about her primary school on WhatsApp.

American broadcaster CBS followed German police as they raided homes for speech crimes, such as posting a “racist cartoon” on the internet after U.S. Vice President JD Vance criticised censorship across Europe.

In vindication of U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s warnings of encroaching authoritarianism in Britain and Europe, a report has found that hundreds of people in the United Kingdom have been charged under the 2023 Online Safety Act, including for spreading “fake news.”

The leftist British government is reportedly willing to walk back some of draconian online censorship rules to avoid falling into a trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has come under fire from both the “Facebook Supreme Court” and its own employees following Zuckerberg’s decision this week to embrace free speech on his heavily censored platforms.

In a move to “maximize unregretted user-seconds,” Elon Musk has unveiled plans for an algorithm change on his social media platform X that he claims will curb excessive negativity. Critics contend the algorithm changes will have troubling outcomes like censoring criticism of the FBI.

Fledgling social media upstart Bluesky has enjoyed a surge in new users over the past week, more than doubling its user base to over 15 million as leftists flee from X/Twitter. However, the rapid growth has also brought significant moderation challenges for the young company. The overwhelmingly leftist userbase has been flooded the company with flagged posts, requests for censorship, and even child pornography.

German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said that Europe must enact strict speech regulations on Elon Musk’s X platform to fight so-called “disinformation”.

Elon Musk took to his X/Twitter account over the weekend to point out that if anyone needs “further proof that I strongly support freedom of speech,” they should note that “nutcase” Keith Olbermann, “who is literally calling for my arrest” is not being censored on his social media platform.

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a recently passed California law aimed at curbing the spread of AI-generated deepfakes depicting political candidates. In his decision, Judge John Mendez wrote, “While a well-founded fear of a digitally manipulated media landscape may be justified, this fear does not give legislators unbridled license to bulldoze over the longstanding tradition of critique, parody, and satire protected by the First Amendment.”

A federal judge has ruled that the discovery in a lawsuit filed by video platform Rumble against leftist pro-censorship advocates Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, co-founders of Check My Ads, will proceed, denying the defendants’ request to stop or delay the discovery phase of the lawsuit.

Encrypted messaging company Telegram announced it will now share user data with law enforcement to combat illegal activities on the platform. This massive U-turn in privacy policy comes after the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France last month.

The Irish government has abandoned plans to implement controversial new hate speech laws following widespread backlash from free speech advocates.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared at a recent event that his days of apologizing are over. The Facebook founder attempted to blame conservatives themselves for the rampant censorship on his platforms, stating, “When it’s a political problem… there are people operating in good faith who are identifying a problem and want something to be fixed, and there are people who are just looking for someone to blame.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor certain Covid-related content in 2021, including “human and satire,” expressing regret for not being more outspoken against the government’s actions.

Telegram, the popular messaging app known for its largely hands-off approach to moderation, has responded to the arrest of its CEO and founder, Pavel Durov, by French authorities outside of Paris.

The World Bank has halted all paid advertising on Elon Musk’s X after CBS News accused the social media platform of promoting ads under racist content.

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France on Saturday after his private jet landed at Le Bourget Airport, French media reported.

Wayne O’Rourke has been sentenced to three years in prison for “stirring up racial hatred” during the recent anti-migration riots.

A British man has been jailed for “stirring up hatred” at a non-violent anti-migration protest, during which he allegedly mocked Muslims.

The EU distanced itself from censorship threats made by Brussels’ speech code arbiter over Elon Musk’s interview with former President Donald Trump.

The EU demanded Monday that X owner Elon Musk abide by its speech restrictions during his planned uncensored interview with Donald Trump.  

Nigel Farage has warned that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer represents the “biggest threat to free speech” in the history of the UK.

“Make my day,” was Elon Musk’s response to reports that ex-Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf was considering a lawsuit against him.

Legacy media outlets have blamed Elon Musk and social media for the anti-migration riots and called for more censorship in Britain.

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has announced it is shutting down the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative, which organized advertising blacklists to censor conservatives, in response to an antitrust lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X/Twitter earlier this week.

PragerU slammed NewsGuard, a for-profit company that is running a mass blacklisting campaign working with corporations and advertisers to strangle conservative media. PragerU is shining a light on its sly and “insidious” practices aimed at driving conservative media outlets “out of business.” The nonprofit founded by Dennis Prager has launched an X/Twitter takeover with the hashtag #EndBigTechCensorship to expose NewsGuard’s practices.

The Stanford Internet Observatory, a research center studying “online misinformation” and a prominent part of what Stephen Miller calls the “censorship-industrial complex,” is on the brink of shutting down due to mounting political and legal pressures, as well as dwindling staff and funding.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram warned against tagging former Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson in a “happy birthday” post on Thursday, saying the popular journalist has been known to violate “Community Guidelines.”

Elon Musk’s social media platform X/Twitter won a court reprieve on Monday in a fight against the Australian government’s censorship of videos of a stabbing inside a Sydney church.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is accusing Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta of election interference, claiming the social media giant censored the film, Who Is Bobby Kennedy? on Facebook and Instagram.

Democrats are sneaking online censorship of “hate speech” into the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) under the guise of “protecting kids” – and many Republicans on capitol hill appear to be on board.

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.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has filed a lawsuit against leftist pro-censorship group Media Matters, accusing it of engaging in fraudulent business practices and refusing to cooperate with an ongoing investigation.

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.