Tag: internet

Congress Exposes Government-Corporate Collusion Behind Censorship of Conservative Voices

A House Judiciary Committee investigation led by Chairman Jim Jordan has exposed what may be the largest government-coordinated censorship operation in U.S. history. Over two years, the committee has documented how federal agencies, major corporations, universities, and even foreign governments colluded to silence conservative voices, manipulate public discourse, and erode the First Amendment, what investigators now call the “Censorship-Industrial Complex.”

The investigation, which began with social media platforms, has now expanded to include artificial intelligence. In March 2025, Jordan sent letters to 16 major tech companies, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic, demanding documents related to potential Biden administration pressure to censor lawful speech in AI systems. The committee is investigating whether the administration “coerced or colluded” with AI firms to suppress content, marking a significant new front in the censorship inquiry.

Evidence from tens of thousands of internal emails and documents obtained via congressional subpoenas reveals a coordinated censorship campaign targeting dissenting views on everything from COVID-19 vaccines to the 2020 election. At the center was the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an initiative of the World Federation of Advertisers whose members control nearly $1 trillion in annual ad spending, about 90% of the global market.

House investigators describe GARM as an “advertising cartel” that used ad boycotts, content moderation, and “disinformation” labels to defund conservative outlets and pressure platforms into compliance. Internal communications show GARM co-founder Robert Rakowitz privately called silencing President Trump his “main thing” and compared his speech to a “contagion” that needed containment.

Investigators found direct coordination with foreign regulators, including the European Commission and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. In one message, a European official urged advertisers to “push Twitter to deliver on GARM asks.” Australia’s Julie Inman Grant praised GARM’s “significant collective power” and asked for updates to guide her office’s regulatory decisions.

Internal emails show GARM members openly admitting they “hated the ideology” of conservative outlets like Fox News, The Daily Wire, and Breitbart. GroupM, the world’s largest media buying agency and a GARM Steer Team member, put The Daily Wire on a “Global High Risk exclusion list” under “Conspiracy Theories,” without citing any conspiracy content.

Perhaps most revealing was GARM’s pressure campaign against Spotify over Joe Rogan. When Rogan suggested young, healthy people might not need COVID vaccines, GARM threatened to pull ads across all of Spotify. Yet GroupM didn’t even advertise on Rogan’s show, proving this wasn’t about brand safety but ideological control.

GARM collapsed in August 2024 after X (formerly Twitter) sued for antitrust violations. The World Federation of Advertisers claimed they lacked the resources to defend the case, effectively admitting defeat.

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Canada Eyes Revival of Online Censorship Bill

As Canada’s government hints at reviving its shelved Online Harms Bill, concerns are mounting that this could signal a renewed assault on free speech. The legislation, once known as Bill C-63, had been left behind when Parliament was prorogued earlier this year.

Now, under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberals appear ready to give their controversial plan another try, leaving civil liberties groups on high alert.

The Democracy Fund (TDF), a leading voice in the fight for free expression, has been quick to sound the alarm. Mark Joseph, TDF’s litigation director, argues that no sweeping new regime is necessary.

“There are laws in place that the government can, and does, use to address most of the bad conduct that the Bill ostensibly targeted,” he pointed out.

In Joseph’s view, any genuine gaps in the Criminal Code could be addressed with targeted amendments, rather than broad measures that risk suffocating debate.

“The previous Bill C-63 sought to implement a regime of mass censorship,” he warned, adding that TDF remains determined to resist efforts to criminalize speech and punish lawful debate.

The government, for its part, insists it is simply reassessing its approach. Justice Minister Sean Fraser has described the current review as a “fresh look” at how best to address online harms.

But for those who value open dialogue, such language offers little comfort, raising fears of government overreach cloaked in promises of safety.

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China’s New Internet ID Prompts Fears of Total Digital Surveillance and Control

Starting July 15, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will launch a sweeping new Internet ID system, raising concerns that the initiative could usher in a new era of surveillance and control over the digital lives of more than a billion people.

The new program, introduced by six major government departments including the CCP’s Ministry of Public Security and China’s top internet regulator, will require users to register with their real names and obtain a state-issued “internet number” and “internet certificate.” These digital IDs will be used to access any online platform that requires real-name authentication, potentially including everything from social media to health records, education portals, and government services.

While the Chinese regime insists that participation is voluntary, critics warn that the system is designed for gradual enforcement as the regime seeks to centralize control and surveillance of internet users in China.

“This is clearly a staged rollout of a comprehensive surveillance apparatus,” Cao Lei, an independent Chinese internet data analyst, told The Epoch Times.

The CCP’s state-run media announced the new system in May and promoted the Internet ID as a means to “safeguard personal information” and streamline government regulation and verification. To apply for an Internet ID, users must submit official ID documents such as a Chinese Resident Identity Card, a passport, or a Mainland Residence Permit for Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan residents. Facial recognition and mobile phone verification are also required in the process. Even minors are encouraged to register, with their guardians providing identification on their behalf.

At the moment, the system is already integrated into more than 400 apps, spanning e-commerce, health care, tourism, education, and public services.

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South Dakota Follows Texas with Broader Online Digital ID Law

The Supreme Court’s endorsement of Texas’ age verification law for adult websites has paved the way for a surge of similar online digital ID measures across the country.

South Dakota is the first to follow, as its new statute requiring age verification or estimation for sites distributing adult content takes effect today.

However the South Dakota law is much broader and applies to a wider range of websites, not just those that have a large percentage of adult content.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The law applies broadly to any platform that regularly deals in explicit material, without setting a specific threshold for how much of the site’s content qualifies.

This contrasts with Texas’ approach, where the rule kicks in if at least one-third of a site’s material is deemed pornographic.

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Cloudflare offers to make AI pay to crawl websites

Cloudflare will block AI bots from crawling websites by default for new customers, and broker pay-per-crawl deals between its customers and bot operators.

Cloudflare will block AI crawlers from accessing new customers’ websites without permission starting July 1 and is testing a way to make AI pay for the data it gathers.

Furthermore, website owners can now decide who crawls their sites, and for what purpose, and AI companies can reveal via Cloudflare whether the data they gather will be used for training, inference, or search, to help owners decide whether to allow the crawl.

The company began enabling its customers to choose to block AI crawlers in July 2024. Since then, it said, over one million customers have opted in.

“For decades, the Internet has operated on a simple exchange: search engines index content and direct users back to original websites, generating traffic and ad revenue for websites of all sizes. This cycle rewards creators that produce quality content with money and a following, while helping users discover new and interesting information,” Cloudflare said in its announcement. “That model is now broken. AI crawlers collect content like text, articles, and images to generate answers, without sending visitors to the original source — depriving content creators of revenue, and the satisfaction of knowing someone is reading their content. If the incentive to create original, quality content disappears, society ends up losing, and the future of the Internet is at risk.”

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Social Media Especially Harms Girls’ Sleep & Mental Health

June 30 was World Social Media Day.

In a survey conducted between September and October 2025, 50 percent of 13- to 17-year-old girls said that social media has hurt their sleep, versus 40 percent of boys the same age.

As Statista’ Anna Fleck reports, teenage girls are more likely than boys to report negative impacts from social media on their sleep, self confidence, levels of productivity and mental health, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center.

You will find more infographics at Statista

A similar gap occurs for the issue of mental health (25 percent of girls, 14 percent of boys).

However, the biggest share of respondents said social media sites neither helped nor hurt their mental health.

Around one in five of both sexes said that social media had negative impacts on school grades.

Teens were more positive when it came to the question of friendships.

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Skynet is coming: the malware that attacks Artificial Intelligence!

An unusual example of malicious code has been discovered in a real computing environment, which for the first time recorded an attempt to attack not classical defense mechanisms, but directly artificial intelligence systems. We are talking about the prompt injection technique, i.e. the introduction of hidden instructions capable of compromising the functioning of language models, which are increasingly used for the automatic analysis of suspicious files. This case is the first concrete confirmation that malware authors are starting to perceive neural networks as an additional vulnerable target.

The file was uploaded to the VirusTotal platform in early June 2025. It was sent anonymously by a Dutch user via a standard web interface. Upon examining its contents, researchers discovered that an unusual string of text was encrypted within the program, an attempt to interfere with the operation of artificial intelligence tools used for reverse engineering and automatic code verification.

The authors of the malware called it Skynet, a reference to the well-known botnet based on the Zeus Trojan, which has been actively used since 2012 for DDoS attacks and covert cryptocurrency mining. However, the new Skynet, in its functionality, resembles more an experimental assembly or an empty object than a tool ready for mass use.

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North Korean IT workers infiltrated Fortune 500 companies in massive fraud scheme

Federal authorities have unraveled several schemes by the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK) that were used to fund its regime through remote information technology (IT) work for U.S. companies, resulting in two indictments, tech and financial seizures and an arrest.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Monday that North Korean actors were helped by individuals in the U.S., China, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan to obtain employment with over 100 U.S. companies, including Fortune 500 companies.

In one scheme, U.S.-based individuals created front companies and fraudulent websites to promote the legitimacy of remote workers, while hosting laptop farms where remote North Korean IT workers could remotely access company-provided laptop computers.

In another scheme, IT workers in North Korea used false identities to gain employment with a blockchain research and development company in Atlanta, Georgia, and steal virtual currency worth over $900,000.

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Denmark Plans Sweeping Ban on Online Deepfakes to Combat “Misinformation”

Denmark is preparing legislation that would outlaw the sharing of deepfake content online, a move that could open the door to unprecedented restrictions on digital expression.

Deepfakes, which can involve photos, videos, or audio recordings manipulated by artificial intelligence, are designed to convincingly fabricate actions or statements that never occurred.

While governments cite misinformation concerns, broad bans risk stifling creativity, political commentary, and legitimate speech.

The Danish Ministry of Culture announced Thursday that lawmakers from many parties are backing the effort to clamp down on the distribution of AI-generated imitations of people’s appearances or voices.

The forthcoming proposal, according to officials, aims to block the spread of deepfakes by making it illegal to share such material. Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt argued that “it was high time that we now create a safeguard against the spread of misinformation and at the same time send a clear signal to the tech giants.”

But these assurances do little to address the chilling effect such measures could have on free expression.

Authorities describe the planned rules as among the most comprehensive attempts yet to confront deepfakes and their potential to mislead the public.

The United States last year introduced legislation criminalizing the non-consensual sharing of intimate deepfakes, while South Korea has imposed tougher punishments for similar offenses and tightened regulations on social media platforms.

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Marsha Blackburn Proposes Bipartisan Bill to Rein In Big Tech as ‘Unaccountable Gatekeepers’ over Apps

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and a group of bipartisan lawmakers this week introduced legislation that would prevent big tech from operating as “unaccountable gatekeepers” for the mobile app economy.

Sens. Blackburn, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Open App Markets Act, a bill aimed at setting clear and enforceable rules of consumer protections within the app market.

“Big Tech giants have operated as unaccountable gatekeepers of the mobile app economy, forcing American consumers to use their app stores at the expense of innovative startups that threaten their bottom line,” Blackburn said in a statement.

“Our bipartisan Open App Markets Act would ensure a freer and fairer marketplace for consumers and small businesses by promoting competition in the app marketplace and opening the door to more choices and innovation,” she added.

With the advent of the smartphone, mobile devices have become a central aspect of the American consumers’ economic, social, and civic lives. The bipartisan group of lawmakers asserted that their legislation would break Apple and Google’s predominant “grip on the app economy.”

Blackburn’s press release about the legislation noted that consumers spent $92 billion on the Apple App Store and roughly $35.7 billion on the Google Play Store.

Apple has actively worked to prevent users from using third-party app stores on Apple devices, requiring app users and developers to use their Apple payment system.

The lawmakers stated that startups often face serious challenges because big tech can prioritize their own app to the disadvantage of smaller competitors.

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