Tag: social media

Russia’s Rumored Telegram Block Appears Underway As Outage Reports Surge

Reports are flooding in from across Russia that Telegram is suddenly going dark, fueling speculation that the Kremlin may already be testing a nationwide block ahead of a rumored planned crackdown next month.

“Over the last 24 hours, Telegram has effectively stopped working through some providers if you are using Russian IP addresses,” tech sector observer Vladislav Voytenko told Kommersant FM on Monday. “As for using Telegram via mobile internet, you can basically forget about it,” he added.

Russia’s Main Radio Frequency Center, an arm of media watchdog Roskomnadzor, said a surge of complaints began appearing over the weekend, with at least one-third coming from Moscow, followed by St. Petersburg and other cities spread across the country’s vast 11 time zones.

Regional media has tracked user reports on outage monitors such as Downdetector and Sboi.rf, which show complaints spiking sharply over the weekend as the app began failing across multiple regions.

Some Russian users have described the platform is barely functioning “in any form”. They complain the app won’t open, messages won’t send, and neither will photos and videos load.

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Transgender Reddit Moderator Deletes Account After Being Exposed As Registered Child Sex Offender

Reddit users are expressing outrage after learning that a moderator involved in three of the largest trans-focused subreddits is a child sex offender, and may have received protection from another transgender moderator. Branden Michael Dunleavy, also known as Brynn or u/ranshin-da-anarchist, has deleted his Reddit account since the revelations.

Information about Dunleavy’s identity first began circulating on Reddit on Saturday after user u/Living-East-8486 posted a warning on his account claiming that u/Cedarwolf, the top moderator at r/MTF, “attempted to keep a convicted child predator on the r/MTF moderator team.”

In his post, u/Living-East-8486 described a dispute that had emerged on r/MTF involving u/Cedarwolf, hinting that the two had a falling out that ultimately had prompted u/Living-East-8486 to come forward and clarify the allegations.

“The primary thing I’ve been pondering is how on earth I can actually bring this to light without making it seem like I’m just trying to get revenge. To be honest, I don’t think there is any foolproof way for me to do that. Frankly, I’m furious over this situation,” u/Living-East-8486 wrote. “This moderator’s primary reasoning for excluding me from the community was to ‘protect the children’ from my weird ass kink posts (which were always marked 18+). Then I find out that they are openly defending a child predator being on the mod team.”

u/Living-East-8486 included a number of screenshots from what appeared to be private Discord conversations in late 2025.

In one message, top r/MTF moderator u/Cedarwolf, under the handle Cedarpaw, expresses a reluctance to remove Dunleavy from the team because “the next few years are going to be very hard for trans folks,” and instead suggests Dunleavy change his username to better hide his identity.

u/Cedarwolf suggests Dunleavy can establish a fresh Reddit reputation under the “new” username by “spending a week” on other subreddits.

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Florida Gives Tech Platforms Deadline for Age ID Checks

Florida’s attorney general has handed tech companies an ultimatum: build identity verification systems into your platforms by April 8, or his office starts filing lawsuits.

The deadline comes as a federal appeals court hears arguments this week on whether the state can legally force millions of users to prove who they are before accessing social media.

The law driving this, HB 3, bans anyone under 14 from social media entirely and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. It also forces adult content sites to verify visitors are 18 or older.

Attorney General James Uthmeier gave tech companies 30 days to implement age restrictions and 60 days to deploy parental consent mechanisms. “It is the law of the land,” he said at an Orlando event on March 9. Non-compliance means litigation.

What Florida is actually mandating is a digital ID checkpoint at the entrance to the internet. The law doesn’t specify which verification methods qualify as “reasonable.” It doesn’t cap how long platforms can retain identity documents. It doesn’t limit what platforms can do with the surveillance infrastructure once it’s built. Florida gets the policy win.

Users hand over their documents. The data sits in corporate systems indefinitely, available for breaches, subpoenas, and purposes nobody has disclosed yet.

Uthmeier even named TikTok and Discord specifically. Discord’s attempt to introduce digital ID age verification has been met with much backlash, especially after a leak over over 70,000 government IDs. Uthmeier appears unconcerned.

NetChoice, co-plaintiff in the legal challenge, named this directly: the law creates a security risk by “mandating the surrender of sensitive information.” That’s the part Florida’s child-protection framing is designed to obscure. Every minor blocked from TikTok requires millions of adults to first prove they aren’t minors. The verification burden falls on everyone.

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Federal Jury Finds Florida TikToker Guilty of Interstate Threats for Calling for Trump Supporters to Be Shot 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida, announced that a federal jury has found Desiree Doreen Segari (41, Sarasota) guilty of interstate communication of a threat to injure.

Segari, who was indicted on September 18, 2025, faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.

In one of the videos she shared on TikTok, Segari stated, “So if we all get our guns and use our second amendment right … and you see somebody with a MAGA hat, ‘pew pew’ that’s what we do, that’s the way.”

“It’s the only way.”

U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe made the announcement:

According to evidence presented at trial, on August 17, 2025, Segari posted a video on TikTok calling for MAGA supporters to be shot on sight. Segari stated, “so if we all get our guns and use our second amendment right…and you see somebody with a MAGA hat, ‘pew pew’ that’s what we do, that’s the way, it’s the only way.”

While saying “pew pew,” Segari used hand gestures mimicking the firing of a gun.

She further stated, “Put them back in their basements, make them scared again to be racist, homophobic, and terrible just awful [expletive],” and “MAGA people deserve to be terrified and scared to walk in the streets because they should know that real Americans are gonna [mouths expletive] kill them.”

When Segari posted the video, she included a caption: “#seemagapewpewmaga starting a new trend, hope it catches on. Please spread the word. Share this video. Repost it. Use the hashtag all over the internet. Let’s go guys. It’s time to fight back in a potentially effective manner.”

The next day, Segari posted another video on TikTok, in which she stated, “See MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA so these [expletive] know we ain’t here to play” while again using hand gestures to mimic the firing of a gun.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael Sinacore.

The FBI’s Tampa office also shared the verdict.

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ADL Orders Advertisers to Bail on Twitter, Calls the Bible an ‘Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory’

The far-left Anti-Defamation League has ordered advertisers to “pause Twitter spending” after accusing the platform’s users, and its new owner Elon Musk, of “antisemitism” and “hate” amidst a surge in free speech. Among the “hate” tweets cited by the ADL is a Bible verse posted to Twitter by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

After a week of back and forth between Elon Musk and the ADL regarding free speech on the Twitter platform, the far-left pressure group that’s increasingly seen as being a Jewish supremacist organization authored a long tweet thread calling on advertisers to ditch the platform.

Allowing free speech, the ADL claimed in the thread, is not only “toxic,” but part of a “hate for profit” scheme.

“Today, we are joining dozens of other groups to ask advertisers to pause Twitter spending because we are profoundly concerned about antisemitism and hate on the platform,” reads the ADL’s initial tweet, authored Friday, November 4th.

“Here’s why we’re asking advertisers to #StopHateForProfit and #StopToxicTwitter,” it went on, introducing the thread that called the Holy Bible an “antisemitic conspiracy theory.”

The ADL’s call for collectively multi-billion dollar advertising sponsors to leave Twitter high and dry came just days after Elon Musk was slammed for groveling to the anti-speech group that threatened “dire consequences” for allowing free speech and re-instating accounts they don’t like.

On Wednesday, Musk announced that he’d met with ADL leadership following their threat, as well as the NAACP, and even members of the Bush political machine.

Musk said at the time that his Twitter platform would continue enforcing anti “hate” and “election integrity” policies at the ADL’s behest.

But, “since that meeting,” the ADL claimed in their tweet thread, “Musk permitted @KanyeWest to start posting again,” which, apparently, is a grave offense.

Among Ye’s tweets that the ADL is most vehemently opposed to is his sharing of Holy Bible verse John 19:19, something the ADL claims is equivalent to posting “antisemitic conspiracy theories.”

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Crushing the Right to Conscientiously Object

As the U.S. and Israel’s deeply unpopular war with Iran enters its second week, social media platform X is censoring the accounts of people providing information to military servicemembers on how they can refuse to serve. This is particularly relevant as fears have grown that U.S. ground troops may enter the conflict.

The Center on Conscience & War, an 80-year-old nonprofit that, according to its website, “advocates for the rights of conscience, opposes military conscription, and serves all conscientious objectors to war,” was banned on X for 12 hours. The center’s executive director, Mike Prysner, shared a notice that the center received from X which labeled their posts as having “violated X rules” against “illegal and regulated behaviors.”

Prysner wrote: “This is the post @CCW4COs was suspended for, informing service members of their legal right under DoDI 1332.14 to report “failure to adapt” within first 365 days of service and receive an entry-level discharge.”

It remains legal to conscientiously object to military service. The only conceivable way that the post could be framed as encouraging illegal or irregular behavior would be to recast such objections as mutiny, which is exactly what pro-Israeli voices on social media have been frantically doing in the last few days.

In response to conservative commentator Candace Owens also encouraging those in the U.S. military to conscientiously object to serving in Iran, pro-Israel journalist Emily Schrader wrote on X:

“This is illegal. She is literally advocating mutiny. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2387 (Advocating overthrow or disloyalty in the armed forces). It is a crime for any person, including civilians, to willfully advocate or attempt to cause:
• insubordination in the armed forces
• disloyalty among service members
• mutiny or refusal of duty
It also criminalizes distributing materials intended to encourage those outcomes.
The penalty can be up to 10 years in prison and fines.”

Other pro-Israel voices like Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, reposted Shrader’s sentiments.

The social media ban on the Center for Conscience and War came less than 24 hours after its executive director, Prysner, also wrote via social media regarding anecdotal evidence of troops being readied for combat:

“I just spoke with the mother of a service member in this unit. They were given one last call home before having to turn in their phones. He told his mom they were going ‘boots on the ground’ tonight.”

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Turkey Blocks 41 Social Media Accounts Over Iran War Posts

Turkey’s government blocked 41 social media accounts on X, Facebook, and Instagram last Friday, deleted content from 75 more, and launched criminal proceedings against account holders, all on the grounds that they spread what officials called “disinformation and provocative content.”

The crackdown followed the start of attacks on Iran. Presidential Communications Director Burhanettin Duran framed the deletions as a national security response, saying the targeted accounts had been “systematically sharing unverified content aimed at creating fear, panic and uncertainty in society.”

Who decided the content was disinformation? The government. Who gets to define “provocative content”? The government. Who determines what threatens “public order, social peace, and our national security”? Also, the government; the same government that ordered the blocks.

The operation involved the Turkish Presidency’s Communications Directorate, the cybercrime department of the Security Directorate General, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, and the chief public prosecutors’ offices. A coordinated state apparatus, mobilized to silence social media accounts during a regional conflict.

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Roblox Introduces AI System That Rewrites Users’ Chat Messages in Real Time

Roblox has started rewriting its users’ chat messages in real time using AI, altering what people actually typed into something the platform considers more appropriate.

The feature, rolling out now, goes further than the existing filter that replaces flagged words with “#” symbols. Under the new system, banned language gets silently reworded into what Roblox calls “more respectful language that remains closer to the user’s original intent.”

The platform’s example: type “Hurry TF up!” and the message your recipient sees reads “Hurry up!” Roblox says everyone in the chat is notified when this happens, though the person who typed the original message has no way to stop the substitution before it goes out.

The definition of “banned language” extends beyond profanity. It covers “misspellings, special characters, or other methods to evade detection of profanity,” meaning the AI is also tasked with catching deliberate workarounds and rewriting those too.

Roblox is simultaneously expanding its text filtering system to “detect more variations of language that break its Community Standards,” so the net is getting wider at the same time, and the consequences of being caught in it are changing.

What Roblox has built is a system that goes beyond blocking speech. It replaces it. The message that leaves your keyboard is not the message that arrives. The recipient reads words you didn’t choose, attributed to you, with a notification that your original phrasing was deemed unacceptable. The platform decides what you said.

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Spain JAILS Seven Citizens For Calling Migrants ‘SCUM’ On Facebook

Spain’s Supreme Court has upheld prison sentences for seven individuals over Facebook comments criticizing unaccompanied foreign minors in the border enclave of Melilla, marking a chilling escalation in the far-left government’s war on free speech amid skyrocketing migrant-related crime.

The ruling, which imposes terms ranging from eight months to one year and ten months, stems from posts that prosecutors deemed as promoting hostility toward the group of mostly North African migrants. 

Charges were initially dropped, but an appeal led to convictions under Spain’s hate crime laws.

This case exemplifies the inverted priorities under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led government, which has faced mounting criticism for prioritizing mass migration over native safety and free expression.

Just months ago, Alex Soros heaped praise on Sánchez for granting amnesty to up to 500,000 illegal migrants via royal decree, bypassing parliament entirely. Soros called it “real leadership,” urging more nations to follow suit in flooding their borders.

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TikTok Says Privacy Makes Users Less Safe

Over the past five years, the largest social platforms settled on a clear position about private messaging. Lock it down. Facebook turned on end-to-end encryption. Instagram and Messenger did the same. X joined the club. Yes, metadata is still an issue and the protocols used matter; but, generally speaking, the move was toward more privacy of actual messages.

TikTok looked at that trend and made a different choice. Then it scheduled a briefing in London with the BBC to explain the reasoning.

The explanation was safety.

In the UK, TikTok belongs to ByteDance, a Chinese technology company that operates under Beijing’s jurisdiction. China maintains strict limits on end-to-end encryption inside its borders. TikTok, after its own review of the issue, reached the same policy outcome for its messaging system.

Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity professor at Surrey University, raised that point directly. The company’s “Chinese influence might be behind the decision,” he said, adding that end-to-end encryption is “largely banned in China.”

TikTok declined to engage with that suggestion, of course. The remark hung in the air. However, it’s worth adding that the US operation of TikTok has made no indication that it is moving towards private messaging standards either.

End-to-end encryption is simple in theory. Only the people in a conversation can read the messages. The platform running the service cannot access the content. Governments cannot request it. Engineers inside the company cannot view it.

TikTok’s system operates in a different way. Messages on the platform remain readable to the company. Employees can access them under defined circumstances. Law enforcement agencies can request them through legal channels.

TikTok argues that readable messages allow the company to identify harmful activity.

The debate turns on a basic technical fact. “We can read your messages to catch predators,” and “we can read your messages” describe the same system.

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