Shiloh Hendrix is a white woman, a mother, and the main character of an extremely fraught social media controversy. She did a very bad and racist thing, endured subsequent cancellation, and has now reaped a financial windfall—earning both condemnation and approval from various corners of the internet. For some, Hendrix is the final boss of […]
A Maine state legislator has been prohibited from speaking or having her votes counted—all for a social media post critical of transgender athletes participating in women’s sports. Rep. Laurel Libby (R–Auburn) has attempted to challenge the legislature’s actions against her in court but has faced several defeats. This week, Libby filed an emergency injunction asking […]
15 artificial friends: “The average American has, I think, fewer than three friends…and the average person has demand for meaningfully more, I think it’s like 15 friends….The average person wants more connection than they have,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Dwarkesh Patel on his podcast. (Meta just launched a standalone AI chat app that will […]
Who could possibly oppose legislation to get tough on AI-generated revenge porn? For one, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, one of two nays in Monday’s House vote on the TAKE IT DOWN Act. For another, a whole bunch of civil liberties advocates, including folks with groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier […]
One of my biggest pet peeves is when media figures make hyperbolic claims about the spread of misinformation online and suggest that journalists, misinfo watchdogs, and fact-checkers—i.e., the professional class to which the media figure belongs—should be more involved in shaping social media moderation policies. When this subject is broached, what often happens is that […]
On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring freedom of speech.” But judging from his administration’s policies and his actions as a private litigant, Trump’s commitment to that principle is highly selective at best. Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was […]
A 13-year-old Missouri middle school student was suspended for sharing a photo of his weekend art project on his private Snapchat account. The student, W.G., and his mother Riley Grunden are now suing the school district, principal, and superintendent for violating W.G.’s constitutionally protected First Amendment right to creative expression and for labeling him a […]
The percentage of Americans who think the government should “take steps to restrict false information online” is shrinking. According to new data from the Pew Research Center, Americans are losing patience for the idea that the government should censor in the name of stopping misinformation. Pew also found decreasing support for the idea that tech […]
Writing in The Federalist this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio brags that he is protecting freedom of speech by ending his department’s misbegotten crusade against “disinformation.” Yet Rubio is simultaneously undermining freedom of speech by targeting anti-Israel activists for deportation because he deems their opinions harmful to U.S. foreign policy interests. More generally, Rubio’s ringing […]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is resuming its antitrust attack on Meta. After first suing the tech giant in 2020, the Trump FTC now alleges that Meta violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by maintaining a personal social networking monopoly by purchasing Instagram and WhatsApp. But investing in software and attracting billions more users is a […]