A dangerous time to attack whistleblowers
AP Photo/Tommy Martino
Efforts to undermine First Amendment rights on the internet and to censor online content are a fundamental threat to the free press.
When lawmakers try to censor online speech or entire platforms, it harms the First Amendment rights on which journalists rely.
Most people get their news online, and the internet and social media are especially important for independent and citizen journalists who publish there. Anyone who cares about press freedom should also oppose attempts to undermine free speech online.
Featured Items
-
Music industry forces widely used journalist tool offline
The popular free software project “youtube-dl” was removed from Github on Friday following a legal notice from the Recording Industry Association of America claiming it violates copyright law. The tool is widely used by journalists for various reporting purposes.
-
Onions on the side: Tracking Tor availability for reader privacy on major news sites
“Onion services,” a technology offered by Tor to ensure users can securely and privately visit particular websites, can provide a major step forward for readers who rely on the Tor network for its privacy and censorship-resistance properties.
-
Trump, in crisis mode, tweets his 2000th attack on the press
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend daily life, President Donald Trump accelerated smearing the press on Twitter, reaching 2,000 negative tweets about the media in a string of insults and accusations on April 11, 2020.According to our analysis of more than 19,400 of Trump’s tweets, 2,000 means that …
-
Back on the campaign trail, President Trump increases his anti-press tweet offensive
From Jan. 20, 2019 to Jan. 19, 2020, Trump tweeted negatively about the media 548 times — almost as many as his first two years in office combined.
-
Google should protect whistleblowers and increase transparency, not stifle it
Google should protect whistleblowers who to the press, and immediately address the concerns that its employees have raised about the company’s complicity in a project that could expand China’s censorship and damage press freedom.
-
Facebook’s terms of service obstruct important journalistic research
By prohibiting automated collection of information, Facebook's terms of service are obstructing important digital and investigative journalism. In a letter, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University asks Facebook to modify its terms of service.
-
A new law is already stifling online expression and hurting sex workers
President Trump signed SESTA/FOSTA into law today. While it has been touted by lawmakers as a tool to crack down on sex trafficking, it will drastically expand online censorship and endanger the people it intends to protect.
-
Archiving the alternative press threatened by wealthy buyers
Freedom of the Press Foundation is launching an online archives collection in partnership with Archive-It, a service developed by the Internet Archive to help organizations preserve online content. Our collection, focusing on news outlets we deem to be especially vulnerable to "billionaire problem," aims to preserve sites in their entirety before their archives can be taken down or manipulated.
-
Protecting net neutrality is an important press freedom issue
The Federal Communications Commission released its proposal to kill net neutrality on Tuesday, which would end the restrictions on internet service providers (ISPs) that attempt to guarantee a free and open internet. Rolling back net neutrality has worrying and dangerous implications specifically for press freedom in a world in which …
-
Introducing Secure The News, an automated tool tracking the adoption of HTTPS encryption across news websites
HTTPS protects reader privacy, security, and prevents censorship. We're tracking its adoption.
