Imagine an invisible thief, lurking within the labyrinth of the digital world, poised to steal not just your passwords but your very identity. This is the stark reality of cookie hijacking, where your most personal data is just one careless click away from vanishing into the cyber abyss.Today we explore the issue and the ways to neutralize these risks...
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Get the post here. |  | The Biden-Harris administration is now on its way out - but the damage that opponents say it has done to free speech continues to reverberate, including in difficult legal battles.
The plaintiffs in one of those - Kennedy v. Biden - have suffered a setback, as the Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals on Monday decided against allowing the case to proceed to trial.
Children's Health Defense (CHD), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Connie Sampognaro are seeking to sue the Biden White House for alleged censorship, including around topics related to the origin of Covid and vaccines.
We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.
The censorship, the plaintiffs claim, played out as the government pressured social platforms to implement it - which would be an instance of unconstitutional activity.
But the appellate court said the plaintiffs had no legal standing - i.e., had not provided sufficient reason for the judge to believe they suffered direct and concrete injuries, which can be rectified in a legal process.
The decision was made despite CHD suffering, among other things, deplatforming as "punishment" for the position the non-profit took on various issues.
This overturns the ruling announced in August by the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, which said those suing do have standing and should be allowed to pursue the case.
The lawsuit was originally filed in March 2023 and accuses the government and its agencies of engaging in a pressure campaign aimed at major social networks and the companies behind them, to censor what is constitutionally protected speech.
The filing refers to this campaign as "systematic."
CHD said it was now considering what next steps to take, while the organization's general counsel, Kim Mack Rosenberg commented on the Fifth Circuit's decision to express disappointment and note that the group believes the evidence the court had at its disposal "more than sufficiently established standing for Children's Health Defense."
Rosenberg explained that this new evidence that amended the case during the appeals stage demonstrated "ongoing censorship activities by the government," as well as that "the government has a significant and improper role in the social media platforms' censorship of CHD."
Kennedy v. Biden shares discovery and evidence with Murthy v. Missouri, but is otherwise a separate case. | You subscribe to Reclaim The Net because you value free speech and privacy. Each issue we publish is a commitment to defend these critical rights, providing insights and actionable information to protect and promote liberty in the digital age.
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| | During this election season, the US presidential race not only captured extensive media attention but also significantly impacted the live-streaming world. As the election unfolded on November 5th, hundreds of streamers worldwide provided live updates on state-by-state voting results. This led to a notable increase in viewership for many online broadcasters, with certain platforms reaching new viewership benchmarks. |  | | Rumble, a platform favored by free speech audiences, particularly distinguished itself by breaking its own viewership records. According to Stream Charts, on Election Day, the platform's streams peaked at an impressive 1.79 million viewers, surpassing its previous record of 1.04 million during a presidential debate in September. This achievement placed Rumble in the top three streaming services.
The platform is a known haven for political commentators who have been censored on Big Tech platforms.
High viewership figures were particularly recorded on channels hosted by Dan Bongino and Steven Crowder, with peak numbers of 515K and 460K respectively. These figures represent the highest viewership for any channel on Rumble to date, with both hosts also setting personal records during the debates in September. |  | Another "fine" story about what is known as the Big Tech-Big Government revolving door is coming from the UK, where a former Facebook vice president has just joined the Ofcom (Office of Communications) regulator.
Handpicked by Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) Peter Kyle, Lord Richard Allan - previously Facebook vice president of public policy, or, as some reports put it, "Facebook lobbyist in the EU" - is now a member of the Ofcom Board as a non-executive director.
The most obvious problem: Ofcom is supposed to regulate Facebook as well as the rest of the industry, and now the question of a possible conflict of interest is arising. After all, Allan spent a full decade as Facebook's vice president. And coming up with a "strategic direction" for Ofcom is among the regulator's Board's tasks.
But DSIT reassured the public that in picking Allan for the role, "an open process in line with the Governance Code on Appointments" had been observed.
One example of how these figures go through that revolving door, but in the other direction, is former UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who is now Facebook owner Meta's president of global affairs.
The "ties that bind" in this particular case happen to be even more specific: Allan was, all the way up to October 2 this year, "affiliated" with the UK's Liberal Democrats (he in the past also served as an MP for the party). And Clegg was the leader of that party before he embarked on his Big Tech adventures.
Back to Allan's Ofcom appointment, and in explaining the choice, DSIT described him as a member of the House of Lords for the past 10 years - and someone who has worked on "communications and technology policy" for close to 30 years.
Ofcom Chair Lord Michael Grade issued a statement upon hiring Allan to put an emphasis on what he said was the former Facebook exec's extensive experience "across technology, telecoms, and media," with a career in both public and private sectors.
Allan in the past worked for UK's National Health Service (NHS), to serve as MP, move on to Cisco, and then to Facebook. |  | Canada's proposed legislation, Bill S-210 (first introduced in late 2011 as the "Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act") has cleared the Senate. It is currently close to ending its "journey" through the House of Commons before getting adopted.
And adopted it easily be very soon - even if the process in the committee currently looking into it did not include any critics and their testimonies.
The issue with this, as with so many other bills in different jurisdictions around the world, particularly in some US states, is that a very serious and sensitive subject such as fostering the well-being of young people does not seem to be approached in the serious and responsible way it deserves to be.
Instead, it looks like yet another roundabout way to usher in age verification, which, it bears repeating, would impact the privacy and security of all internet users.
As Bill S-210 critics point out, the text speaks about sexually explicit material as its target (in terms of preventing those too young from accessing it) - but without clearly and precisely defining what that content is.
The overbroad definition that's there meanwhile serves as the "gateway" to age verification, which platforms are expected to (try) to do in order to protect their business from fines, ranging from 250,000 to half a million Canadian dollars.
One thing leads to another, so to speak, and from there, criticism of Bill S-210 is that because it doesn't afford procedural rights to content creators it could result in what are known as "preemptive takedowns."
And, no great surprise there - the bill's proposals are dismissed as "almost certainly technologically unfeasible."
The S-210 rules would apply to "any organization" making what's broadly defined as sexually explicit online content, for commercial purposes, subject to the new rules.
The rules state that a platform must implement an age verification method (rather than "believe" that someone is of a certain age). The bill's text makes a fairly astonishing claim that "online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated."
How would the bill's authors have arrived at such a conclusion?
Reports out of Canada say that Senator Julie Miville-Dechene "appears to have worked with the age verification industry when drafting the legislation."
And what that means is that the senator "took its (the industry's) assurances around things like age-estimation AI as being workable without privacy infringement." | | | Thanks for reading,
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