Freedom of Speech and Expression
Auburn Banned TikTok, and Students Can’t Stop Talking About It
One former sorority sister at Auburn, for example, “did a new TikTok dance every day promoting Auburn Zeta Tau Alpha so people would see how much fun she was having with her ‘zisters,’” Ms. Franco said, adding that it would be a “huge hit” to Greek life at Auburn if the university’s ban extended to […]
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A Hamline Adjunct Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job.
To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor at Hamline University, said she knew many Muslims have deeply held religious beliefs that prohibit depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. So last semester for a global art history class, she took […]
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Classic Internet Censorship
I want us to consider the implications of this new reality: In three of the four most populous countries in the world, governments have now given themselves the power to order that the internet be wiped of citizens’ posts that the authorities don’t like. Indonesia — the world’s fourth-most populous country, and a democracy — […]
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3 Ways Musk Can Support Free Speech
Way back in the Paleolithic age of April, Elon Musk seemed excited to buy Twitter and said that he wanted to transform the site by promoting free speech. A lot has happened since then: Musk says he no longer wants to buy Twitter, and the company is suing to force him to go through with […]
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The Fight Over Truth Also Has a Red State, Blue State Divide
To fight disinformation, California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would force social media companies to divulge their process for removing false, hateful or extremist material from their platforms. Texas lawmakers, by contrast, want to ban the largest of the companies — Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — from removing posts because of political points of […]
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Disinformation Has Become Another Untouchable Problem in Washington
WASHINGTON — The memo that reached the top of the Department of Homeland Security in September could not have been clearer about its plan to create a board to monitor national security threats caused by the spread of dangerous disinformation. The department, it said, “should not attempt to be an all-purpose arbiter of truth in […]
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Twitter, Challenging Orders to Remove Content, Sues India’s Government
Twitter said on Tuesday that it had sued the Indian government, escalating the social media company’s fight in the country as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks more control over critical online posts. Twitter’s suit, filed in the Karnataka High Court in Bangalore, challenges a recent order from the Indian government for the company to remove […]
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Amazon Restricts L.G.B.T.Q. Products in United Arab Emirates
Amazon moved to restrict items and search results related to L.G.B.T.Q. people and issues on its website in the United Arab Emirates on Monday after receiving pressure from the government there, according to company documents viewed by The New York Times. The Emirati government gave Amazon until Friday to comply under threat of penalties, the […]
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The Supreme Court vs. Social Media
The Supreme Court handed social media companies a win on Tuesday by blocking, for now, a Texas law that would have banned large apps including Facebook and Twitter from weeding out messages based on the views they expressed. But the issue may return to the court, and at least three justices seem open to considering […]
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