Digital Authoritarianism
Lessons from Duterte's Philippines for the United States.
DOGE Is Building a Surveillance State
The creation of a huge government database of personal information about U.S. residents is dangerous and very likely against the...
Peter Thiel is betting on the apocalypse
An emerging alliance between Tech, the Pentagon and the Christian...
The Media Pipeline
Hint: It's Dangerously Corroded
Kash Patel Wants You to Trust Him
Inside the most dangerous public-private “partnership” in modern U.S. history
RSF creates “mirror” of leading Russian exile news site blocked by Kremlin
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has used the mirror site technology of its Collateral Freedom operation to unblock access to Meduza, the most popular Russian independent news website.
Entry: Denied
The “intolerable risk to press freedom” posed by device searches at the border.
Trump’s TikTok Takeover
TikTok’s fate still remains unclear, but if it stays in the U.S., it won’t be free—it’ll be bound to Donald Trump, giving him and the GOP a propaganda machine like no other.
The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces
As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this content is overwhelmingly right-leaning.
Robert McChesney, the Great Champion of Journalism and Democracy, Has Died
Bob, with his remarkable intellect and even more remarkable capacity for communicating his vision of a media that served citizens rather than corporations, was always the driving force. His research and his insatiable curiosity helped him to see the future more clearly than any scholar of his generation...
Amid Meta Policy Changes, Neo-Nazis Monetize Hate on Instagram
In this new more permissive online environment, an investigation by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) has discovered neo-Nazi activity flourishing on Instagram, including degrading hate speech, antisemitic conspiracism, and even Nazi symbols being used to sell merchandise.
Crypto super PACs pump cash into Florida as GOP faces risk of thinning House majority
Fresh off its victories in the 2024 election cycle, the crypto industry is going big in Florida.
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber on her company’s ascendant year and what she’s planning next
Yet Bluesky isn’t just a repository for social media’s disaffected. It’s also the best example of how “federation”—a buzzy Silicon Valley term that describes a structure wherein multiple independent groups collaborate to share information—can build a more equitable and independent social media experience.
Liberals Are Left Out in the Cold as Social Media Veers Right
Hundreds of thousands of posts lauding Mr. Trump’s victory filled Truth Social, the social platform that the president-elect owns. Speculation about what the new administration would accomplish ran rampant on X, which is owned by Elon Musk. Gab, Parler and other right-wing social media sites were flooded with thousands of memes glorifying Mr. Trump.
