The Eyes on the Board Act Is Yet Another Misguided Attempt to Limit Social Media for Teens

Young people’s access to social media continues to be under attack by overreaching politicians. The latest effort, Senator Ted Cruz’s blunt “Eyes on the Board” Act, aims to end social media’s use entirely in schools. This heavy-handed plan to cut federal funding to any school that doesn’t block all social media platforms may have good […]

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S.T.O.P.: Putting a Check on Unchecked Local N.Y. Government Surveillance

Recently I got the chance to speak with longtime Electronic Frontier Alliance member Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.). They’ve got a new Advocacy Manager, Kat Phan, and exciting projects are coming down the pike! Kat took some time to share with EFF how things are looking for STOP, their many successes, education & advocacy work, […]

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Protecting Kids on Social Media Act: Amended and Still Problematic

Senators who believe that children and teens must be shielded from social media have updated the problematic Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, though it remains an unconstitutional bill that replaces parents’ choices about what their children can do online with a government-mandated prohibition.   As we wrote in August, the original bill (S. 1291) contained […]

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Reauthorizing Mass Surveillance Shouldn’t be Tied to Funding the Government

Section 702 is the controversial and much-abused mass surveillance authority that expires in December unless Congress renews it. EFF and others have been working hard to get real reforms into the law and have opposed a renewal, and now, we’re hearing about a rushed attempt to tie renewal to funding the government. We need to […]

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To Address Online Harms, We Must Consider Privacy First

Every year, we encounter new, often ill-conceived, bills written by state, federal, and international regulators to tackle a broad set of digital topics ranging from child safety to artificial intelligence. These scattershot proposals to correct online harm are often based on censorship and news cycles. Instead of this chaotic approach that rarely leads to the […]

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EFF Urges FTC to Address American Resellers of Malware on Android TV Set-Top Boxes

SAN FRANCISCO—The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) must act to halt sales by Amazon, AliExpress, and other resellers of Android television set-top boxes and mobile devices manufactured by AllWinner and RockChip that have been pre-infected with malware before ever reaching consumers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged Tuesday in a letter to FTC commissioners.  “We believe […]

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Low Budget Should Not Mean High Risk: Kids’ Tablet Came Preloaded with Sketchyware

It’s easy to get Android devices from online vendors like Amazon at different price points. Unfortunately, it is also easy to end up with an Android device with malware at these lower budgets. There are several factors that contribute to this: multiple devices manufactured in the same facility, lack of standards on security when choosing […]

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Speaking Freely: Agustina Del Campo

Interviewer: Cindy Cohn Agustina Del Campo is the Director at the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) at the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She holds a law degree from Universidad Catolica Argentina and an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from American University Washington College of Law. […]

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To Best Serve Students, Schools Shouldn’t Try to Block Generative AI, or Use Faulty AI Detection Tools

Generative AI gained widespread attention earlier this year, but one group has had to reckon with it more quickly than most: educators. Teachers and school administrators have struggled with two big questions: should the use of generative AI be banned? And should a school implement new tools to detect when students have used generative AI? […]

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On His 42nd Birthday, Alaa Abd El Fattah’s Family Files UN Petition for His Release

Today is the birthday of Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent Egyptian-British coder, blogger, activist, and one of the most high-profile political prisoners in the entire Arab world. This will be the tenth birthday that he will spend in prison. But we are newly optimistic for his release: This week, Alaa’s family and International Counsel acting […]

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