‘Landlocked to landlinked’: UN summit seeks to turn geography into opportunity

And increasingly, climate change is compounding the problem – damaging roads, disrupting supply chains, and threatening already fragile infrastructure with floods, droughts, and extreme weather. But as global discussions intensify, a UN conference underway in Turkmenistan is aiming to flip the scrip – to help transform LLDCs from landlocked to landlinked through smarter more climate […]

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Blocking Access to Harmful Content Will Not Protect Children Online, No Matter How Many Times UK Politicians Say So

The UK is having a moment. In late July, new rules took effect that require all online services available in the UK to assess whether they host content considered harmful to children, and if so, these services must introduce age checks to prevent children from accessing such content. Online services are also required to change […]

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EFF to Court: Chatbot Output Can Reflect Human Expression

When a technology can have a conversation with you, it’s natural to anthropomorphize that technology—to see it as a person. It’s tempting to see a chatbot as a thinking, speaking robot, but this gives the technology too much credit. This can also lead people—including judges in cases about AI chatbots—to overlook the human expressive choices […]

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Geography shouldn’t define destiny: UN summit on landlocked nations opens in Turkmenistan

Urging global leaders to rethink development for landlocked nations, the UN chief declared: “We gather today to reaffirm a fundamental truth: geography should never define destiny.” According to the UN Development Programme, of the 32 landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) worldwide, 16 are in Africa, 10 in Asia, four in Europe, and two in Latin America. […]

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EFF at the Las Vegas Security Conferences

It’s time for EFF’s annual journey to Las Vegas for the summer security conferences: BSidesLV, Black Hat USA, and DEF CON. Our lawyers, activists, and technologists are always excited to support this community of security researchers and tinkerers—the folks who push computer security forward (and somehow survive the Vegas heat in their signature black hoodies). […]

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UN urges MPs to deliver on development promises for 600 million in landlocked nations

Speaking at Monday’s Parliamentary Forum of the Third UN Conference on LLDCs, senior UN leaders stressed that political will, matched with national legislative action, is essential if a new decade-long development plan is to make a real difference. There are 32 such countries globally, home to over half a billion people. Many are also among […]

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The final straw? Plastic pollution talks get underway in Geneva

Unless an international accord is inked, plastic waste is projected to triple by 2060, causing significant damage – including to human health – according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The UNEP-led talks follow a decision in 2022 by Member States to develop an international legally binding instrument to end the plastic pollution crisis, including in the […]

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Despite Supreme Court Setback, EFF Fights On Against Online Age Mandates

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton did not end the legal debate over age-verification mandates for websites. Instead, it’s a limited decision: the court’s legal reasoning only applies to age restrictions on sexual materials that minors do not have a legal right to access. Although the ruling reverses decades of […]

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🤕 A Surveillance Startup in Damage Control | EFFector 37.8

We’re a little over halfway through the year! Which… could be good or bad depending on your outlook… but nevermind that—EFF is here to keep you updated on the latest digital rights news, and we’ve got you covered with an all-new EFFector! With issue 37.8, we’re covering a recent EFF investigation into AI-generated police reports, […]

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