Censorship

Where there’s a coup, there will probably be an internet outage. At least 35 countries have restricted access to the internet or social media platforms at least once since 2019, according to Netblocks, a group which tracks internet freedom.

Freedom of the Press Foundation's newest report shows that there have been at least 117 verified cases of a journalist being arrested or detained on the job in the US in 2020. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is also still investigating more than a dozen additional reports of arrests or detentions. Arrests of journalists skyrocketed by more than 1200% in comparison to 2019. In just one week, from May 29 - June 4, more reporters were arrested in the U.S. than in the previous three years combined. Arrests occurred in more than two dozen cities across the country.

On Oct 15, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he will move forward with clarifying the meaning of Section 230.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai issued the following statement on Section 230 of the Communications Act:

Six senior officials at the US Agency for Global Media have filed a whistleblower complaint with the State Department’s inspector general and the US Office of Special Counsel, alleging that they were retaliated against for raising concerns about the new political leadership installed earlier in 2020 by President Donald Trump. The 32-page complaint accuses top officials at the taxpayer-funded media group of abusing their authority, violating the law and mismanaging the organization.

President Donald Trump’s ongoing assault against Twitter may represent the most egregious violation of the First Amendment by a president since Richard M. Nixon went to war against this newspaper almost half a century ago. Not since the McCarthy era has our country experienced such an effort to neuter the press and evade the government accountability that comes only through meaningful reporting. Consider what could lie ahead.

For people who spend a lot of time on TikTok, the last few months have been surreal: a president with no presence on the platform has been agitating to ban it on the basis of national security.

The Trump Administration said it would challenge a federal court ruling Sept 20 that temporarily blocked its attempt to curb the use of Chinese messaging and e-commerce app WeChat in the US. WeChat's ban has had a lower profile than TikTok's, but the fate of the app, widely used by Chinese people around the world to stay in touch with family and friends, is at least as consequential. The ruling suggests that WeChat's fate in the US could be decided not only on grounds of national security and commercial regulations but also around freedom of speech principles.

A group of veteran journalists for the Voice of America delivered a letter of protest Aug 31 denouncing their parent agency's new CEO, Michael Pack, and alleging Pack's remarks in a recent interview prove he has a damaging agenda for the international broadcasters he oversees. Pack's comments and decisions "endanger the personal security of VOA reporters at home and abroad, as well as threatening to harm U.S. national security objectives," the letter to VOA Acting Director Elez Biberaj read.

The Trump administration is pursuing its own version of internet sovereignty. If Trump obtains a second term, his policies will empower and legitimize efforts by governments around the world to fence off different parts of the internet in service of their own geopolitical and domestic objectives.