Social media platform Meta has confirmed that its fact-checking feature on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will only be removed in the US for now, according to a Jan. 13 letter sent to Brazil’s government. “Meta has already clarified that, at this time, it is terminating its independent Fact-Checking Program only in the United States, where Read more about Meta says it isn’t ending fact-checks outside the US yet[…]
What’s Important to Know: Venezuela’s Supreme Court fined TikTok USD$10 million for failing to prevent viral video challenges that resulted in the deaths of three Venezuelan children. TikTok faced temporary blockades by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Venezuela for not paying the fine. ISPs used IP, HTTP, and DNS blocks to restrict access to TikTok Read more about Venezuela’s Internet Censorship Sparks Surge in VPN Demand[…]
What’s important to know: On March 25, 2024 Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law requiring age verification for accessing pornographic sites. This law, known as House Bill 3 (HB3), passed with bipartisan support and has caused quite a stir in the online community. HB3 was set to come into effect on January 1, 2025. Read more about VPN Demand Surge in Florida after Adult Sites Age Restriction Kicks In[…]
Google is tracking your online behavior in the name of advertising, reintroducing a data collection process that ingests all of your online signals (from IP address to complex browser information) and pinpoints unique users or devices, also known as “digital fingerprinting.” The company’s updated platform program policies include relaxed restrictions on advertisers and personalized ad Read more about Google brings back digital fingerprinting to track users for advertising[…]
Telegram reveals that the communications platform has fulfilled 900 U.S. government requests, sharing the phone number or IP address information of 2,253 users with law enforcement. This number is a steep increase from previous years, with most requests processed after the platform’s policy shift on sharing user data, announced in September 2024. While Telegram has long Read more about Telegram hands over data on 2253 users last year (up from 108 in 2023) to US law enforcement alone after arrest of boss[…]
A federal judge this week rejected Google’s motion to throw out a class-action lawsuit alleging that it invaded the privacy of users who opted out of functionality that records a users’ web and app activities. A jury trial is scheduled for August 2025 in US District Court in San Francisco. The lawsuit concerns Google’s Web Read more about Google goes to court for collecting data on users who opted out… again…[…]
Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then shared with third parties and used for targeted ads. In the proposed class-action settlement—which comes after five years of litigation—Apple admitted to no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement refers to “unintentional” Siri Read more about Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos on phone, watch, then sold them to advertisers; yes those ads are very targeted Apple agrees to pay $95M, laughs to the bank[…]
PayPal-owned browser extension Honey manipulates affiliate marketing systems and withholds discount information from users, according to an investigation by YouTube channel MegaLag. The extension — which rose in popularity after promising consumers it would find them the best online deals — replaces existing affiliate cookies with its own during checkout, diverting commission payments from content Read more about PayPal Honey extension to find deals instead hides discounts and reroutes commissions from promoters[…]
Hundreds of websites will be shut down on the day that Britain’s Online Safety Act comes into effect, in what are believed to be the first casualties of the new internet laws. Microcosm, a web forum hosting service that runs 300 sites including cycling forums and local community hubs, said that the sites would go Read more about Hundreds of websites to shut down under UK’s ‘chilling’ internet laws[…]
The advent of Bluetooth trackers has made it a lot easier to find your bag or keys when they’re lost, but it has also put inconspicuous tracking tools in the hands of people who might misuse them. Apple and Google have both implemented tracker alerts to let you know if there’s an unknown Bluetooth tracker Read more about Android will let you find unknown Bluetooth trackers instead of just warning you about them[…]
[…]300-plus musicians who have signed an open letter supporting the Internet Archive as it faces a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit over its efforts to preserve 78 rpm records. The letter, spearheaded by the digital advocacy group Fight for the Future, states that the signatories “wholeheartedly oppose” the lawsuit, which they suggest benefits “shareholder profits” Read more about 300 Artists Back Internet Archive in $621 Million Copyright Attack from Record Labels – over music older than the 1950s[…]
Walled Culture has been following the sorry saga of Italy’s automated blocking system Piracy Shield for a year now. Blocklists are drawn up by copyright companies, without any review, or the possibility of any objections, and those blocks must be enforced within 30 minutes. Needless to say, such a ham-fisted and biased approach to copyright Read more about Why Italy’s Piracy Shield destroys huge internet companies and small businesses with no recourse (unless you are rich) and can lay out the entire internet in Italy to… protect against football streaming?![…]
An international law enforcement operation has dismantled a pirate streaming service that served over 22 million users worldwide and made €250 million ($263M) per month. Italy’s Postal and Cybersecurity Police Service announced the action, codenamed “Taken Down,” stating they worked with Eurojust, Europol, and many other European countries, making this the largest takedown of its kind in Read more about Police bust pirate streaming service making €250 million per month: doesn’t this show the TV market is hugely broken?[…]
Terms for using our content A few rules to stop you (and us) getting in trouble. a) Don’t mess with our content What do we mean by that? This sort of thing: Removing or altering BBC logos, and copyright notices from the content (if there are any) Not removing content from your device or systems Read more about BBC Gives Away huge Sound Effects Library, with readable and sensible terms of use[…]
One of the most frustrating aspects in the ongoing conversation around the preservation of older video games, also known as cultural output, is the collision of IP rights and some publishers’ unwillingness to both continue to support and make available these older games and their refusal to release those same games into the public domain Read more about Epic Allows Internet Archive To Distribute For Free ‘Unreal’ & ‘Unreal Tournament’ Forever[…]
HarperCollins, one of the biggest publishers in the world, made a deal with an “artificial intelligence technology company” and is giving authors the option to opt in to the agreement or pass, 404 Media can confirm. […] On Friday, author Daniel Kibblesmith, who wrote the children’s book Santa’s Husband and published it with HarperCollins, posted Read more about HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Bleed Authors to allow their Work to be used as training for AI Company[…]
A central theme of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) and this blog is that the copyright industry is never satisfied. Now matter how long the term of copyright, publishers and recording companies want more. No matter how harsh the punishments for infringement, the copyright intermediaries want them to be even more severe. Read more about Now the copyright industry wants to apply deep, automated blocking to the Internet’s core routers[…]
I get that a lot of people don’t like the big AI companies and how they scrape the web. But these copyright lawsuits being filed against them are absolute garbage. And you want that to be the case, because if it goes the other way, it will do real damage to the open web by Read more about Judge: Just Because AI Trains On Your Publication, Doesn’t Mean It Infringes On Your Copyright. Another case thrown out.[…]
[…] Flock is one of the largest vendors of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the country. The company markets itself as having the goal to fully “eliminate crime” with the use of ALPRs and other connected surveillance cameras, a target experts say is impossible. In Huntsville, Freeman noticed that license plate reader cameras were Read more about The Open Source Project DeFlock Is Mapping License Plate Surveillance Cameras All Over the World[…]
Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) estimated last week that by tracking all vehicles with GPS it will be able to increase road capacity by 20,000 over the next few years. The densely populated island state is moving from what it calls Electric Road Pricing (ERP) 1.0 to ERP 2.0. The first version used gantries – Read more about Singapore to increase road capacity by GPS tracking all vehicles. Because location data is not sensitive and will never be hacked *cough*[…]
Newspaper presidential endorsements may not actually matter that much, but billionaire media owners blocking editorial teams from publishing their endorsements out of concern over potential retaliation from a future Donald Trump presidency should matter a lot. If people were legitimately worried about the “weaponization of government” and the idea that companies might silence speech over Read more about Washington Post and NYTimes suppressed by fascist Trump Through Billionaire Cowardice[…]
Most of the world’s video games from close to 50 years of history are effectively, legally dead. A Video Games History Foundation study found you can’t buy nearly 90% of games from before 2010. Preservationists have been looking for ways to allow people to legally access gaming history, but the U.S. Copyright Office dealt them a heavy blow Read more about Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books. Want you to pirate them apparently.[…]
One of the many interesting aspects of the current enthusiasm for generative AI is the way that it has electrified the formerly rather sleepy world of copyright. Where before publishers thought they had successfully locked down more or less everything digital with copyright, they now find themselves confronted with deep-pocketed companies – both established ones like Google Read more about Juicy Licensing Deals With AI Companies Show That Publishers Don’t Actually Care About Creators[…]
The new terms come in on November 15th. 4.3 Generative AI Safety and Abuse. Google uses automated safety tools to detect abuse of Generative AI Services. Notwithstanding the “Handling of Prompts and Generated Output” section in the Service Specific Terms, if these tools detect potential abuse or violations of Google’s AUP or Prohibited Use Policy, Read more about Google changes Terms Of Service, now spies on your AI prompts[…]
Both uBlock Origin and its smaller sibling, uBlock Origin Lite, are experiencing problems thanks to browser vendors that really ought to know better. Developer Raymond Hill, or gorhill on GitHub, is one of the biggest unsung heroes of the modern web. He’s the man behind two of the leading browser extensions to block unwanted advertising, Read more about Both uBlock Origin and Lite face browser problems[…]