United States

In this report, EFF explores a new approach to tackling online harms leaving behind strategies based on ill-conceived bills and censorship-driven solutions.

When PEN America and Meedan asked writers, journalists, and creators about their experiences reporting online abuse to social media platforms, thet heard again and again, over the past three years, about the deep frustration, exasperation, and harm caused by the reporting mechanisms themselves.

PEN America warns that social media blowback and societal outrage are imposing new moral litmus tests on books and authors, chilling literary expression and fueling a dangerous trend of self-censorship that is shrinking writers’ creative freedom and imagination.

Between January and September 2021, 24 legislatures across the United States introduced 54 separate bills intended to restrict teaching and training in K-12 schools, higher education, and state agencies and institutions. The majority of these bills target discussions of race, racism, gender, and American history and appear designed to chill academic and educational discussions and impose government dictates on teaching and learning.

This research shows how the U.S. Department of Defense’s biometric programme was developed and implemented without prior assessment of its human rights impact and without the safeguards necessary to prevent its abuse. Its whereabouts and current use today remain unclear.

Along with other civil liberties organizations and activists, EFF has long warned that Amazon Ring and other networked home surveillance devices could be used to monitor political activity and protests. Now we have documented proof that our fears were founded.

While EFF hopes to work with President Biden on a wide range of policies that affect digital rights in the coming years, it focuseshere on the ones that need his immediate attention and ask that he change course on the previous policies and practices discussed below.

This report examines the ways in which Beijing’s censors have affected and influenced Hollywood and the global filmmaking industry.

As individuals have mobilized, state legislatures across the country have begun introducing bills meant to suppress, restrict, or criminalize the right to protest at an ever-increasing rate.

This report lays out pathways for revitalizing local journalism in the United States. New, nimble outlets are emerging, and existing outlets are adapting and innovating – developing alternative revenue streams, experimenting with nonprofit models, rebuilding audiences, and better serving communities.

The reality of book banning in American prisons is systematic and comprehensive. State and federal prison authorities censor content with little oversight or public scrutiny.

In this report, PEN America examines the steps taken by technology companies, government actors, and po- litical parties to curb the influence of fraudulent news in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.

Civil society leaders in Egypt are urging the U.S. government to continue to condition and withhold military aid to Egypt until the Egyptian government makes meaningful reforms to its human rights practices.

In recent years, press freedom organizations have become increasingly concerned by the challenges faced by the media in the United States (US).

Americans witnessed several major cyberattacks in the latter half of 2016, including the hacking and subsequent leaking of sensitive information from the Democratic National Committee in the lead up to the vote

The report examines the rise of fraudulent news, defined here as demonstrably false information that is being presented as a factual news report with the intention to deceive the public, and the related erosion of public faith in traditional journalism. The report identifies proposed solutions at the intersection of technology, journalism, and civil society to empower news consumers with better skills and tools to help them process the torrents of information they see online.

Political polarization in the media worsened during the presidential campaign, due in part to the emergence of “alt-right” news sites that disseminated highly nationalistic or nativist messages, conspiracy theories, and at times false or propagandistic coverage.

Two journalists faced charges following their widely criticized arrest in Ferguson in 2014.

“Federal Communications Commission approved new rules that allow it to regulate the internet as a public utility, including provisions to protect net neutrality”

Ranked 31st in annual global media freedom report

How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy

How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy

Which companies stand with their users, embracing transparency around government data requests? Which companies have resisted improper government demands by fighting for user privacy in the courts and on Capitol Hill? In short, which companies have your back?

Chelsea Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison for releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks.

Ranked 30th in annual global media freedom report

New York shield law protects journalists from requirement to disclose sources regardless of state jursidiction of crime

“NSA symbolises intelligence services’ abuses”

“Aggressive leak prosecutions, secret subpoenas, and surveillance have chilling effect”

Ranked 46th in annual press freedom index

Snowden leaks reveal secret domestic surveillance program aimed at US citizens

Ranked 23rd in annual global media freedom report

Which companies help protect your data from the government?

“Congressional efforts in 2012 to adopt legislation to prevent copyright infringement on the Internet were shelved in response to strong opposition from leading Internet companies, websites, and ordinary users”

Soldier Bradley Manning faces charges under Espionage Act that could lead to death penalty for allegedly supplying info to Wikileaks

State Department falls short in its implementation of Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act

US drops 27 places to 47th in annual press freedom review following numerous attacks on journalists covering Occupy Protests