Join us tmrw. to discuss how actors engaged in protection efforts are stepping up to the challenge of addressing digital risks in conflict and crisis. Register: www.accessnow.org/event/digita... @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social @witnessorg.bsky.social @cloudflare.social @oxfaminternational.bsky.social

Resistance is always embodied – whether on the frontlines of a protest or the defense of a river. So it is for resisting technoauthoritarianism: “In truth, anti-datacenter organizing is the real fight, one centered on an industry choke point that people can reach out and touch”

Truly honored to support and recognize my colleagues who, instead of bending to pressures, took a principled position to back dissenters and resist the further encroachment of civic space. We are stronger when we stand together ✊ @arzugeybulla.bsky.social @accessnow.org

NEW: A hack-for-hire group targeted victims with Android spyware and with phishing attacks to break into iCloud backups. The group, codenamed BITTER, has alleged ties with Indian government, and attacked victims in the Middle East and North Africa, including journalists and government officials.

Espionage enables repression! In collaboration with Lookout + @smex.org, our Digital Security Helpline exposes a hack-for-hire phishing campaign targeting journalists and dissidents in the MENA region. Here’s what we found, and what it means for civil society 🧵

The war in Iran could trigger a global food shock • More than 1.1mn tonnes of fertiliser and fertiliser inputs is currently stuck in the Gulf • Shortages are starting during northern hemisphere’s planting season, raising the risk of lower harvests for staples like rice www.ft.com/content/1054...

This is "our" Manifesto for a Free Internet. We are Iranian Women's Coalition for Internet Freedom. Happy International Women's Day! initiated by @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot

I've only known Baby Globe for five minutes but if anything happened to him I would become John Wick

How can you detect spear-phishing attacks before it’s too late? Join the first webinar of our new series, “Safe and Strong,” on March 10, which will cover new trends and share practical tips for civil society to raise its defenses. Register: accessnow.org/digital-security-webinars

As a whole nation remains in shock, horror, and grief, and families are searching for their loved ones in the aftermath of security forces’ massacres on January 8 and 9, Iranian authorities continue to terrorize the population. Read HRW’s new investigation. ⤵️ www.hrw.org/news/2026/02...

Amazing colleagues @djleufer.bsky.social and Vlad have just finished a triad of articles analizing LLMs and fleshing out the reasons why we should stop the push to make the much-hyped word-guessing machines ubiquitous. Check it out: www.accessnow.org/artificial-i... @accessnow.org

Go read the inner workings of my team at @accessnow.org – Hassen is a dedicated and knowledgeable colleague who leads our digital forensics work:

#IntellexaLeaks: A recent investigation offers new insights to the capacities and architecture of Predator spyware + new infection vectors (incl. attacks via advertising). All of this while its maker, Intellexa, retained direct access to espionage victims! securitylab.amnesty.org/latest/2025/...

I am by no means a prominent public intellectual, but my inbox is increasingly filled with messages from people who have been convinced by sycophantic chatbots that they have discovered revolutionary theories that entirely upend our scientific understanding of the universe.

The two Roberts: prodigies the art world forgot www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Now we're seeing confirmation of the NSO acquisition. Mark my words, this is the path through which Pegasus gets put on Americans iPhones & Androids. This dictatorship-in-a-box belongs nowhere near our constitutional rights.

We can’t wait www.theguardian.com/music/2025/s...

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has reportedly issued a presidential pardon for the imprisoned Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel Fattah. He is set to be released once Sisi’s decision is published in the Official Gazette. www.hrw.org/news/2025/09...

“We need a robust digital civil society to try to hold the line today and to try to make things better tomorrow. With the clear slide into tyranny, and tech so central to that slide, we need digital [civil] society more than ever” www.wired.com/story/eff-ci...

Heading to #IGF25? Drop by our Digital Safety Clinic! We’re supporting activists, journalists & civil society to boost digital security. 📍 Lillestrøm, Norway 🗓️ June 24–27 🌍 Not there? Reach out here 👉 www.accessnow.org/help/

Today is the 5 year anniversary to when I slowly started losing my mind during the pandemic and began dressing up as works of art. As my Twitter account has long been abandoned, why not make a thread of my madness on BlueSky? This was “The Maid” by Wilhelm August Lebrecht Amberg, from 1862

No Other Land Co-Director Yuval Abraham: "The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. Why? Can't you see that we are intertwined? There is another way. It's not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way."

Judith Butler with a warning: “If we continue to be gripped with outrage and stilled by stupefaction by each day’s new proclamation, we will fail to discern what links them.” And an invitation to stand back and come up with our own driving force. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Age verification laws are right up there with real names policies in the pantheon of "you think this is going to help people, but it's actually quite disastrously bad" ideas.

We👏cannot👏abandon👏the👏most👏vulnerable👏communities👏to👏assuage👏the👏most powerful. Even if we did, it would never be enough.

Jenga night 👾

The Room Next Door 🤌🏼

Worried about your digital security? It’s always the right time to take action, so here are some key steps to reinforce your digital communications. www.wired.com/story/the-wi...

In Jordan, more than 35 people –including journalists, lawyers, and members of civil society– were targeted with spyware. Access Now unearths yet another instance of NSO Group's Pegasus deployment to repress civil society and enable violations of human rights: www.accessnow.org/publication/...

Andrea Long Chu warns against the freedom of speech trap: “The very idea of free speech, especially when deployed outside of its narrow constitutional sense, tends to obfuscate the material stakes of a situation.” nymag.com/intelligence...

Surprising to no one, but important research still: Verified accounts thrive as they spread dis/misinformation on Israel-Gaza, according to this ProPublica report. They also say Community Notes is not –I would say cannot be– up to the challenge. www.propublica.org/article/x-ve...

"Beginning of the end" for fossil fuels? Looks closer to our end as a species. Worse still is that the next COP will go to another petrol state and fossil fuel groups will continue to have the upper hand, when activists and environmental defenders face crackdown. unfccc.int/news/cop28-a...

On the Oversight Board's role in Israel-Hamas conflict: "“It’s not clear why some of these exceptions are made for some conflicts and not others". This is why human rights law should be adopted by platforms and baked into their operations: www.wired.com/story/oversi...

It’s hard to watch the horrific scenes coming from Gaza and the escalating death toll. @marwasf.bsky.social joins @parismarx.bsky.social to discuss the info war on social media, internet shutdowns, and what people can do to support Palestinian rights. Listen here: techwontsave.us/episode/194_...

New report by Access Now outlines how Palestinians have been cut off by all communication – focuses in October, but the situation continues. Internet shutdowns and telecommunications disruptions in Gaza violate international human rights law.

Several wars, 50+ elections this year, generative AI on the rise, but we come from years in which tech firms ditched their Trust and Safety teams and outsourcing them instead. This "means outsourcing responsibilities to teams with no power to change the way platforms actually work".

With no connection to the outside world, whatever happened inside Gaza could be shared or kept secret at the [Israeli] military’s discretion. “More and more, a direct line is being drawn between internet shutdowns and human rights violations”- Access Now's M. Fatafta restofworld.org/2023/exporte...

To disguise nothing, to conceal nothing, to write about those things that are closest to our pain, our happiness (…) to write about the continents and populations of our dreams, about love and death, good and evil, the end of the world. John Cheever quoted by Geoff Dyer

The last report by the Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity is on the relationship between colonialism and LGBT rights. I'm happy to have contributed with a submission that included some analysis of this topic for Caribbean countries: www.ohchr.org/en/documents...

We've written up a short guide on how to navigate social media at a time rife with misinformation. Read our tips here: www.bellingcat.com/resources/ho...

Social media, nonetheless, should not be thought of as an unchecked centralized power. Human rights responsibilities exist and we should talk about them more often.

📣 Civil society demands a ceasefire in Gaza now! Gov’ts, institutions, tech companies must ensure an immediate physical+digital ceasefire to stop attacks on civilians in Gaza and the online targeting of Palestinians around the world. #CeasefireNOW www.accessnow.org/press-releas...

Six years ago today I founded Visibles (visibles.gt) because I believed change was ripe for LGBTQ Guatemalans. Since then, a lot of challenges have come our way, but I am hopeful to see a better organized, active, younger queer community resisting and transforming Central America. 🏳️‍🌈