CA’s social media ban weaponizes legitimate parental concerns, using them to hand over more censorship and surveillance power to the government. Beneath shiny “protect the children” rhetoric, AB 1709 is misguided, unconstitutional, and deeply harmful to users of all ages. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

🚨ACTION ALERT🚨 The CA Assembly is fast-tracking A.B. 1709, a bill that would ban everyone under 16 from social media. This censorship scheme threatens your data privacy and ignores the First Amendment. Tell your representatives to vote NO on A.B. 1709. eff.salsalabs.org/stopcasocia...

This wild document is the basis for the State Department's decision to cancel the visas and green cards of tech researchers who study the social media platforms and of tech regulators who enforce privacy and transparency laws. Disclosed to us last night in @thecoalition.bsky.social v. Rubio.

New Yorkers, it's not too late to demand your representatives drop state-mandated censorship and surveillance from the proposed budget. eff.org/3DPrintNY

Where do we draw the line between digital expression & harm? We will explore how governments are handling AI-generated CSAM and what it means for rights, free expression, & child protection. bit.ly/3QLogJf @exshaps.bsky.social @ncacensorship.bsky.social @jere.my @accessnow.org #ILGA #RightsCon

"Supporting age verification isn’t the same as protecting children. Opposing it isn’t abandoning them. These laws don’t make kids safer. They make everyone, children included, less private and more vulnerable." https://c4osl.org/the-keep-kids-safe-law-that-doesnt-keep-anyone-safe/ #Safety

A cookie-cutter ban-teens-from-the-Internet bill is advancing in California. eff.salsalabs.org/stopcasocial... leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNa... #SaveSpeech

The Connecticut state senate has passed an omnibus-ish bill that includes social media regulations like a mandatory warning label (hella unconstitutional) and various privacy-invading demands. See section 39 here: www.cga.ct.gov/2026/lcoamd/... #SaveSpeech

THREAD: Let's dig into one specific piece of the misguided "protect the kids" social media legislation that Massachusetts lawmakers are trying to rush through: The provisions that involve "parental consent." (Read my Boston Globe piece here for a primer) archive.ph/rAK4P But let's go deeper 🧵

"The Parents Decide Act doesn’t collect IDs, however it does build the same kind of centralized verification infrastructure that made Discord a target. Birthdays are still a key piece of information for identity theft." https://c4osl.org/the-keep-kids-safe-law-that-doesnt-keep-anyone-safe/ #Safety

At #RightsCon2026, COSL is hosting “Drawing the Line” (May 7, Lusaka + online). How are governments regulating fictional & AI-generated sexual content—and what does that mean for rights & child protection? Join us: https://c4osl.org/rightscon-2026/

"The Parents Decide Act builds a system where your exact date of birth is stored by your operating system, linked to your device account, and made available to every app you download. This data can be breached." https://c4osl.org/the-keep-kids-safe-law-that-doesnt-keep-anyone-safe/ #Safety

NEW: Flight data reveals that the LAPD's "Drone as First Responder" program—sold to the public as a public safety measure—is in fact being used to spy on anti-ICE/anti-Trump protests in Los Angeles. theintercept.com/2026/04/20/l...

"The Parents Decide Act creates a target for hackers. Age verification requirements pressure platforms to outsource identity checks to external providers, which attackers increasingly target because the data is so valuable." https://c4osl.org/the-keep-kids-safe-law-that-doesnt-keep-anyone-safe/

COSL is bringing the Drawing the Line Watchlist to RightsCon, centering real survivors, not censorship. Support the work: https://c4osl.org/support-us/ #DrawingTheLine #RightsCon #RightsCon2026 #Censorship

Your regular reminder that Thorn, untouchable child safety darling of governments and the tech sector, partnered with Palantir for its facial scanning technology and used it to target sex workers, and is now leading the charge for compulsory AI-based scanning of communications.

who could have seen this coming

We brought the fight against Flock ALPR’s straight to their headquarters in Atlanta yesterday with @conmijente.bsky.social @mediajustice.bsky.social @18millionrising.bsky.social @deflockatlanta.org & other local community members! FlockOut.org -Time to start a campaign in your city!

UK Lords just passed a ban on porn depicting incest — including step-family relations that are legal in real life. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-crackdown-on-harmful-pornography Is it right to jail people for fictional depictions of legal acts? Commons debate next week.

At our RightsCon workshop, we'll explore the regulation of fictional vs. real abuse material. Our expert panel features @jere.my, @exshaps.bsky.social (@ncacensorship.bsky.social), KS Park (Open Net Korea), Mar Diez, and Shambhawi Paudel (ILGA Asia) 📍 May 7, Zambia 🔗 https://bit.ly/41Y9GAm

The EU says its rolling out an age-verification app for use across its member states. Users will have to upload their passport or national ID in order to access large swaths of the internet.

ALPRs and Minneapolis’ Growing Discriminatory Surveillance Dragnet

Parents need calm, evidence-based guidance to spot everyday grooming risks. Support COSL’s training to get practical safety guides into every caregiver’s inbox: https://c4osl.org/support-us/ #Safety #Support

This week, Congress will vote to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), one of the US government’s most objectionable, widely abused surveillance policies. Section 702’s abuses were exposed by Edward Snowden. stateofsurveillance.org/articles/gov...

if only someone could have warned us of exactly this

MASSACHUSETTS! The social media ban legislation that passed the House is a nightmare for online privacy and safety, would force YOU to upload a gov ID to post online, and would harm LGBTQ youth and undocumented families. @fightforthefuture.org is organizing a sign-on for MA orgs opposed. DM me!

We teamed up with @demandprogress.bsky.social to call out @jahimes.bsky.social for supporting Trump's mass surveillance efforts by trying to push through Section 702 without reform.

Wrote about last week's Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling, following on those jury verdicts against Meta, as yet another very problematic workaround for Section 230.

Help COSL bring the Drawing the Line Watchlist to RightsCon. Support survivor-centered advocacy and help cover travel + production: https://c4osl.org/support-us/ #DrawingTheLine #RightsCon #Advocacy

#savespeech #nosocialmediaban #notodigitalID CANADIANS! CARNEY & THE LIBERALS ARE BETRAYING YOU Both have decided to vote on a Resolution for social media bans for under 16s www.cbc.ca/news/politic... We know where this leads: Digital ID. Internet chilling Call them. Tell them "vote NO" on this

On this day eight years ago, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) was signed into law by President Trump. The Internet has never been the same.

🪡🧵The MA State House advanced HB 5349, a draconian, unconstitutional bill to ban minors from social media, force platforms to enable parental surveillance of teens’ online activity & subject everyone to online ID checks to access info or speak out online. www.wgbh.org/news/politic...

Drawing the Line is going to RightsCon to keep laws focused on real survivors, not fiction. Support COSL to bring the Watchlist and Principles to more rooms: https://c4osl.org/support-us/ #DrawingTheLine #RightsCon #RightsCon2026

very cool that Massachusetts lawmakers, who spend all day every day talking about how they're protecting us from Trump, just passed the "upload your ID to the Palantir database in order to access social media" law while saying they're "protecting the kids"

There's a trend of referring to AI-generated images as CSAM. Unless they depict a real victim, that's wrong. CSAM is a term that has real victimhood at its core. Using it for anything else weakens that focus. Read on to learn how.

RightsCon prep: The Drawing the Line Principles will be presented on May 7. Register here: https://c4osl.org/rightscon-2026/ #DrawingTheLine #RightsCon #RightsCon2026

Technological monitoring and surveillance of people accessing benefits without their consent, pose notable human rights concerns

"Governor Evers’ veto won’t stop the movement. But it provides a template for the argument that needs to be made more often and more loudly: that the Constitution doesn’t permit the government to build a checkpoint at the entrance to the internet, no matter how sympathetic the justification."

From headlines to everyday conversations, COSL helps caregivers keep kids safe online with practical steps. Support the work: https://c4osl.org/support-us/ #Support #Donate #Volunteer

Parents are the first defense against online grooming. Learn the risks and how to respond with empathy and boundaries: https://c4osl.org/children-can-easily-become-targets-of-dangerous-people-online-how-can-you-keep-them-safe/

Thanks to @annaroseiovine.bsky.social at @mashable.com for continuing to report on the harms of age verification legislation and sharing our preliminary data on the impact of AV on sex educators. mashable.com/article/age-...

A nonprofit web host got a copyright demand—for a photo it didn’t post. They removed it anyway. The law firm still demanded money. EFF pushed back, and the claim fell apart. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Stigma around sexual expression online hurts real victims, while medias and some groups spread panic instead of protecting people. #Newsletter #OnlineSafety #DigitalRights #SexualExpression https://c4osl.org/march-2026-newsletter

Everyone’s got a human trafficking vigilante complex these days (even Canadians!) youtube.com/shorts/3qyTr...

“How do we keep people safe online without blurring the line between personal expression and real abuse?” https://c4osl.org/march-2026-newsletter #Newsletter #OnlineSafety #DigitalRights #FairTech

The markup for the "Stop The Scroll Act" (unconstitutional warning labels on websites, mandatory surveillance to track use time) is now scheduled for April 14th: www.commerce.senate.gov/2026/4/date-... #SaveSpeech

Kids can be targets online. Keep them safe by talking, setting boundaries, and teaching digital safety. https://c4osl.org/march-2026-newsletter #Newsletter #OnlineSafety #ChildProtection #DigitalSafety

By far and away the best piece written about this court case and its implications

EU deadlocked on CSAM scanning: privacy vs child safety, tech not fully reliable. https://c4osl.org/march-2026-newsletter #Newsletter #Privacy #ChildSafety