Reclaim The Net

Gabriel Attal, France’s former Prime Minister and Macron’s Renaissance party candidate for the 2027 presidency, blocked TikTok across New Caledonia in 2024.

France’s highest administrative court later ruled the block illegal because it was total and open-ended.

Now he wants the power back, this time described as “temporary” and “targeted,” aimed at whatever territory the riots happen to be in.

He also wants facial recognition and AI run on surveillance footage and on videos people post online, so that within 48 hours of unrest starting, suspects are being found at their homes.

He says the goal is to “set an example.”

https://reclaimthenet.org/gabriel-attal-social-media-block-facial-recognition-riots

Australia banned under-16s from social media last December. A University of Chicago study found about 73% of the 14 and 15 year olds it covers are still on the banned apps. The platforms have already closed more than 5 million accounts and set AI loose on people’s posts looking for mentions of birthdays and school grades. It didn’t work.

So the government doubled the maximum fine to A$109.2 million. That didn’t work either.

Now it’s preparing to sue Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. The eSafety Commissioner has new powers to summon current and former employees and question them under oath. Anyone who refuses to answer faces 12 months in prison.

Nobody in charge has stopped to ask whether the law is the problem. Kids keep getting around it, and the only way to close the gaps is to check the age of every Australian, adults included. That was always where this was heading.

https://reclaimthenet.org/australia-social-media-age-ban-court-case

An Australian MP Helen Haines was reportedly attacked with a car outside her electorate office on Monday. The driver was known to police. He had a knife in his vehicle and is now facing a mental health assessment. Police called it an isolated incident.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went on the ABC that evening and blamed social media.

Four days earlier, his government tabled the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill. It runs to 90 pages and never once mentions free speech. It fines platforms up to $109.2 million for leaving "harmful" posts up. It fines them nothing for taking too many down. Any platform lawyer can do that math.

Communications Minister Anika Wells says the government is not controlling free speech. She said this while introducing a law that forces platforms to delete it.

Australia has run this play before. After Bondi, the government demanded footage be scrubbed and pushed new speech rules. The eSafety Commissioner then asked for a power to make platforms act on “pile-ons.” Every attack becomes an argument for more control over what Australians can post.

https://reclaimthenet.org/albanese-blames-social-media-after-mp-attack

The British government wants the public to fund the BBC through a “YouTube tax.” It wants YouTube and other platforms to push the BBC to the top of feeds. And for the past eight years, it has been lending the BBC its own government employees to help write the "fact-checks."

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-government-staff-bbc-verify-fact-checking

Germany has passed its national law for the EU Digital Identity Wallet, launching January 2 as “d-you.”

The government insists it’s voluntary. Platforms will be legally required to accept it, even where EU rules don’t demand it.

The age for using online ID drops from 16 to 13. A ban on automatically sharing biometric photos between passport and ID card authorities has been scrapped. The pseudonym function EU law requires won’t be ready at launch. The SPD already wants the wallet mandatory for social media and has complained that VPNs make it too easy to get around. Every part that expands the system is ready to go.

https://reclaimthenet.org/germany-approves-eu-digital-identity-wallet-law

Discord told users it doesn’t look at their messages, calls, or other content when sorting accounts by age. Florida is now suing Discord because it doesn’t look at their messages, calls, or other content. The complaint objects that Discord’s filters only scan images and videos and leave text, voice, and calls untouched.

It lists voice and video channels as an unfair practice. It wants ID checks before users can be seen or share anything.

The state is seeking up to $150,000 per violation and a court order to make it happen.

Florida calls this child safety but it's a demand that nobody on Discord gets to have a private conversation again.

https://reclaimthenet.org/florida-sues-discord-age-verification-content-monitoring

Eight US states have sued OpenAI, and their main complaint is that ChatGPT collects too much data from children. Their proposed fix is age verification for every user, which means collecting far more data from everyone.

West Virginia wants “effective age assurance.” Montana wants OpenAI barred from processing personal information until it checks IDs. Idaho wants age verification “without limitation.”

People tell ChatGPT things they would never tell another person. The states want each of those conversations signed.

https://reclaimthenet.org/openai-lawsuits-chatgpt-age-verification

The British government wants to extend the TV license fee to YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Disney+. The Independent calls it the “YouTube tax,” and it is expected in the BBC charter white paper before Christmas.

A Whitehall source explained the supposed purpose. The money would fund local journalism and counter the “conspiracy theories and fake news” they say have helped parties like Reform get elected.

That is a government official admitting the goal is to tax the public into voting differently.

The government would decide what counts as fake news.

An estimated 3 to 4 million extra households would have to pay £180 a year. Many of them use YouTube precisely to avoid the BBC.

A separate plan would push the legacy media to the top of people's YouTube feed. People would pay for the mainstream broadcasters, and then pay again with their algorithm.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-youtube-tax-streaming-bbc-license-fee

Armed police arrested Graham Linehan at Heathrow over three posts on X, held him in a cell for 12 hours and banned him from tweeting as a bail condition. Prosecutors dropped the case. The Met then apologized, paid him £25,000 and blamed an overworked trainee detective. Nobody was disciplined. The punishment for the officers was “learning through reflection.”

Now the police watchdog has ruled that the Met’s own review of the arrest was not reasonable or proportionate. It says that if the force cannot justify the arrest, the bail conditions or its treatment of free expression, Linehan may have been treated unfairly because of his views.

The Met has apologized for everything except the arrest. Maybe it needs to try again.

https://reclaimthenet.org/iopc-orders-met-review-graham-linehan-arrest

The Eleventh Circuit just let Florida’s social media ID law stand. Under-14s are banned outright, and 14 and 15-year-olds need a parent’s permission. To enforce that, platforms have to check the age of everyone, adults included.

The court says a minor can still use these platforms through a parent’s account, or without an account at all. So the law doesn’t keep kids out. It only stops the honest ones, and it makes every adult hand over ID to read and post lawful speech.

Judge Rosenbaum warned last year that this ties real identities to accounts and ends anonymous posting.

https://reclaimthenet.org/florida-social-media-age-verification-law-enforced

Eight states sued OpenAI this week for collecting too much data from children. Their proposed fix is to collect far more data from everyone.

They want courts to force age verification on ChatGPT, which means every adult would have to prove who they are before asking a chatbot anything.

A court has already made OpenAI hand 20 million conversations to the New York Times.

Once those chats are tied to a real name, the next request will come from someone with a badge. These states are asking judges to impose ID checks that their own lawmakers never passed. The states are trying to get it through consumer protection law instead.

https://reclaimthenet.org/openai-lawsuits-chatgpt-age-verification

Australia’s new Digital Duty of Care bill threatens platforms with fines of up to A$109 million if they fail to keep users “safe,” and it never defines where safe ends. Section 26A(3) even bars them from weighing the cost of compliance.

The minister says she gave up the power to define new harms. Section 25E(1)(f) still covers anything that “may cause serious harm to children,” and that list has no end.

Platforms must also switch off feeds, likes and stories for under-16s. They can only do that by checking the age of every user.

The eSafety Commissioner gets to run fake accounts under rules it writes with the federal police. It can also summon people for private questioning, and anyone who stays silent faces 12 months in prison.

The government says this is not censorship. The bill is built to produce it anyway.

https://reclaimthenet.org/australia-digital-duty-care-bill-introduced

Microsoft has closed another way to set up Windows 11 without a Microsoft account. A small “Learn more” link on the sign-in screen used to lead to local account creation, and it took the company about four weeks to turn it into a dead end.

The change came from Microsoft’s own servers with no announcement.

In March, a Microsoft vice president said he hated the account requirement and was working on it.

The company has been working on it too alright...by closing every route around it.

https://reclaimthenet.org/microsoft-closes-windows-11-local-account-workaround

An Australian government staffer was asked in Parliament House this week why the Digital Duty of Care bill is needed. The answer was a video. Nidal Hasan is due to be executed by firing squad on December 3, and the government wants the power to stop Australians seeing it.

The staffer was then asked whether the bill would also have allowed censorship of footage of last year’s Bondi massacre. The reply was that Bondi was different because Bondi was news.

Asked whether they realised the bill would let the government censor news, the staffers appeared not to know or care. They said they were moving forward with it anyway...

https://reclaimthenet.org/australia-censorship-bill-execution-video

The DOJ told the Fifth Circuit this month that you have no expectation of privacy on a public road, because drivers already expect to be watched. That is the government’s legal theory for Flock, and the FBI is already using the data.

In San Jose, 474 cameras took over 360 million photos in 2024. About a quarter of one percent triggered a hotlist alert. Everyone else was photographed anyway.

Mike Johnson has now promised a House vote on a bill that would cut every federal agency off from this data. The vote comes after the election, and the bill leaves locally funded cameras untouched.

https://reclaimthenet.org/house-vote-blocking-federal-flock-data-access

Australia’s Prime Minister called his new online censorship bill “change from the bottom-up, my Government listening and acting.”

The campaign group standing beside him at the launch had lobbied his office for it in a private letter. That same group gets 89 percent of its funding from his government. Its revenue jumped 975 percent in a single year, and Canberra has since handed it another $4.4 million.

The bill lets the eSafety commissioner run fake accounts, order content removed, and fine platforms up to A$109.2 million.

The government paid for the public demand and then answered the call.

https://reclaimthenet.org/teach-us-consent-australia-digital-censorship-bill

An Ohio state senator received a crude Shrek meme from a blogger mocking him for losing the race for Senate president. He could have blocked the number. Instead, Jerry Cirino personally called the police chief in his hometown and asked for charges.

The judge who signed the arrest warrant had taken campaign money from Cirino and been endorsed by him. D.J. Byrnes was arrested in public at the Statehouse and held for 23 hours.

The text that came with the meme called Cirino “Young Mussolini.” His lawyers argued the whole exchange was about one thing, which was the race Cirino had just lost. FIRE called it protected political mockery and offered the senator some advice at the time. It told him to block the number.

A jury has now found Byrnes guilty of telecommunications harassment. The fine is $200. The arrest, the night in a cell, and the trial were the real sentence, and a powerful politician handed it out because a joke hurt his feelings.

https://reclaimthenet.org/ohio-blogger-convicted-political-joke-senator

A police officer turned up at the home of Joanne May, who runs Oldspeak Bookshop, to warn her about a social media post mocking two men. She told him she hadn’t written it. He asked who had. Then he admitted on camera that he didn’t know.

He still gave her “words of advice.” She could post whatever she wanted, he said, “to a point.” When she asked where that point was, he told her to look it up. Next time, he added, the conversation would happen at the station.

This is Britain now. The question was never who wrote the post. The question is why a police officer is knocking on anyone’s door over one.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-police-warn-woman-over-unverified-social-media-post

The EU paid a “counter-disinformation” group more than €1 million, and that group just held a panel on why the United States is now a foreign information threat to Europe.

America earned the label by pushing back against the EU's online censorship laws.

The EU was embarrassed enough to peel its logo off the conference, but it kept writing the checks. These are the same people who flagged 40,000 real Twitter users as political operatives and built blacklists to starve websites of ad money. Now they want sympathy for a chilling effect. Yet, they've been selling the chill for years.

https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-funded-disinfolab-labels-us-fimi-threat

The British government is rolling out facial recognition eGates at 13 airports by early 2027 and selling it as a time-saver.

Using an eGate used to take 20 to 25 seconds, and the new system knocks five seconds off that.

Your face is photographed as you walk up and matched against passport photos the airlines have already handed to border control.

This is the same government building a digital ID it swears police won’t be able to search, while consulting on letting police search it.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-airports-facial-recognition-passport-checks

New York AG Letitia James is using newly unsealed TikTok allegations to push for age verification digital ID on everyone.

The complaint says TikTok gave some users a fake “Algo Refresh” button that did nothing. It also says safety features were withheld from more than 10 million users. The remedy James wants is to check every New Yorker’s age.

TikTok allegedly gave more than 28,000 users a “reset your feed” button that did nothing. New York’s Attorney General says the fix is age verification for everyone. The company is accused of lying about safety and the proposed punishment is a face scan or ID check for you.

https://reclaimthenet.org/letitia-james-tiktok-age-verification-rules

Apple chairman Tim Cook is backing the EU KIDS Act, which would bring app stores and operating systems into scope for age verification.

Age verification means identity verification. Under the KIDS Act, that check would happen at the device level, before anyone downloads an app.

Cook discussed the proposal with Ursula von der Leyen in New York. This week he told Roberta Metsola and MEPs that Apple was “very encouraged” by it. He also reportedly called Australia’s age verification rules “world-leading.”

The EU’s own age verification app was hacked in under two minutes in April, with scanned ID documents stored unencrypted.

https://reclaimthenet.org/tim-cook-backs-eu-kids-act-age-verification

Aaron Sorkin directed his own Facebook movie so it would come out just before the midterms. Its hero is Frances Haugen, who campaigned for higher social media age limits and praised the UK's online censorship law.

The film arrives as age verification digital ID checks spread everywhere. Meta has agreed to ID check or face scan every Facebook and Instagram user in 51 states and territories. Florida wants every user in the state age-checked within 30 days. The EU wants a state-certified credential before anyone can open a social media account.

Hollywood is selling the story while governments write the laws. Sorkin has made a two-hour advert for speech control and the ID checks it thinks you should need to access social media...

https://reclaimthenet.org/the-social-reckoning-wants-the-speech-referees-back

Florida’s attorney general is asking a court to make Meta verify the age of every Facebook and Instagram user in the state. Accounts of under-14s that fail to verify within 30 days get marked for deletion.

The motion goes further. It wants teen accounts to be subjected to a state-enforced lock-in to quiet mode from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. year-round, and during school hours on weekdays. It wants like counts hidden, autoplay and infinite scroll switched off, and a cap of 60 hours a month.

Last week it also asked a court to order OpenAI to build age verification for ChatGPT.

You cannot check teenagers without checking everyone. Every adult in Florida would have to hand over ID or a face scan to keep using these platforms and have access to speech.

https://reclaimthenet.org/florida-seeks-meta-age-checks-for-all-users

A French mayor wants to cut minors off from social media whenever the streets get tense. France’s highest administrative court already ruled that blocking TikTok in New Caledonia was illegal. The Constitutional Council struck down the under-15 ban in August as disproportionate. Every time France has trouble (which is often) someone reaches for the off switch.

https://reclaimthenet.org/france-mayor-calls-to-cut-minors-social-media-access

Google is challenging a Las Vegas police warrant that demands the identity of everyone who searched a set of keywords. The case involves the July killing of a homeless woman. The keywords, the number of people affected, and most other details are sealed.

Google calls it an illegal general warrant and says it is facially invalid under federal and state constitutional provisions.

The filing also revealed that Las Vegas and Henderson police have served Google with numerous reverse search warrants before. A gag order barred Google from telling the public for months.

Nevada has no law on reverse search warrants. No federal appellate court has ruled on whether keyword searches count as a search at all.

The first hearing is set for late October.

https://reclaimthenet.org/google-challenges-las-vegas-keyword-search-warrant

A federal judge in Oklahoma has ruled that a sheriff's deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by searching license plate reader databases without a warrant.

The deputy was parked by the highway when a Mazda SUV with California plates drove past. Judge Sara Hill said he followed it "for no apparent reason other than the fact that it had a California license plate." Before he pulled the driver over, he ran the plate through Flock and VehicleManager.

That search gave him more than 50 records of her movements across the country over a single month. He then used them to help justify searching her car, which turned up about 91 pounds of methamphetamine.

Hill suppressed all of it. She called the technology "a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance" and a "dragnet type law enforcement practice." She also wrote that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy on a public road, but that plate readers become "constitutionally problematic" when police can "indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period of time."

Other courts disagree. The Fifth Circuit ruled in March that periodic sightings of a car were not a search. A California federal court ruled that looking at eight photos of a car was not a search either.

https://reclaimthenet.org/license-plate-readers-mass-surveillance-ruling

A French court may fine Quad9 €580,000 for refusing to block pirate sites, and the Swiss privacy DNS resolver is now weighing a full exit from France.

beIN Sports wants €10,000 per day per domain across 58 domains. Quad9 says it has no legally useful way to tell who is a French user, so it can't block just them. Blocking for everyone would hand French courts jurisdiction over the whole internet.

OpenDNS already left France in 2024 over a similar order. Jurisdiction-specific blocking orders could push smaller and non-profit resolvers out of the market.

https://reclaimthenet.org/quad9-considers-leaving-france-over-website-blocking-order

A New Mexico jury found Meta liable for 43.9 million violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act. The state wants $35 to $40 billion.

About a quarter of those violations are for not removing "hate speech" and "misinformation" fast enough.

The state did not have to show anyone saw the statements or was harmed. It only had to show harm was likely. Then it multiplied the violations by the number of people in New Mexico.

Meta says it has a First Amendment right to manage its platforms as it sees fit. Fining a company for slow takedowns of lawful speech is pressure to take down more of it.

Remove faster, remove more, or pay by the head...

https://reclaimthenet.org/new-mexico-meta-fined-speech-violations

Speech Police UK: Four West Midlands officers turned up at the home of a 15-year-old, arrested him, and took his phone and laptop.

His offense was a set of Facebook posts about Conservative councillor Simon Bennett. One complained about shorts and sneakers at a scrutiny committee. Another had rabbit ears Photoshopped onto the councillor's photo. The boy was questioned, bailed, and banned from attending council meetings in Wolverhampton.

Police have not explained why it took four officers or why any turned up at all.

The Free Speech Union says there was plainly no offense and plans to sue for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. The councillor says the police thought it merited an arrest. Police then wonder why public trust keeps falling.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-police-arrest-teenager-over-councillor-mocking-posts

Minnesota passed a law that bans AI from making fake nudes of real people. Many support the law. But look at how the law is written. It exempts any tool that requires "technical skill." So if you paint the image by hand, you are fine. If you ask an AI to make the same image, you owe up to $500,000 per violation.

The law also covers shirtless men and swimmers. It has no exception for art, satire, journalism, or politics. It applies even when the person in the image said yes to it being made.

Now the Eighth Circuit has blocked it for xAI while the appeal plays out.

https://reclaimthenet.org/minnesota-nudification-law-xai-first-amendment

The UK government wants a passport, a driving license or a face scan before you can open a new social media account. This is the same country that arrests people over tweets. Britain has jailed people for what they posted online and now the state wants to know exactly who is behind every account before the first post goes up.

The ban covers Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X, and it is expected to start in spring 2027.

Discord already leaked government IDs after it introduced age checks. There is no reliable, privacy-preserving way to verify the age of every internet user. A pile of faces and passports linked to social media accounts is a gift to a government that prosecutes speech.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-social-media-passport-facial-age-checks

British Transport Police scanned the faces of 537,697 people at London railway stations over six months. The trial produced one alert, and that alert was false. It cost £320,786 ($424,000)

The police responded by extending the trial by four months and expanding the area. Since then, 926,912 people have been scanned in total. The system has made only three correct identifications, and every one of them ended with no action. The arrest column still reads zero.

The watchlist, meanwhile, has grown from 381 names to 862. Transport for London welcomed the expansion and said it would tackle violence against women and girls.

More than half of the police forces in England and Wales now scan faces in public, and every failed trial is treated as a reason to scan more of them.

https://reclaimthenet.org/british-transport-police-facial-recognition-zero-arrests

The music industry has asked the EU to add yt-dlp, an open source video downloader, to its Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List. IFPI's submission even names the volunteer developers who maintain it. It also wants Cloudflare, GoDaddy and Verisign on the list, because apparently the company running .com is now a piracy concern.

LaLiga has gone after NordVPN, ProtonVPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark over affiliate blogs it never names or links to. A Spanish court already threw out its last attempt to fine NordVPN.

The Commission insists the list makes no findings of legal violations. It just tells the world which lawful tools the entertainment industry would like to see gone...

https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-piracy-watch-list-targets-yt-dlp-vpn

Emmanuel Macron says American free speech is "the opposite of free speech." In his view, freedom only exists inside a "common framework" set by the state.

He compared posting an insult online to hitting someone in the street. Those are different things, because one is speech and the other is violence.

He wants people punished for posting "nonsense," with state-backed fact-checkers deciding what qualifies. He wants a verified identity behind every social media account. He has written to Ursula von der Leyen demanding the DSA be enforced "much faster, much more forcefully."

https://reclaimthenet.org/macron-urges-eu-faster-online-censorship

Emmanuel Macron says American free speech is "the opposite of free speech." In his view, freedom only exists inside a "common framework" set by the state.

He compared posting an insult online to hitting someone in the street. Those are different things, because one is speech and the other is violence.

He wants people punished for posting "nonsense," with state-backed fact-checkers deciding what qualifies. He wants a verified identity behind every social media account. He has written to Ursula von der Leyen demanding the DSA be enforced "much faster, much more forcefully."

https://reclaimthenet.org/macron-urges-eu-faster-online-censorship

Google's Android developer ID requirement is now live. Apps from unregistered developers are blocked on certified Android devices in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The rule goes global in 2027.

To register, developers hand Google a government ID, their legal name, address, email, and phone number. They also pay $25. This applies even if the app never touches Google Play.

Google says sideloading isn't going anywhere. F-Droid called that claim "clear, concise, and false." Users who want an unverified app now face ten steps, developer mode, several warning screens, and a 24 hour wait.

Google is clearly putting the squeeze on Android's openness.

https://reclaimthenet.org/google-android-developer-id-rules-brazil-indonesia-singapore

A body linked to the UK Home Office has been keeping files on people who criticize government programs online.

Between March 2024 and February 2025, the Prevent Standards and Compliance Unit logged 77 "observations" of critics. Most came from X, and some came from Reddit. Posts from or about groups like Hope Not Hate and Open Rights Group were also included.

The entries were filed as "open-source complaints" and stored internally. The unit also tried to independently verify the claims made in them.

The Home Office refused to release any of this. Rights & Security International won an appeal to the Information Commissioner's Office, and only then did the documents come out.

Nobody knows whether automated tools found the posts. Nobody knows who the data gets shared with. You should be able to criticize government policy without ending up in a file.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-prevent-unit-tracked-online-critics

India has now pulled BitChat from its App Store through Apple.

BitChat works over Bluetooth with no internet, no phone number and no account. That is exactly why Delhi wants it gone. In July the government shut down the network around Jantar Mantar, and protesters used BitChat to keep talking.

The government has now gone after the network, then the code on GitHub, and now the app store. Each step has been aimed at the same target, which is leaving people with no way to communicate when the internet is cut off.

Apple's notice says the app "includes content that is illegal in India" and never names any content. Apple simply complied.

https://reclaimthenet.org/apple-removes-bitchat-india-government-request

Reddit says it is ending RSS because scrapers abuse it. Reddit also licenses that same data for money.

Reddit is killing RSS on November 13, the public API in March 2027, and old Reddit now needs a login. Its non-ad revenue grew 24 percent to $43 million. Money is not the problem. The open web is just harder to sell than a licensing deal.

Reddit is not protecting the open web from scrapers. It is selling the open web to them, and everyone with a feed reader gets locked out of the sale.

https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-is-ending-rss-support-citing-scraping-and-abuse

Wyoming Committee Advances Bill Against Foreign Censorship Enforcement

https://reclaimthenet.org/wyoming-bill-blocks-foreign-censorship-enforcement

AUSTRALIA: NSW police can now demand your phone and your password, and the state just handed them A$15 million to crack whatever they can't talk you out of.

The same bill turns your driver’s license photo into a national biometric record. Toll cameras may now photograph the driver and every passenger, including children.

The government's own scrutiny committee warned the bill gives officials too much discretion over people's privacy. Parliament passed it anyway.

https://reclaimthenet.org/nsw-driver-license-photos-national-biometric-database

Rand Paul just blocked the Senate from passing KOSA by unanimous consent. It was the fourth attempt in four years.

The Senate bill never says "age verification." It says platforms must prevent harms to minors and can be held liable if a reasonable person would have known a user was a minor. The only safe way to avoid that liability is to check everyone.

The House version skips the guessing. It requires age verification for every user, and it passed 267 to 117.

The Senate bill also orders a study on verifying age at the device or operating system level. Meta dropped its opposition once the bill was paired with a federal ban on state AI laws and a digital ID push.

Both versions lead to the same place, which is an ID check for the whole internet.

https://reclaimthenet.org/rand-paul-blocks-kosa-fast-track-approval

Age verification (digital ID) laws are spreading fast and most people have no idea what's already on the books near them.

We mapped every bill, state by state.

See what's passed, what's pending, and who wants to introduce ID checks for internet access.

We also have a global map so you can see the threats all around the world and map the co-ordinated effort to end privacy online...

https://reclaimthenet.org/age-verification-map https://blossom.primal.net/3748f7e47c41d212ce5a4b54148a8c29de2a9e3291f73722d9b9e86d67acf459.jpg

Florida's Attorney General has asked a court to order OpenAI to install "a robust and effective age verification system" on ChatGPT.

The motion also wants a say over how future AI models are built and how the company talks about its own product.

The stated goal is protecting children. The actual outcome is that every adult who wants to use a chatbot has to prove who they are first. OpenAI is unlikely to put up much of a fight. It already responded to pressure and has been building systems that guess your age by tracking how you behave...

https://reclaimthenet.org/florida-seeks-court-order-requiring-age-verification-for-chatgpt

Senate GRANITE Act Targets Foreign Censorship Demands

https://reclaimthenet.org/granite-act-targets-foreign-censorship-demands

Thirty Leaders Want a Global Referee for AI

https://reclaimthenet.org/thirty-leaders-want-a-global-referee-for-ai

Alabama just settled its lawsuit against TikTok, days before the first state jury trial against the platform was due to start.

The deal is sold as protection for teenagers. There is a two-hour daily cap, a curfew from midnight to 6 a.m., pop-up interruptions after 15 minutes, and a ban on beauty filters.

None of that works unless TikTok knows who is a teenager. So the settlement requires "robust age assurance," and it applies to everyone. Every adult in Alabama who opens the app is now in line for an age check.

The Attorney General calls it a great day for parents. It is also a great day for anyone who wanted ID checks on social media without having to pass a law...

https://reclaimthenet.org/tiktok-alabama-age-verification-settlement

Bernie Sanders’ AI Bill Turns Software Into a State Permission

https://reclaimthenet.org/bernie-sanders-ai-licensing-bill

Senator Chris Murphy Wants Government to Regulate Your Time Online

https://reclaimthenet.org/chris-murphy-government-internet-regulation

Washington Challenges Brussels’ Authority Over X

https://reclaimthenet.org/washington-challenges-brussels-authority-over-x

Utah Court Blocks Key Provision of State Age Verification and VPN Law

https://reclaimthenet.org/utah-court-blocks-key-provision-of-state-age-verification-and-vpn-law

Newsom Wants an AI Kill Switch. Who Gets the Keys?

https://reclaimthenet.org/newsom-wants-an-ai-kill-switch-who-gets-the-keys

At the Clinton Global Initiative, “AI Safety” Comes for Open Source

https://reclaimthenet.org/hugging-face-open-source-ai-defends-against-openai-attack

Von der Leyen is pushing under-13 social media bans and restricted accounts for under-15s. Macron wants AI brought into the same system. Spain is already tying age verification to the EU digital ID. Australia has gone to under-16.

The rules differ, but the direction is the same: digital ID becomes the plumbing for proving who you are before you can use more of the internet.

https://reclaimthenet.org/world-leaders-global-internet-age-verification-controls

New York’s AI law is starting to look less like basic safety regulation and more like an ongoing system of state control.

Hochul has already gone after social media algorithms, backing laws that restrict how platforms can serve algorithmic feeds to those who haven't shown digital ID.

AI developers will have to register with the state, publish safety protocols, report incidents and provide regular disclosures. A new state office will oversee compliance, and Hochul says New York may eventually explore AI “kill switches.”

The state wants registration, recurring disclosures, mandatory incident reports, fees, a new enforcement bureaucracy and Hochul is already talking about possible AI “kill switches.”

Call it safety if you want. It’s also a major expansion of government control over how AI companies operate.

https://reclaimthenet.org/kathy-hochul-wants-more-control-over-ai

Court Rules Your Phone Is Fair Game at the US Border

https://reclaimthenet.org/border-phone-searches-need-no-warrant

Hopefully, governments forcing people to show ID just to get online might end up being the biggest push towards open source and decentralization we’ve seen.

People will just host their own instances with no third party to hand your ID to, or a company deciding whether you’re allowed to speak.

The more they try to control this stuff, the more reason people have to build things they can’t control.

California is laying the groundwork for an AI “kill switch.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed an executive order accelerating plans for AI oversight, including proposals that could require frontier AI labs to install independently verified kill switches and put outside auditors inside their labs.

By 2027, California plans to have an official registry of approved AI auditors.

It echoes a familiar debate around online speech: controls introduced in the name of “safety” can also create powerful new gatekeepers with authority over what people can build, publish, and access.

https://reclaimthenet.org/newsom-wants-an-ai-kill-switch-who-gets-the-keys

A federal court says cops can search license plate camera databases without it counting as a Fourth Amendment search.

The reasoning here is basically that 8 photos isn’t enough to build a detailed picture of someone’s movements.

But Culver City’s cameras collect 18 million photos a month, and there’s no way to opt out.

https://reclaimthenet.org/alpr-queries-not-fourth-amendment-searches

As if the downward slide of the state of free speech in the UK wasn't moving fast enough, now there’s a proposal that would make government permission a condition of operating a social media platform.

No Ofcom license = No platform.

A new Private Member’s Bill would let speech regulator Ofcom license social media platforms, impose conditions, demand action against “materially harmful” or “false or misleading” content, and revoke the license.

And here’s where the free speech implications get serious: the same regulator issuing the license would wield enormous power over what platforms are expected to restrict or remove.

Lose the license and a court could order ISPs to block the platform across the UK.

Operate without one? Up to 2 years in prison.

This has only had its first reading and is not law. But the idea is now formally on the table: social media platforms needing a government regulator’s permission to operate in Britain.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-social-media-ofcom-licensing-bill-heres-lords

The UK is pushing surveillance to an extreme, targeting encryption through secret orders while keeping the public in the dark.

The UK government won’t confirm or deny ordering Apple to secretly backdoor iCloud, even though the order has been publicly reported, officials have effectively acknowledged it, and Apple is fighting it in court.

Now a lawyer has called the secrecy stance “farcical.”

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-governments-apple-icloud-backdoor-secrecy-called-farcical-in-court

Spain Orders Blocks On Archive Today And Its Mirrors

https://reclaimthenet.org/spain-blocks-archive-today-and-mirrors

EU’s Social Media Ban Could Bring ID Checks for Adults

https://reclaimthenet.org/eus-social-media-ban-could-bring-id-checks-for-adults

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to end online anonymity.

Asked what a real-name mandate would mean for whistleblowers and investigative journalists, he didn’t address the journalism question.

Instead he said: “Please, nobody come to me with 'free speech.'”

https://reclaimthenet.org/merz-end-online-anonymity-real-names

German customs made account cloning a permanent surveillance tool in August 2025, a leaked directive shows. It lets investigators read messenger chats without installing spyware. The government refused to tell a lawmaker how often it was used, even confidentially.

https://reclaimthenet.org/german-customs-made-secret-messenger-surveillance-permanent

Australia says its new “Digital Duty of Care” bill is about giving users more control over their feeds.

Ultimately though, it builds the infrastructure for much broader online censorship.

The draft would cover social media, messaging, search, games, app stores, ISPs and AI, with fines up to A$109.2M.

And the government could expand what counts as “harmful” content later.

“More control” for users or more control for the state?

https://reclaimthenet.org/australia-wants-to-remake-the-internet-in-the-name-of-safety

Macron’s under-15 social media ban was struck down in France as unconstitutional.

His response is to try to get the EU to impose it across the entire bloc instead.

But you can’t reliably ban under-15s without checking everyone’s age.

So a “kids’ safety” law quickly becomes a digital ID check for every user.

https://reclaimthenet.org/macron-eu-under-15-social-media-ban

Revolut didn’t get “hacked.”

It handed customers’ IDs, addresses, account numbers, transaction histories, selfies and more to an unauthorized third party after receiving a fake government request.

That’s the real KYC problem: once companies are forced to collect your most sensitive data, you’re trusting them to protect it for years.

More ID checks = more leaks.

Yet, governments are constantly pushing for more ID checks to access basic aspects of daily life, like social media...

https://reclaimthenet.org/revolut-leak-shows-the-cost-of-constant-id-collection

Australia’s censorship creep just found a new target: parliamentary scrutiny.

Top bureaucrats now want limits on MPs posting clips of officials testifying at PUBLIC hearings, including restrictions on edits, captions, even comments.

In other words: “You can scrutinize us. Just don’t let the public see it.”

https://reclaimthenet.org/australia-parliament-social-media-evidence-restrictions

California just made age verification the price of using basic internet features.

Under new laws signed by Gavin Newsom, adults may have to prove they’re adults to unlock personalized feeds, autoplay, and unrestricted AI chatbots.

“Protect the children” is becoming “verify everyone.”

https://reclaimthenet.org/california-age-verification-laws-internet-gates

Foreign governments want to censor Americans on US soil. Rep. Warren Davidson just introduced a bill to hit back.

The HOMEFRONT Act would: • Block enforcement of foreign censorship orders • Stop US agencies from helping foreign censors • Let Americans sue them for $25K

The bill follows growing concern over regulators like Britain’s Ofcom trying to pressure US companies over speech that is legal in America.

https://reclaimthenet.org/homefront-act-challenges-foreign-censorship-orders

Britain arrested at least 62,199 people in five years under laws covering what people say online or over the phone.

18,510 were charged. 12,292 convicted.

And depending on where you lived, your chances of being arrested could vary by 43x.

Free speech in Britain is under severe and growing threat.

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-police-arrested-62-199-people-over-online-speech-in-five-years

The US just warned Britain not to rig social media feeds in favor of “government-preferred media.”

The UK is considering rules that would force social media platforms to make approved news outlets more prominent in users’ feeds.

That would be the government deciding which media should get algorithmic priority, while everyone else gets pushed further down...

https://reclaimthenet.org/us-warns-uk-over-promoting-government-preferred-media

New Hampshire State Rep. @cantbesilentcal has filed a proposal for a New Hampshire GRANITE Act...a bill that would bar state courts, agencies, and officials from helping enforce foreign censorship orders against speech protected in the US.

If enacted, foreign governments could still act within their own jurisdictions, but they wouldn’t be able to use New Hampshire’s legal machinery to enforce censorship judgments, fines, or demands targeting constitutionally protected speech.

The proposal is part of a bigger push for similar “foreign censorship shield” laws in states including Wyoming and West Virginia, alongside a federal GRANITE Act in Congress.

Beaulier’s wants to make New Hampshire a “granite fortress of free speech.”

https://reclaimthenet.org/new-hampshire-granite-act-shields-protected-speech

Tennessee’s social media "age-check" digital ID law just got knocked back.

The Sixth Circuit tossed the lower court’s ruling and sent the case back, saying the threat of enforcement can itself chill speech.

It's not over yet, but it's a real setback for the law.

https://reclaimthenet.org/sixth-circuit-reopens-tennessee-digital-id-challenge

Governments keep pushing ID checks everywhere, and now 153M+ driver’s license scans are being sold on the dark web.

Maybe laws forcing ID checks aren't such a great idea...🙄

https://reclaimthenet.org/idscan-net-breach-exposes-millions-id-documents

Missouri Online ID Law Requires Adults to Verify Their Age Online

https://reclaimthenet.org/missouri-online-id-law-requires-adults-to-verify-their-age-online

Pennsylvania Sues Snapchat Over Lack of Age Verification

https://reclaimthenet.org/pennsylvania-sues-snapchat-over-age-verification

Federal GRANITE Act Targets Foreign Censorship Orders in US

https://reclaimthenet.org/granite-act-targets-foreign-censorship-orders

Brazil Wants Discord to Pay $97 Million and Expand Age Verification Digital ID

https://reclaimthenet.org/brazil-sues-discord-over-age-verification

Senate Probes Flock Safety Over 20 Billion Vehicle Scans

https://reclaimthenet.org/senate-probes-flock-safety-vehicle-surveillance

AG Blanche's Warning Points Straight at Age Verification Checks

https://reclaimthenet.org/todd-blanche-age-verification-warning

Ken Paxton's new data center plan would make operators criminally liable if the servers they run "empower AI chatbots that undermine children's safety."

Data centers only provide power, space, and cooling. They don't produce the speech. Punishing them for it pushes liability past Section 230 and onto the hardware.

Faced with criminal liability over a term as vague as "undermine children's safety," operators won't defend anyone. They'll drop the customers and platforms hosting lawful speech rather than risk prison over it.

The platforms that survive will hand users digital ID age verification, because checking everyone's papers is the cheapest way to legally prove no child was ever there.

https://reclaimthenet.org/ken-paxton-data-center-criminal-liability-ai-chatbots-child-safety

This is what a bad day for free speech and privacy looks like.

Meta's $17 billion settlement with the states is all over the news today, and almost every story is about teen screen limits and beauty filters.

It feels like barely anyone has read the actual judgment, which requires every adult user to give up their privacy just to get online, orders Meta to get better at surveilling you and linking your accounts together, and Meta has even waived the right to argue any of it is unconstitutional.

https://reclaimthenet.org/the-meta-settlement-what-it-means-for-speech-and-privacy

Report: AliExpress Caught Fingerprinting Users Through Hidden Audio

https://reclaimthenet.org/aliexpress-hidden-audio-fingerprinting

Court Backs DMCA Takedown of Public Meeting Videos

https://reclaimthenet.org/court-backs-dmca-takedown-public-meeting-videos

Newsom Signs Content Takedown Law Following Nick Shirley Investigations

https://reclaimthenet.org/newsom-signs-stop-nick-shirley-act

This month, Brazil's data regulator ordered Discord to switch off live video. Discord complied under threat of a R$50 ($9.71) million fine.

Federal prosecutors have now opened an inquiry into its age verification and end-to-end encryption.

Watch the sequence:

Tragedy → emergency feature ban → R$50M fine threat → "just tell us how your encryption works"

A tragic case involving a 13-year-old is becoming the justification for weakening privacy for everyone.

https://reclaimthenet.org/brazil-prosecutors-probe-discord-encryption-age-checks

Court: First Amendment Protects Recording Police in Public

https://reclaimthenet.org/second-circuit-first-amendment-right-record-police-public-qualified-immunity

Meta Trial Opens as States Demand Age Verification

https://reclaimthenet.org/meta-trial-opens-as-states-demand-age-verification

Google Wins Spirit Airlines Data Auction for $10 Million

https://reclaimthenet.org/google-wins-spirit-airlines-data-auction

Brazil Regulator Bans Discord Live Video Features

https://reclaimthenet.org/brazil-regulator-bans-discord-live-video-features

New Jersey wants to set the hours when an app is allowed to send your child a notification. Nothing between 10pm and 6am, nothing between 8am and 4pm on school days.

Whether a phone can buzz on a Saturday night used to be a question for parents. New Jersey thinks it's a question for the state.

https://reclaimthenet.org/new-jersey-kids-code-act-draws-first-amendment-warning

X Wins Australian Case Over Private Message Scanning Rule

https://reclaimthenet.org/x-wins-australian-case-over-private-message-scanning-rule

Report: British Groups Push Age Verification Bills in 21 US States

https://reclaimthenet.org/report-british-groups-push-age-verification-bills-in-21-us-states

Flock told Norman's council the town would attract criminals if it didn't buy license plate readers. The council voted it down anyway. Then the county sheriff signed a $60,000 renewal for 20 cameras and put them in regardless.

https://reclaimthenet.org/norman-oklahoma-flock-license-plate-readers-county-sheriff

California published its proposed rules for proving you're not a child. Among the approved methods: facial analysis, hand-gesture or gait patterns, vocal analysis, or a government ID. That could mean a camera at your face, a microphone at your voice, or uploading a government ID just to speak online. The state is facing a legal challenge.

https://reclaimthenet.org/california-digital-id-age-law-faces-platform-appeal

Gallego's new bill tells platforms to take "reasonable steps" to work out which users are children. It never says how. The duty kicks in when a platform "knows or should know" a user is under 16, and there's no way to know that without carding everyone...

https://reclaimthenet.org/ruben-gallego-social-media-bill-gives-ftc-authority-over-age-verification-methods

An "elite" UK police squad has spent six months watching social media posts. 106 posts referred to local forces but half of them were in June alone, the month public anger at the police ran hottest. They won't say which posts and they never tell the person they flagged.

https://reclaimthenet.org/britains-elite-speech-monitoring-squad-has-flagged-106-posts