A whopping 800,000 people registered to vote for National Voter Registration Day.

But Congress and state governments still have not taken the recommended measures to increase security in the midterm elections. <thread> eff.org/deeplinks/2018… At this year’s @defcon, researchers evaluated a voting machine that’s used in 18 different states. They demonstrated how easy it is to gain admin access, which lets someone change settings—or even the ballot—in under two minutes. defcon.org/images/defcon-…

When @mcsweeneys editors approached EFF earlier this year about collaborating on a surveillance & privacy-themed essay collection, we jumped at the opportunity.

The first all non-fiction issue of Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern debuts this November: eff.org/deeplinks/2018… “The End of Trust” features writing by EFF’s team, including Executive Director Cindy Cohn, @maassive, Soraya Okuda, @doctorow, and board member @schneierblog, exploring issues related to surveillance, freedom of information, and encryption. eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

A group of organizations, advocates, and academics—including @EFF—came together in February to create the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation. We're happy to announce that the Principles now have a permanent home:santaclaraprinciples.org The Principles set a minimum standard for transparency and accountability for communications platforms, and should serve as a basis for more in-depth dialogue and activism going forward. santaclaraprinciples.org

Anyone looking to make changes to how online platforms police speech should learn lessons from the failures of using copyright to do the same. Here are five major takeaways from the copyright wars: eff.org/deeplinks/2018… 1. Mistakes will be made. The law gives huge incentives to platforms to take things down after getting a complaint, leading people seeing their work disappear due to fraudulent takedown notices. Content moderation policies have and will make similar errors.eff.org/takedowns

On Monday, a federal court dismissed our lawsuit against the Justice Department to block enforcement of #FOSTA. (1/5) eff.org/deeplinks/2018… The case was filed on behalf of two human rights organizations, a digital library, an activist for sex workers, and a certified massage therapist. The court did not reach the merits of any of the constitutional issues, but instead found the plaintiffs did not have standing. (2/5)

In 2014, we launched Onlinecensorship.org (@censored) to collect reports from users who had experienced content takedowns on social media, in an effort to encourage companies to operate with greater transparency and accountability as they make decisions that regulate speech. Today, we're relaunching the site with a fresh new look! We're still collecting reports from users, but going forward, @censored will be home to more resources for users, journalists reporting on content moderation, and companies.

Great question! EFF is fighting for more high speed ISP competition across the U.S:


First, we’re asking the FCC to deny AT&T's and Verizon’s petition to give them a further chokehold on Internet access choice. eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

https://twitter.com/noxtics/status/1042092485735067650

Second, we’re working to tell Congress to restore the Open Internet order so that consumers can go where they want online, including to new websites and services that don’t have the deep pockets to pay for fast lanes to reach users. You can join us: eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

For International Day Against DRM (#IDAD), we wanted to share some exceptionally absurd stories of how #DRM makes the lives of legitimate users worse. (1/11) DRM can stop us from learning whether or not security vulnerabilities exist in all sorts of popular devices that we own—from cameras to TVs to Internet-connected toys. #IDAD eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

The Commerce Committee is about to host a consumer privacy hearing, but consumer privacy groups aren’t invited.
Why not?

Because this hearing may be the launch pad for a strategy of adopting weak federal laws that eviscerate strong state laws. <Thread>
eff.org/deeplinks/2018… Remember when Equifax was forced to tell us that they compromised the data of 145.5 million Americans?

That was a California law that could be preempted by a weaker federal law. eff.org/deeplinks/2017…

Eman Al-Nafjan is a Saudi Arabian professor, blogger, activist, and a key figure in the movement to end the decades-old women driving ban.

She was arrested along with over a dozen women’s rights advocates while filming a female driver breaking the ban. eff.org/offline/eman-a… The government said the women sought to "destabilize the kingdom and breach its social structure and mar the national consistency."

Each could be sentenced for up to 20 years, their locations are unknown, and they have not been allowed access to lawyers. apnews.com/f123b286992244…

Today Members of the European Parliament adopted three terrible proposals in the new #CopyrightDirective and rejected every good one, setting the stage for mass, automated surveillance and arbitrary censorship of the Internet. (1/6) eff.org/deeplinks/2018… #Article13: the Copyright Filters. All but the smallest platforms will have to defensively adopt copyright filters that examine everything you post, and censor anything judged to be a copyright infringement. (2/6) eff.org/deeplinks/2018…

Red alert: On Wednesday, the EU votes on #Article13—a disastrous proposal that would require websites to filter and censor uploaded content.

These #CensorshipMachines would break the Internet as we know it, and we have to stop them. <Thread> eff.org/deeplinks/2018… We aren’t alone in the fight. Artists, websites, technologists, and more are up in arms about this looming Internet catastrophe.

@WordPress, @Kickstarter, @Patreon, @Shapeways, @Bandcamp, all say no to #article13 engine.is/news/category/…

Blogger and technologist Ahmed Mansoor has fought against oppression & for digital rights in the United Arab Emirates for over a decade.

In 2018—after a year in solitary confinement—he was given a 10 year sentence for spreading "false information" online. eff.org/offline/ahmed-… Mansoor was one of the first to highlight attacks on free expression on the Emirati Internet.

When UAE news and discussion site majan.net was shut down and its owner and a contributor was arrested in 2006, Mansoor organized a successful campaign to free them.

This is a perfect time for a digital security refresh: ensure you and your friends' privacy is protected! eff.org/deeplinks/2018… If you’re a regular user of a public computer, like at the school library or lab, keep in mind that public computers can remember information from your logins. Adding two-factor authentication to your accounts is a great way to bolster your security. eff.org/deeplinks/2016…

Amal Fathy is an Egyptian activist who was arrested for posting an online video about her sexual harassment.

In response, Fathy received threats and calls for her arrest — and has been detained for months without trial.
eff.org/offline/amal-f… Fathy has remained in pre-trial detention as the government has stacked ever more absurd charges against her, including “broadcasting a video on social media to incite the overthrow of the Egyptian government,” and “misuse of social media.” amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

Concerned about social media companies and free speech? The debate over content moderation is much bigger than Alex Jones & Infowars.

Thread. washingtonpost.com/opinions/bewar… We should remember the thousands of other decisions made by online giants including Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Spotify, and more that have silenced other voices. /2

This week we'll be at @BlackHatEvents, @BSidesLV , and @defcon in Las Vegas! Here's what we're up to and where you can find us at each conference. eff.org/events August 7th-8th, we'll be at BSides, where you can catch some great information security talks and stop by the EFF table to learn about the latest news in the digital freedom movement.: eff.org/event/eff-bsid…

Attackers recently accessed Reddit's internal systems, including some users' current email addresses and old salted and hashed passwords.

This is a good reminder for everyone to use unique passphrases and activate 2FA on all their accounts.

reddit.com/r/announcement… "Diceware" passwords are easy for you to remember, and hard for computers to guess. Start here to create strong, unique passphrases for each of your accounts. ssd.eff.org/en/module/anim…

Big ISPs told @repdonyoung of Alaska that rural Internet users are better off without #NetNeutrality, so he's backed away from a verbal commitment he gave to support it.

But as we've said before: the 2015 Open Internet Order is good for broadband deployment. And big ISPs have specifically told shareholders that net neutrality did not affect their investment into infrastructure.

arstechnica.com/information-te…

Protect yourself from bad luck (and worse) both online and offline this #Fridaythe13th with these seven tips from our Surveillance Self-Defense guide! ssd.eff.org If you’re unlucky enough to have a device stolen, you can (and should) make it harder for those who physically steal your data to unlock its secrets. #Fridaythe13th
ssd.eff.org/en/module/keep…

As a big thank you for some of EFF's legal work, the designers of some of the most famous logos in the world offered to remake the EFF logo pro bono. We hope you like it.

There's a good story behind how this logo came about. <Thread> Technology has changed a lot in the last 28 years. We aren't changing—but we agreed that a refresh was a good idea. Here’s how it happened: eff.org/deeplinks/2018…