If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) has intensified demands for testimony from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. The committee’s focus spans content takedown mandates that reach beyond Australia’s borders, demands for online age verification and digital ID, and efforts to suppress VPN use to bypass government controls. Jordan initially invited Grant to testify in a November 18, 2025, letter, centered on eSafety’s global takedown orders and her role in an international roundtable at Stanford University, where foreign officials coordinated strategies for policing online speech. Grant declined to appear by the December 2 deadline. Jordan followed up with a second letter on December 30, urging her again to cooperate voluntarily and warning that “the Committee may have to consider, if necessary, additional steps to obtain compliance with our request.” We obtained a copy of the letter for you here. While the letter stops short of explicitly announcing a subpoena, the implications are clear. If Grant remains uncooperative, Congress may compel her testimony through legal process. Failure to comply with a subpoena could trigger contempt proceedings. The expanded December letter broadens the scope of Jordan’s inquiry. It accuses eSafety of pressuring US companies to implement compliance systems aligned with Australia’s Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, which prohibits users under 16 from maintaining social media accounts. Grant is also alleged to have urged these companies to take action against VPNs that could allow people to evade digital ID restrictions. Jordan’s committee has also obtained newly redacted documents that he says reveal eSafety “harassed American companies ahead of the implementation” of the age verification mandate. The letter points to legal precedent in US law supporting congressional power to compel testimony from American citizens living abroad. In footnote 17, Jordan cites the 1932 Supreme Court decision Blackmer v. United States, where a US citizen residing in France was found guilty of contempt after refusing to respond to a subpoena. The Court affirmed that US citizens overseas remain bound by federal obligations, including lawful orders to testify. Though Grant is an Australian official, she is also a US citizen. The letter suggests that the committee may invoke Blackmer to enforce compliance, despite her current position abroad. The reference to contempt was not made directly, but the legal framework was laid out with clear intent. Australia’s Online Safety Amendment Act is part of a wider regulatory push by the eSafety Commissioner’s office, which has been given authority to issue global takedown orders to digital platforms. These orders can compel companies to remove content deemed harmful, even if hosted or viewed outside Australia. Jordan and other members of Congress are raising concerns that such policies risk exporting foreign censorship standards to American companies and users, particularly when regulators in other democracies coordinate their enforcement efforts. The issue is not merely about age restrictions or illegal content, but about the jurisdictional reach of foreign law over digital platforms that operate globally. Grant has pushed back on claims that her agency is censoring American users, asserting that her focus is limited to protecting children and ensuring online safety in Australia. She has indicated she may respond in writing rather than testifying in person. The Judiciary Committee’s investigation is part of a larger oversight effort into how foreign governments pressure or influence US-based platforms to censor speech or alter service design. Jordan has emphasized that Congress has a duty to examine whether international regulatory actions are infringing on constitutionally protected rights or compelling American firms to adopt foreign speech standards. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Jim Jordan Turns Up the Heat on Australia’s Online Speech Regulator appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. French lawmakers are preparing a renewed push to limit children’s online exposure, unveiling a proposal that would block anyone under 15 from using social media platforms. The draft legislation, reviewed by AFP, sets September 2026 as the target date for enforcement. President Emmanuel Macron has endorsed the plan and urged Parliament to take it up. France’s effort follows a similar move in Australia, which recently became the first country to impose an outright ban on under-16s accessing social media. To apply such a rule, online platforms would need to verify every user’s age at sign-up or login. This would go far beyond the current model of self-declared birthdays and instead rely on official credentials such as national IDs, driver’s licenses, or government-backed digital identity wallets. In effect, it would introduce a form of digital ID into everyday internet use. The United Kingdom has moved in the same direction under its Online Safety Act. The law obliges many digital platforms to check users’ ages before allowing them to see certain types of content, with age-assurance providers emerging as a new industry. These systems often function as digital IDs, determining what users can access online based on proof of identity or verified age. The European Union is developing a coordinated version of this model. The Digital Services Act encourages platforms to adopt “effective age assurance” for minors, while the European Commission is advancing plans for an EU Digital Identity Wallet. This wallet, expected to roll out across member states in 2027, could allow citizens to confirm their age for online access and other services. Though marketed as privacy-preserving, it still centralizes personal identity data across both public and private sectors. In the United States, a growing number of states are taking their own approach. Several have passed or proposed laws that compel social media companies to verify users’ ages and secure parental consent before minors can open accounts. While there is no nationwide policy, these state laws effectively build local versions of digital identity systems tied to online access. Other countries are following suit. New Zealand has proposed similar legislation to bar under-16s from joining social networks unless platforms can verify their age, modeled closely on the Australian example. From a privacy standpoint, these moves share a common consequence: they link identity verification to ordinary online behavior. Digital IDs, even when designed with safety in mind, create centralized points of control and data collection. Once personal credentials are required for social media, streaming, or gaming platforms, the result is a system that could track, categorize, and store information about individuals’ online activity. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post France Plans 2026 Ban on Social Media for Under-15s, Advancing EU-Wide Digital ID Approach appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

The State of New York has finally solved the riddle of the digital age: the problem isn’t poverty, education, or infrastructure. It’s scrolling. On Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul signed S4505/A5346, a law that treats your Instagram feed like a carton of Marlboros. Every social media company operating in New York must now display government-written health warnings when users log on, scroll, or so much as glance at a like button. Become a Member and Keep Reading… Reclaim your digital freedom. Get the latest on censorship, cancel culture, and surveillance, and learn how to fight back. Join Already a supporter? Sign In. (If you’re already logged in but still seeing this, refresh this page to show the post.) The post The First Amendment Meets the Scroll Police appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Greek mythology is often remembered as a tapestry of tragic male heroes, feuding gods, and fantastical quests. But one myth stands apart – a story powered not by a thirst for glory, but by the fierce, unyielding love of a mother for her daughter. In History Hit’s new documentary, Divine Fury: Demeter and Persephone – How a Mother’s Love Made the Seasons, acclaimed classicist Natalie Haynes explores the enduring legacy of this ancient tale – one of the Greeks’ most powerful and enduring myths. It is a story of love, loss, rage, and transformation that brought the mortal world to the brink of ruin and, ultimately, gave the Greeks an explanation for the very rhythm of the seasons. Sign up to watch The Abduction Episode 1: ‘Abduction’ sees the start of the story – and a kidnapping. Hades, the dark Lord of the Underworld, emerged from the earth to snatch the young goddess Persephone while she was gathering flowers. It was an act of divine sanctioned theft; Persephone’s own father, Zeus, had secretly given Hades permission to take her as his bride. However, Hades made a catastrophic error: he forgot about Persephone’s mother, Demeter. As the goddess of agriculture and the Earth’s fertility, Demeter was one of the most powerful Olympian deities. When her daughter vanished, her grief quickly curdled into a terrifying fury. Natalie Haynes explains that for the ancient Greeks, this wasn’t just a bedtime story; it mirrored the traumatic reality of marriage customs, where young girls (often only 14 years old) were abruptly removed from their families to live as strangers in a new home. She talks to classicist Dr Daisy Dunn to explore what marriage meant for women in ancient Greece, and how the story of Persephone helped girls prepare for this transition.  Dr Daisy Dunn shows Natalie Haynes some ancient artefacts depicting Persephone on the eve of her marriageImage Credit: History Hit Tracing the “Homeric Hymn” To unravel the layers of this myth, Natalie turns to a miraculous survival of ancient literature: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter – investigating how this myth mirrored the lives of people in Ancient Greece. Lost for centuries, a manuscript of the poem was famously rediscovered in a Russian farmhouse in 1777. Though written down in the 7th or 6th centuries BC, the hymn preserves an even older oral tradition. Natalie’s journey takes her from the British Museum to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, where she examines the dual nature of these goddesses. Demeter is depicted as a figure of maternal tenderness but also of world-ending power. Meanwhile, Persephone evolves from Kore (the innocent girl) to the “Red Queen,” the formidable and dreaded co-ruler of the Underworld. History Hit crew filming in Athens The desolation of the earth As Demeter searched for her daughter, she refused to eat, wash, or return to Mount Olympus. She wandered the earth in the guise of an old woman, eventually finding rest at the Kallichoron well in Eleusis. Natalie visits the ruins of the sanctuary at Eleusis, where myth and reality coincide. It was here that Demeter was welcomed into the home of King Celeus. However, because she was in mourning, she rejected the finest hospitality, only finding a brief moment of respite when a servant named Iambe coaxed a laugh from her with audacious jokes. But Demeter’s sorrow could not be contained by mortal kindness. In her rage, she made the “all-nourishing land” barren. For a civilisation where 4 out of 5 people were farmers, this was a story that played into their deepest fears. Crops withered, sheep perished, and the human race faced extinction. Crucially for the gods, the smoke of animal sacrifices stopped rising to Olympus. It was this – the hunger of the gods – that finally forced Zeus to intervene. History Hit filming on the River Acheron The descent to the ‘River of Woe’ To understand Persephone’s imprisonment, Natalie travels to the rugged mountains of Epirus and the River Acheron, one of the mythical rivers of the Underworld, known to the ancients as the “River of Woe.” Legend says the ferryman Charon transported souls across these waters to Hades’ realm. Natalie Haynes and some of the History Hit production crew on the River Acheron Natalie explores the Necromanteion of Acheron, a site where the living once spoke to the dead. Accompanied by expert Dr Tobias Myers, she descends into underground chambers where ancient pilgrims may have used hallucinogens and blood sacrifices to communicate with the spirits below. “For the Greeks,” Natalie notes, “myth was simply history that happened long ago.” The geography of the underworld wasn’t abstract; it was mapped onto real-world spots like these dark, vaulted ruins. Production shot of Dr. Tobias Myers talking to Natalie Haynes about the Necromanteion of AcheronImage Credit: History Hit The great mystery remains Persephone remained languishing in the dark, but the earth could not survive without Demeter’s favour. Is Persephone doomed to spend eternity in the shadows, or can a mother’s love force the gates of hell to open? The dramatic conclusion of the myth – and the birth of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most secret and sacred religious rites of the ancient world – awaits in the next chapter of our journey. Episode 1: ‘Abduction’ is available now. Episode 2: ‘The Mystery’ will be released on 15 January 2026. Sign up to watch

Happy New Year from all of us at History Hit! A new year is a blank page in the history books, and we’re ready to fill it. We have a packed slate of original programming coming up in 2026. Here’s a sneak preview of what you can expect – we can’t wait to share it with you: Meanwhile, why not snuggle up on the sofa, finish off that selection box, and binge-watch some of our carefully chosen documentaries to help ease you into the new year while learning something new: Catch up on our full 2025 on History Hit collection now.

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