If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A Florida federal court has summoned Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to respond to an anti-censorship lawsuit filed by Rumble and Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social. Moraes has 21 days to mount a defense. If he doesn’t, the case moves forward without him and a default judgment becomes a real possibility. The summons was served by email on May 24, 2026, after the court authorized that method two days earlier. The email went to two addresses tied to Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), one of which had previously been used in communications with Rumble. Martin De Luca, the Boies Schiller Flexner partner representing both companies, posted the summons document on X, writing: “Today, pursuant to an order from a U.S. federal court, Rumble and Trump Media served Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes by email. Summons attached.” Getting to this point took over a year. Rumble and TMTG first sued Moraes in February 2025, in the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, arguing that his censorship orders violated the First Amendment and were unenforceable on American soil. Neither company has any entities, operations, employees, or bank accounts in Brazil. They sought a declaration that a foreign judge cannot unilaterally dictate what speech is allowed on American platforms. The lawsuit targeted Moraes’s orders demanding that Rumble suspend accounts belonging to US-based Brazilian dissidents and hand over their personal data. The original complaint identified one target as “Political Dissident A,” later publicly confirmed as Allan dos Santos, a journalist and former priest who fled Brazil for the United States in 2021 after Moraes charged him with various crimes for publishing information the justice labeled “disinformation.” Moraes also sought dos Santos’s extradition; the US rejected that request in March 2024. The justice kept issuing censorship orders anyway. Moraes responded to the lawsuit not by engaging with the legal process but by ordering Rumble shut down entirely in Brazil. On February 22, 2025, he directed Brazilian telecommunications companies to block the platform and imposed a daily fine of roughly $8,700 on the US-based company for refusing to comply with his demands. Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski faced threats of criminal charges. The ban remains in effect. Truth Social, which relies on Rumble’s streaming infrastructure, was also affected. The early result was a win for the platforms. On February 25, 2025, US District Judge Mary Scriven ruled that Moraes’s censorship orders had no legal force in the United States. They had never been served through the Hague Convention, the US-Brazil Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), or any other valid mechanism. Rumble and TMTG didn’t need a temporary restraining order because there was nothing valid to restrain. As the companies’ counsel put it: “The court’s decision today denied the TRO for being unnecessary because it determined that Moraes’s orders are invalid and unenforceable in the United States. Therefore, there is no need to restrain invalid orders. Of course, if Moraes takes any steps to try to enforce his illegal orders on US soil, we can return to the judge to grant a TRO.” That ruling didn’t end the conflict. Moraes continued issuing new censorship orders from Brasilia. By July 2025, he had demanded Rumble block a second US-based political commentator, identified as “Political Dissident B,” threatening daily fines of 100,000 reais (about $20,000) if the platform refused. Rumble and TMTG filed an amended complaint. A House Judiciary Committee report published in April 2026, built on nonpublic documents, mapped the full scope of Moraes’s operation. His first documented global takedown order dates to July 2020, when he ordered Meta to delete 16 Facebook profiles worldwide to stop what he called “continued dissemination of fraudulent news (fake news), slanderous accusations, threats, and offenses imbued with animus…that affect the honor and safety of the FEDERAL SUPREME COURT.” The speech he wanted erased was a criticism of his own court. Since 2022, Moraes has ordered nearly 150 social media accounts suspended, targeting journalists, opposition legislators, satirists, jurists, and even musicians who criticized Brazil’s current government. Florida-based podcaster Bruno Aiub, known as “Monark,” saw roughly 40 accounts ordered deleted across 24 platforms in June 2024, with daily fines of about $18,500. Moraes also issued secret orders to Spotify between 2023 and 2024 demanding the removal of Aiub’s podcast. Brazil’s censorship apparatus, the CIEDDE, flagged posts about US presidents for deletion. One April 2025 post was targeted because it said Trump was “going to expose that bandit dressed as a judge [Justice Moraes] here in Brazil, as well as the interference/fraud in the 2022 elections.” X refused to comply with those orders. The US government briefly took notice. In July 2025, the State Department sanctioned Moraes under the Global Magnitsky Act, stating that he “abused his authority by engaging in a targeted and politically motivated effort designed to silence political critics through the issuance of secret orders compelling online platforms, including U.S. social media companies, to ban the accounts of individuals for posting protected speech.” Those sanctions were lifted in December 2025 as part of a broader diplomatic thaw between Washington and Brasilia, a move that drew criticism from those who saw it as trading away accountability for trade concessions. The lawsuit, meanwhile, sat frozen for over a year because the companies couldn’t formally serve Moraes. They spent months attempting service through the Hague Convention, the formal treaty process for notifying a defendant in another country. De Luca said in a post on X that rather than allowing the notification to proceed, Brazilian authorities had effectively turned the Hague process into a political shield for Moraes. The attorneys for Rumble and TMTG argued to the Florida court that the formal channels had been “blocked” and that the delays were jeopardizing the case. In February 2026, they petitioned for permission to serve by email. The Florida court granted that request on May 22, 2026, finding that the companies had spent “several months” trying formal service and that the process in Brazil had become, as the court noted, “politicized and effectively unavailable.” The ruling drew on a recent Florida Supreme Court decision allowing email service of process on defendants located abroad. Moraes now faces a choice. He can engage with the American legal process, which would require him to defend his censorship orders in a jurisdiction that treats speech suppression as constitutionally suspect. The is about more than Brazil. If a single foreign judge can order the worldwide deletion of posts that criticize him and platforms comply to preserve market access, then every government with a large enough consumer base holds veto power over speech in the United States. The Florida court has now given Moraes a deadline to explain why that shouldn’t trouble anyone. The STF, as of this writing, has not publicly responded to the US court’s authorization of email service. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post US Court Summons Pro-Censorship Brazil Judge Moraes in Rumble Lawsuit appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Google has told Canadian lawmakers that Bill C-22 would build a “surveillance infrastructure” that weakens cybersecurity for everyone. The company’s submission to the House of Commons public safety committee landed alongside a blunt refusal from Swiss-based Proton VPN and a trade warning from the Information Technology Industry Council, a US lobby group representing Amazon, Google, and Nvidia. Bill C-22 would force telecoms, messaging apps, and potentially any digital service in Canada to rebuild their systems for police and CSIS surveillance, while storing user metadata for up to a year. That metadata covers who contacted whom, when, and from where, for millions of people not suspected of anything. Even Google, which is ironically no stranger to surveillance accusations, warned that the bill gives the Public Safety Minister “sweeping powers to issue secret orders” to intercept data, and that its definition of “electronic service provider” could catch nearly any company operating in Canada. The company called the bill’s safeguard against systemic vulnerabilities dangerously narrow. “Without a stronger definition of ‘systemic vulnerability,’ the law could be used to decrease overall user security, by creating backdoors that would break end-to-end encryption and create significant cybersecurity risks, facilitating foreign interference and weakening global user privacy,” Google wrote. The company added: “Google has never built a backdoor or other mechanism to circumvent end-to-end encryption in our products. If we say a product is end-to-end encrypted, it is end-to-end encrypted.” Google joins Apple, Meta, and Signal, the last of which has threatened to leave Canada entirely rather than comply. Proton VPN’s general manager David Peterson was less diplomatic. “Complying with foreign surveillance orders without Swiss legal process is a criminal offence. Not happening,” he posted on X. “We’ll defend our Canadian users and never compromise them. We will fight C-22’s application by every means available.” Proton also noted that the EU’s highest court has struck down this kind of mass retention legislation twice already. The ITI submission added trade pressure, arguing C-22 would have “extraterritorial reach and increase conflict of law issues for global technology companies.” US congressional committee chairs Jim Jordan and Brian Mast already warned Anandasangaree that American companies face an impossible choice between “compromising the security of their entire user base, including US citizens, or risking exclusion from the Canadian market.” The government’s own defense of the bill mostly proved the opposition’s point. RCMP officials said retained metadata could identify people “on the scene or at least individuals who were in proximity” to a shooting. You may remember, Public Safety Minister Anandasangaree has accused tech companies of “misinterpreting” the bill. The companies are interpreting it just fine. They’re reading what it says and refusing to build what it demands. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Even Google Warns Canada Bill C-22 Creates Surveillance Backdoors appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Five of the biggest online platforms have for some reason just agreed to let Britain’s speech regulator Ofcom preview new features before they launch. Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snap, and YouTube will now notify the regulator whenever they update risk assessments before making significant product changes, going beyond what the Online Safety Act requires. TikTok refused, saying it would notify Ofcom only “where required.” The result is a pre-approval pipeline where a government regulator can pressure companies to alter features before users ever see them, without any formal legal process. Meta’s commitment deserves the most scrutiny. The company will deploy AI tools to monitor everyone’s messages in order to “detect likely sexualised conversations between adults and teens in Instagram direct messages” and report flagged accounts to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The timing is not subtle as Meta stripped end-to-end encryption from Instagram DMs on May 8, 2026, citing low adoption. The company never turned encryption on by default, never told most users it existed, and then used the low uptake it engineered as justification for removing it. With encryption gone, Meta can now read every Instagram message, and it’s immediately weaponizing that access as a scanning tool. Whether any human reviews these AI-generated flags before they reach NCMEC remains unclear from Ofcom’s published documents. Snap committed to “highly effective age assurance” for all UK users over the summer. Ofcom CEO Melanie Dawes told LBC that Snapchat is “no longer going to be allowing adults to find kids randomly,” calling the change “long overdue.” That Snapchat was still surfacing adult strangers to 13-year-olds through its recommendation engine until forced to stop says more than any safety pledge. The fix applies only to UK users. Globally, the feature remains active. TikTok and YouTube both declined to make additional commitments, insisting their platforms are already safe for children. Ofcom’s own research says otherwise: 73% of 11-to-17-year-olds reported encountering harmful content over four weeks, primarily through personalized feeds. Even with multiple platforms voluntarily expanding surveillance, Ofcom wants more. The regulator has written to Secretary of State Liz Kendall requesting new powers to enforce minimum age requirements, noting it is “not currently convinced” that Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok will “effectively prevent children under 13 from accessing their sites and apps.” Ofcom’s data shows 84% of 8-to-12-year-olds are already on these platforms. The anonymous internet is being replaced by one that demands identity documents, biometric scans, or behavioral profiling as the price of participation. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post 5 Tech Giants Let UK Speech Regulator Preview New Features appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Jennifer Combs had never gotten so much as a speeding ticket. On May 8, police in Trinidad, Texas, arrested her on a state jail felony charge for writing a Facebook post about the town’s water supply. The post said residents had been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. The city says that claim was false. So they sent cops to her door. The charge is felony false alarm or report under Texas Penal Code § 42.06, a statute designed for people who call in fake bomb threats or fabricate emergencies. Trinidad’s police chief and local officials decided it also applies to a woman who ran a community Facebook page and relayed what neighbors told her about getting sick. Combs’ post, published on her “Southern Belle Watch” account, read in part: “We have received reports that some citizens have been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. This is a serious public health concern that deserves immediate attention. If your water looks discolored, contains sediment, has a strong odor, or you have experienced related health issues, please send us a message. We are gathering information and reporting findings to the state.” That post got her a night in the Navarro County Justice Center. She has since filed a federal lawsuit alleging the arrest was “an act of deliberate political retaliation.” We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here. The water is brown. The city admits it. Trinidad, a small city in Henderson County about an hour southeast of Dallas, has a water problem that nobody disputes. Photos provided to FOX 4 show brown liquid pouring from faucets and filling bathtubs. Combs described it as looking like “the Trinity River is flowing from their water taps.” The city’s mayor, Dennis Haws, told reporters the pipes date back to the 1950s. “We have to get to a position where we can fix that infrastructure, and it’s very expensive as I’m sure you can imagine,” Haws said. “The city’s water situation is a struggle, without question.” Haws would not confirm whether anyone had gotten sick from the water. He acknowledged discussions about forming a committee to address the issue. On April 21, the city itself issued a formal boil water notice, telling residents not to drink, cook with, or wash dishes in the water without boiling it first. That notice came fifteen days after the Trinidad Police Department posted a public warning on Facebook, citing the false alarm statute and telling residents that false reports about a public water supply could be elevated to a state jail felony. So the city’s own police department threatened felony prosecution over claims about water safety, and then two weeks later the city confirmed the water required boiling before use. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality confirmed it received a complaint about Trinidad’s water and that an investigation is ongoing. Combs told FOX 4 that multiple citizens had posted on Trinidad PD’s own Facebook page claiming they were hospitalized or affected by the water. She was gathering those reports and passing them along. The police chief’s position is that her hospitalization claims “are simply false and have only caused unnecessary fear and confusion in our community.” Chief Charles Gregory called the case “cut and dry.” What Gregory is really saying is that a resident who collected and shared reports from her neighbors about a public health issue, on a platform where those same neighbors were posting similar complaints, committed a felony by doing so. The statute requires that a person *knowingly* circulate a false report. Combs says she was repeating what people told her. Gregory says she should have verified it with the hospitals first. One of those positions treats citizens as participants in public life. The other treats them as suspects. “It was probably one of the most humiliating things I’ve ever gone through in my entire life. It was very, very bad,” Combs said of her night in jail. “I feel like this is an extreme stretch,” she added. Combs pointed to the broader situation residents face. “There’s people that are saying that their appliances are getting ruined, they can’t cook with the water, they can’t bathe with it, they can’t do laundry,” she said. “A lot of them feel hushed, and like they don’t have a voice and no one listens to them and no one takes them seriously.” That last part is the chilling effect laid bare. When a city arrests someone for a Facebook post about water quality, the message to every other resident is clear: talk about this and you could be next. The false alarm statute exists to punish people who deliberately fabricate emergencies to waste public resources. Using it against a woman who said “we have received reports” about a water problem that the city itself later confirmed is a use of law enforcement to silence public speech about a public safety failure. Whether Combs’ specific claim about hospitalizations was accurate or not, the arrest tells every resident in Trinidad that raising concerns about their water can land them in jail. That is a more dangerous outcome than any Facebook post. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Texas Woman Arrested for Facebook Post About Town Water Quality appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Hawaii has agreed to pay $118,237.47 in attorney’s fees and costs to The Babylon Bee and local activist Dawn O’Brien, closing the books on a failed attempt to make some political satire a criminal act. The state chose not to appeal a January ruling that struck down its so-called deepfake law, Act 191, as facially unconstitutional. It tried to ban speech. It lost. Now, taxpayers are covering the bill. The settlement comes with an unusual wrinkle. Hawaii can’t actually pay yet. The agreement is contingent on the state legislature appropriating the funds during its next session, which runs from January to May 2027. If the legislature doesn’t approve the money by September 1, 2027, the Bee and O’Brien retain the right to file a formal motion for attorney’s fees, meaning the case would reopen and the final number could climb. Act 191, signed by Governor Josh Green in July 2024, banned the distribution of “materially deceptive media” during election seasons if it risked “harming the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate” or “changing the voting behavior of voters.” The only escape for satirists was to slap joke-killing disclaimers on their content, disclaimers that had to appear throughout the entirety of a video and be printed in letters as large as any other text on screen. Violations carried fines, civil lawsuits, and jail time. The law didn’t require anyone to actually be harmed or deceived. It punished speech based on a speculative “risk” of harm, a standard so vague that the person posting had no reliable way to know whether they were complying. US District Judge Shanlyn Park found that the law “muddies the line between compliance and noncompliance by forcing speakers to base their conduct on their own risk assessment, rather than on clear, objective standards.” She noted the law created an “inherently subjective assessment for enforcement agencies” that “could conceivably lead to discretionary and targeted enforcement that discriminates based on viewpoint.” Hawaii argued the law was needed to protect election integrity. Park acknowledged that interest but found the state couldn’t show it had chosen the least restrictive means. Hawaii’s own expert agreed that digital literacy education would work, objecting only that it “would require a larger investment of resources” compared to a ban. Park cited the Supreme Court: “The First Amendment does not permit the State to sacrifice speech for efficiency.” ADF legal counsel Mathew Hoffmann said: “Hawaii’s war against political memes and satire has come to an end, thankfully. The First Amendment doesn’t allow any state to choose what political speech is acceptable and censor speech in the name of ‘misinformation.’ That censorship is both undemocratic and unnecessary.” Hawaii follows California, which lost a similar fight against the Bee. Minnesota’s version is still being litigated before the full 8th Circuit. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Hawaii To Pay Up After Trying to Criminalize Political Memes appeared first on Reclaim The Net.