If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Lawmakers in Washington are once again attempting to give the United States a legal pathway to block websites, a power the federal government has never officially held on a broad scale. The latest push comes in the form of the Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act, better known as “Block BEARD,” introduced in the Senate by Thom Tillis, Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, and Adam Schiff. We obtained a copy of the bill for you here. On its face, the bill targets foreign websites accused of piracy. But the mechanism it creates would establish something far more significant: a formal, court-approved process that could be used to make entire websites vanish from the American internet. Under the proposal, copyright owners could go to federal court to have a site labeled a “foreign digital piracy site.” If successful, the court could then order US service providers to block access to that site. The reach is broad. The term “service provider” here mirrors the broad definition in the DMCA, potentially covering everything from ISPs and search engines to social media platforms, and perhaps even VPNs. Proponents say this is about protecting the entertainment industry. In reality, it’s about setting a precedent. Once the government has a tool to block certain sites, history shows the definition of “unacceptable” content can expand. Piracy today could easily become something else tomorrow. The ramifications go beyond the music and movie business. If courts can order an ISP to make a site disappear from view, the same logic could eventually apply to other types of content deemed problematic. And because the bill has no public transparency requirements, the public could be kept entirely in the dark about which sites are blocked, why they’re blocked, or how long the blocks remain in place. Supporters in the entertainment industry, including the RIAA and Motion Picture Association, are openly cheering the bill, pointing to similar measures overseas they claim have worked without harming free speech. But the US is not the same as other countries. The First Amendment’s protection of speech and access to information means this kind of censorship tool carries far more constitutional baggage here than it does elsewhere. What Block BEARD really represents is a milestone. If passed, it would be the first time the US creates a standing legal process for cutting off access to entire websites at the network level. The DMCA was sold to the public in 1998 as a way to modernize copyright law for the internet age. But from the beginning, it has been controversial, not just because of its reach, but because of how easily it can be weaponized as a tool for censorship. The most infamous part of the law is the “takedown notice” process under Section 512. In theory, this allows copyright holders to request the removal of infringing material from websites, search results, and hosting platforms. In practice, it’s often used to silence lawful content. Artists, journalists, independent creators, and political activists have all been hit with DMCA notices for work that clearly falls under fair use, commentary, or criticism. Sometimes, companies use the DMCA to scrub negative reviews, hide embarrassing information, or push competing material offline. The burden falls on the person targeted to challenge the notice, a process that can be slow, confusing, and intimidating. Because most online platforms follow a “remove first, ask questions later” approach to avoid liability, even clearly bogus claims can make content vanish instantly. This takedown system can and has been abused by governments, corporations, and individuals to suppress speech they dislike, with little immediate recourse for the target. The DMCA was supposed to protect creativity, but its design makes it a ready-made censorship lever. It grants private parties the ability to effectively erase content from the internet without a court order, bypassing the normal checks that protect free expression. That’s why proposals like Block BEARD raise such red flags. If the DMCA already allows individual posts, videos, or search results to be removed at the click of a button, adding a legal process to block entire websites is the next logical, and far more dangerous, step. It moves the conversation from “this link is gone” to “this whole site no longer exists for US users.” The DMCA has already shown how copyright enforcement can be twisted into a censorship tool. Giving the government and rights holders a formal way to block entire sites risks creating a far broader, far harder-to-challenge system of online suppression. Once in place, history suggests it will be used for far more than just piracy. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post This Hollywood-Backed Bill Would Give Government Power To Block Websites appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Private conversations with ChatGPT have been turning up in Google search results, raising alarm over how easily personal information can slip into the public domain when AI tools are used for sensitive discussions. The problem surfaced when OpenAI tested a “discoverable” setting that let users deliberately share chats online. Anyone who ticked the box marked “make this chat discoverable” was told it would “be shown in web searches.” While the feature stripped names from the transcripts, it did not remove the deeply personal nature of many exchanges, from confessions about harassment to candid fears and therapy-like conversations. Journalist Luiza Jarovsky, who spotted the issue, posted on X that she had found examples of these personal exchanges appearing in Google’s index. Her findings showed how a simple misclick or hasty decision could leave private thoughts permanently searchable. On Thursday, OpenAI’s chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey acknowledged the situation publicly. “We just removed a feature from @ChatGPTapp that allowed users to make their conversations discoverable by search engines, such as Google,” he wrote. Stuckey said the tool had been “a short-lived experiment to help people discover useful conversations” but admitted it created “too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to.” He added that the company was working to have existing indexed content removed from search engines, with the change set to reach all accounts by Friday morning. Many people unfortunately turn to ChatGPT for emotional support, personal problem-solving, or to share experiences they might never voice aloud to another human. Yet once shared through an online platform, even accidentally, those same conversations can become public artifacts. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post ChatGPT Chats “Leaked” in Google Search After Discoverable Feature Misfires appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Epic Games has scored a decisive legal win against Google, as a federal appeals court upheld an order forcing the tech giant to dismantle key parts of its app store monopoly. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday affirmed a lower court ruling that Google must loosen its Play Store restrictions, clearing the way for rival marketplaces and alternative billing systems. We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here. The injunction, frozen during Google’s appeal, will now move forward, reshaping the Android app economy in Epic’s favor. “It is well established that antitrust remedies can and often must proscribe otherwise lawful conduct to unwind and further prevent violators’ anticompetitive activity,” Judge Margaret McKeown wrote for the unanimous panel. She said the lower court had the authority to compel Google to work with those harmed by its conduct, including competitors like Epic. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wasted no time celebrating, posting on X that the ruling means the company will soon bring its Epic Game Store directly into Google Play. “Thanks to the verdict, the Epic Games Store for Android will be coming to the Google Play Store!” he wrote. The battle began in 2020, when Epic openly challenged Google’s rules by slipping payment-bypassing code into Fortnite. Google responded by removing the game from the Play Store, triggering a lawsuit. At trial, a jury heard evidence that Google paid phone manufacturers and leading developers to exclusively use its store, a tactic that jurors decided was illegal monopolization of Android app distribution and in-app billing markets. Judge James Donato’s 2024 permanent injunction struck at the core of those monopolies. It compels Google to open Android to rival app stores, share the Play Store’s full catalog with them, and end policies like mandatory Google Play Billing. Those changes must remain in place for three years. Google argued the case should have followed Epic’s failed 2021 lawsuit against Apple, but the appeals court rejected that view, pointing to stark differences between Apple’s closed ecosystem and Google’s licensed Android model. McKeown even likened the comparison to McDonald’s competing with Chick-fil-A in fast food, but not in the hamburger market. While Google maintains that the changes will “significantly harm user safety” and weaken innovation, Epic’s legal victory marks a rare, high-profile antitrust defeat for one of the world’s most powerful tech companies. And it comes at a time when Google is facing a string of other monopoly challenges; over search, advertising, and more. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Epic’s Legal Victory Turns Google’s Gatekeeping Rules Into Scrap Paper appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Facebook’s escalating efforts to combat copyright infringement are now veering into territory that threatens open discourse and journalism. Although the company claims to be shielding rights holders, its heavy dependence on automated enforcement systems is sweeping up legitimate reporting in the process, especially when the topic involves digital piracy. In recent years, Facebook has equipped itself with an arsenal of tools to detect and react to unauthorized content. Chief among them is Rights Manager, a platform that identifies potentially infringing material and gives copyright holders the option to remove or monetize it. This setup, along with third-party services and internal technology, is designed to reduce manual takedown requests and streamline enforcement. However, streamlining has come at a steep price. These tools are increasingly acting on keywords without considering context. The word “MagisTV” has become one such trigger, and it now appears that even basic news coverage mentioning the term is automatically flagged and removed. Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today discovered this firsthand when Facebook took down a post linking to one of his articles. According to TorrentFreak, the article discussed legal issues and malware claims surrounding the MagisTV app, but did not share or promote infringing material. It also cited a report by TorrentFreak covering the same topic. To verify the issue, both articles were posted again through a separate Facebook account. Both were deleted within minutes. Facebook’s explanation was brief and opaque: “We removed your content… it may contain something that’s not allowed for copyright reasons.” The platform offered no detailed justification, only a general reference to its intellectual property policies. In a further test, a press release from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) was posted to see if enforcement was consistent. ACE is a global anti-piracy group backed by the Motion Picture Association, and its content actively targets services like MagisTV. Even this content was removed, again for alleged copyright violations. The only unifying factor in these removals was the mention of MagisTV. Facebook’s automated filters do not distinguish between infringing content and discussion or news reporting about infringement. The result is that journalists and researchers documenting the piracy landscape are being blocked just for reporting the facts. Efforts to appeal these decisions have proven futile. After five days of silence following an appeal of the first takedown, another article about law enforcement actions involving MagisTV was posted as a follow-up test. It was quickly removed, and the account used was suspended with a warning of permanent deactivation. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Facebook’s Copyright Filters Are Silencing Journalism Through Overzealous Automated Takedowns appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Marvel Rivals has decided your speech needs a chaperone. In Season 3.5, under the cheery banner of Operation: Shield the Players, the game is flipping the switch on full-time surveillance of voice chat. Not “record if someone complains.” Not “clip the highlights.” We’re talking a 24/7 algorithm lurking in every match, combing through every word you say, waiting for something it doesn’t like. Until now, if a teammate called you something unprintable over voice chat, you could file a report. It wasn’t elegant, but it left the choice in your hands. That’s no longer good enough. More: Trash Talk Once Went Hand-in-Hand With Gaming. But Big Tech Is Killing It. Marvel Rivals will now listen to everything, always. If the system hears “toxic behavior” as defined by code written by people you’ve never met, it flags it for a human reviewer. The reviewer then decides whether your account should be frozen, suspended, or nuked outright. Game Director Guangguang is upbeat about the change: “United we stand, divided we fall. I truly believe that, if we work together, we will all have a great time in Marvel Rivals.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/marvel-rivals-censor-surveillance-9900090.mp4 You may detect a certain mismatch between that Hallmark-card optimism and the reality of an AI eavesdropper logging your match chatter. The pitch is this: make cooperation more rewarding by making bad behavior impossible. The execution is less heartwarming. Every scrap of banter, every sarcastic aside, every joke about your friend’s clumsy aim is piped through an automated system with the discretion of a malfunctioning airport metal detector. Concerned about storage, interpretation, or who exactly is on the other end of that review process? You’re not alone. Nobody’s quite sure how accurate the algorithm will be, how long your audio will sit in some server farm, or how often a harmless remark will be “interpreted” into a violation. There’s a reason people don’t hold job interviews in voice chat. It’s messy, spontaneous, and often ridiculous. But that’s the fun. When every conversation is essentially a monitored broadcast, spontaneity tends to evaporate. Teammates who once swapped running jokes mid-match might think twice before saying anything off-script. The official line is about keeping the community “safe.” The subtext is about keeping everyone under constant watch. And while Marvel Rivals isn’t the first game to do it, it’s one of the few leaning into it as a public selling point. In a competitive game, the line between “keeping things civil” and “treating every player like a suspect” gets awfully thin. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Marvel Rivals Introduces Always‑On AI Voice Chat Monitoring Under “Operation: Shield the Players” appeared first on Reclaim The Net.