Amnesty International: Facebook Plan To Target Children “Incompatible With Human Rights”

Facebook itself “poses one of the biggest threats when it comes to children’s privacy,” according to the human rights organization.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
Instagram Feature photo

SAN FRANSICO -- Facebook has let slip that it is launching an Instagram service for children under 13 years old, who are currently legally barred from using the platform. On Thursday, Instagram’s vice president of product told employees in a leaked communication that this was indeed the plan. Instagram’s boss, Adam Mosseri, confirmed the leak’s

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Big Tech Firms Are Joining Trump’s All Out War Against Iran

Deleting messages of support for Iran may seem a petty, childish retaliation for opposing the Trump administration, but it has profound ramifications for freedom of access to information.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
Social Media Censorship

Silicon Valley giant Facebook announced Friday that it would be deleting all positive posts about recently assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on its platform and its subsidiary Instagram. The reason for this, it explained to CNN, was that the new U.S. sanctions made it illegal to promote any message supporting a person or group that the

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Spotlighting Cruelty Of Trump’s Muslim Ban, World Embraces #BannedGrandmas

A viral Instagram account shows who Trump’s travel ban is “actually keeping out.”

Jake Johnson
By Jake Johnson
"I feel tired of being cast aside and of being forced to prove my humanity at every turn," Elham Khatami, the outreach director for the National Iranian American Council, told TIME magazine. (Photo: Banned Grandmas/Instagram)

When the Supreme Court partially reinstated President Donald Trump's ban last month, it included in its ruling an exemption for those who have "a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States." The State Department later released its definition of "bona fide relationship" which, as reports quickly observed, concluded that

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During Baltimore Uprising, City Officials Criminalized Hashtags & Labeled Social Media Postings As ‘Threats’

Under the guise of preventing domestic terrorism and violent rioting, all talk of protest became suspect and the surveillance state essentially criminalized efforts to organize in support of Freddie Gray.

Kevin Gosztola
By Kevin Gosztola

Originally published at Shadowproof. In the early moments of the uprising in Baltimore after police killed Freddie Gray, Baltimore city officials monitored social media. The officials labeled activists and other users, who were posting about reported rioting, protest activity, and police action, as “threats.” The spreadsheet listing

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Instagram Temporarily Blocks #SandraBland In Attempt To ‘Control Hate Speech’

Instagram also temporarily restricted the #CaitlynJenner hashtag when it was flooded by trolls during an award speech.

Kit O'Connell
By Kit O'Connell

AUSTIN, Texas --- From the Lone Star State to New York City and beyond, activists have rallied to share their outrage at the circumstances surrounding the death of Sandra Bland, the woman police say killed herself in jail three days after being arrested for a minor traffic violation in Waller County, Texas. Earlier this week, many of Bland’s

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Instagram Shuts Down Popular Account That Intimidated Witnesses

Twitter account rats215 identified and intimidated more than 30 witnesses who testified in violent-crime cases.

Katie Rucke
By Katie Rucke

The photo-sharing social media site Instagram has deactivated an anonymous, but popular account after it was discovered last week that the account was identifying witnesses who testified in cases involving violent crimes. According to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the account had nearly 7,900 followers and had identified more than 30

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