India’s YouTube Vigilante Is Wanted for Murder
In December 2022, an investigation by The Caravan found dozens of Hindu nationalist YouTube channels that were broadcasting extremist content, with viewing figures in the hundreds of...
The Push to Ban TikTok in the US Isn’t About Privacy
“We hope that Congress will explore solutions to their concerns about TikTok that won’t have the effect of censoring the voices of millions of Americans,” says...
Facebook Is Still Letting Russia Interfere in Politics
Nicolae Fratea is on a mission to purge his Facebook timeline of weird political adverts. Every couple of days, he’s presented with accounts that, on the...
The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing
At the one-year anniversary of its launch, the Buy Nothing app had been downloaded 600,000 times, but only 91,000 people were regularly using it, not many...
The US Supreme Court Doesn’t Understand the Internet
Recent laws in both Texas and Florida have sought to impose greater restrictions on the way platforms can and cannot police content. Gonzalez v. Google takes a different track,...
How the US Could Ban TikTok in 7 Not-So-Easy Steps
Individual users would not have faced penalties for staying on TikTok, and internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon would not have been covered under the...
The Kremlin Has Entered the Chat
On the chilly, clear afternoon of February 24, 2022—the day Vladimir Putin’s forces launched their full-scale invasion of Ukraine—a handful of Russian opposition politicians gathered in...
Mastodon Is Hurtling Toward a Tipping Point
Rodti MacLeary started a Mastodon instance, mas.to, in 2019. By early November 2022, it had amassed around 35,000 users. But since Elon Musk bought Twitter and unleashed one chaotic decision after another, people...
Mastodon Features That Twitter Should Steal (but Won’t)
Any platform that supports free speech should have a content warning system pretty much like the one Mastodon offers. I bet Musk won’t implement it, though,...
No One on Twitter Is Safe From Elon Musk
Musk changed his tune this week after he alleged a “crazy stalker” followed a car carrying his young son. Questions about the incident remain, and it’s...