Wilmington, NC — As a part of the national NoALPRs week of action, protesters gathered today outside of the Lowe’s in Wilmington, NC to call out the company’s use of Flock license plate surveillance technology in parking lots. The action in the home state of Lowe’s Corporate HQ (in Mooresville, NC) highlights how public attitudes against surveillance have expanded across the country. Since last year, over 130 cities have paused or terminated their contracts with Flock, according to the privacy non-profit Secure Justice, and public pressure even pushed Amazon Ring to reverse its partnership earlier this year.

Wilmington joins several other cities in raising awareness and voicing concern over Lowe’s troubling collaboration with Flock. Similar protests have taken place or are scheduled in New Mexico, Virginia, Oregon, Texas and California throughout the month of August.

These protests are being held as pressure mounts against Flock from civil society, shareholders, and lawmakers alike. Lowe’s has received heat from state lawmakers in Connecticut, as well as Members of Congress who sent an oversight letter to both Lowe’s and Home Depot, demanding answers to questions about their license plate readers. In the spring, 40 civil rights and privacy organizations sent a letter to Lowe’s demanding the company drop its Flock partnership, and shareholders brought forward a proposal to interrogate the company’s surveillance practices.

Check out photos of actions at Lowe’s locations from all across the country:

Deflock organizers issued the following statements regarding the Lowe’s Flock contract: 

Reem Suleiman, Campaign Director of Fight For the Future said:

“For too long, Lowe’s has ignored public calls for transparency and accountability over their participation in Flock’s surveillance network. These grassroots actions demonstrate that people really are against ubiquitous surveillance cameras like Flock being able to track them everywhere they go.”

Joaquin from New Mexico Deflock said:

“I believe we, as a society, have created an over-acceptance of technology for the sake of “progress and safety”. ALPRs are being strewn around towns and cities in the name of capitalism and profit, without any respect towards human dignity nor the rights the Framers fought for us to have. No one should have to live in fear of their info or data stolen or used nefariously and potentially imprison those the system is designed to target. Each time a camera goes up, more of our rights are chipped away. It is beyond time to remove these cameras

Mark Spencer Williams, founder, DeFlockILM.org said:

“Lowe’s has every right to put a camera on its own property. That has never been my objection. My objection is what happened next. A state agency asked Lowe’s for access to its customers’ movements, and Lowe’s said yes — no warrant, no court order, no notice to a single shopper. The camera is not the problem. The open door to it is.”

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Earlier today, the Bay Area Reporter reported that The Mix Bar is following the steps of Badlands and Toad Hall, in hitting “pause” on face scanning. The bar will deactivate its live camera function, but will continue to use PatronScan to verify official IDs.

The Mix Bar’s reversal comes after several prominent Bay Area artists and venues, including most recently Bottom of the Hill in the Potrero Hill district of San Francisco, have taken a pledge to disallow AI surveillance and facial recognition at their shows and establishments. This move now isolates Oracle Park and 1015 Folsom, the remaining SF venues known to use this face scanning technology, according to the “Club 1984” surveillance tracker developed by AI Action.

Digital rights group Fight for the Future, who organized the boycott campaign, issued the following statement, which can be attributed to the group’s director, transgender musician Evan Greer (she/her):

“The Mix Bar’s decision is a huge step in the right direction. The reality is surveillance takes its own victims. It’s no secret the federal government has put a large target on the LGBTQ+ community especially the trans community. To allow for any third-party surveillance of the queer and trans community is simply too dangerous and too risky in this political environment. Queer spaces are meant to be joyous and safe, and nothing kills the vibe more quickly than AI surveillance. Let this be a teaching moment for any establishment that surveillance does not make us safer.”

A representative from the group AI Action (@aiactionnow), which created the nightclub surveillance tracking website called “Club 1984” issued the following response:

“We’re pleased that the Mix is now refraining from taking pictures of each patron, but we’re still concerned that the ID scanners effectively act as a database of LGBTQ+ people in the Castro, storing their name, address, gender, and DOB. Have any of these venue owners read 1984? As AI enables far more powerful surveillance, we are determined to fight its intrusion into our lives on every front”

Fight for the Future is continuing its campaign against the use of AI surveillance in concert venues, bars, and places of public accommodation, including the other 38 establishments reportedly using face scanners. See the latest signers on the pledge here: https://www.banfacialrecognition.com/venues . Artists that have signed the pledge include Tune Yards, Deerhoof, and members of Rage Against the Machine and Bikini Kill. Bay Area venues Bottom of the Hill, El Rio, Sour Cherry Comics, La Peña Cultural Center, DNA Lounge, and Cheaper than Therapy have signed the pledge committing to never use this type of tech on patrons.

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NEW YORK, NY— Today, local lawmakers, privacy advocates, artists, organizers, and New Yorkers to demand an end to the use of biometric surveillance in places of public accommodation and call on the City Council to pass City Council Member Shahana Hanif’s bill, Ban the Scan, Int. 213.

The rally, organized by Fight for the Future, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), NYC DSA Tech Action, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, musician and artist Cristy Roads, country musician Paisley Fields, and others, comes amid renewed scrutiny of Madison Square Garden’s use of facial recognition technology. MSG’s flagrant abuse of the technology to ban critics and violate the privacy of visitors perfectly illustrates the inherent danger of mass biometric surveillance. CEO James Dolan’s surveillance controversies have been producing outrage for years, with the latest reporting highlighting the enhanced privacy experienced by wealthy patrons. 

“Madison Square Garden has shown us exactly what happens when corporations are allowed to deploy facial recognition without meaningful limits: they use it to track, profile, and blacklist people they don’t like,” said Council Member Shahana Hanif. “Your face should not be a tool that a corporation can use to punish you for exercising your rights. We have the opportunity to stop this abuse in New York City. It is time for the Council to pass Ban the Scan.”

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The need for action is particularly urgent as biometric surveillance becomes increasingly commonplace in private businesses and public-facing spaces in NYC. Advocates warn that sensitive information—including people’s faces, names, and voices—can be vulnerable to misuse, data breaches, or access by law enforcement agencies. This summer, a cyberattack exposed sensitive visitor information, including biometric data collected through MSG’s facial-recognition and surveillance systems. This breach demonstrates the danger of allowing private companies to amass vast troves of sensitive biometric information without strong limits on its collection and retention. 

The coalition also highlighted growing opposition from artists and venues. Hundreds of artists and venues have pledged not to use facial recognition technology at concerts, demonstrating that entertainment and public safety do not require invasive biometric surveillance.

“No one should have to surrender their personal privacy in order to watch their favorite sports team,” said Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine. “Intro 213 would prohibit providers of public accommodation— like sports arenas—from using biometric data to identify you in public and would ensure your biometric data isn’t sold. This kind of mass surveillance opens the door to abuse and discrimination, making consumers in our city uniquely vulnerable. It’s time to ban the scan and protect New Yorkers’ privacy and civil rights.”

“Buying a ticket to Madison Square Garden shouldn’t mean checking your civil liberties or your right to privacy at the door. Facial recognition technology is invasive, ripe for abuse, and has reportedly already been used to profile New Yorkers based on their gender identity and sexual orientation,” said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. “In the State Senate, I was proud to sponsor legislation to prohibit law enforcement from using facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technology. New Yorkers deserve those same basic protections when they walk into a venue to see a concert, a Knicks game, or a Rangers game. I applaud Council Member Hanif for leading the charge on this legislation and urge the Council to pass it swiftly. New Yorkers shouldn’t have to sacrifice their privacy for a night out.”

“New Yorkers love the Knicks, but they sure as hell don’t love having their biometric data captured when visiting the Garden,” said New York City Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Sandy Nurse. “Everyone has the right to privacy and deserves the basic respect of not having their sensitive information taken and stored, let alone by a private corporation. It’s time to Ban the Scan and protect New Yorkers from surveillance in public spaces.”

“No one wants this. Artists and fans have resoundingly rejected facial recognition at venues, and now we need lawmakers to make it official by banning facial recognition surveillance in places of public accommodation, including bars, stores, and music and sports venues like Madison Square Garden,” said Evan Greer (she/her), director of Fight for the Future. “Bullies like James Dolan make the dangers of facial recognition explicitly clear. Going to a show should not be conditioned on being subjected to invasive, racially biased monitoring that puts fans at risk of getting harassed, falsely arrested, deported, or worse.”

“We should not have to give up our faces to attend a basketball game,” said Raaid Arshad, NYC DSA Tech Action Working Group. “We should not have to let our gaits be analyzed just to buy a toothbrush. And, we should not be locked out of our homes or unfairly evicted because facial recognition tools can’t recognize our black and brown skin tones. We must Ban the Scan in New York City.”

“Surveilling, tracking, and storing information on anyone entering MSG is not safety, it’s intimidation and control,” said Daniel Schwarz, Senior Privacy & Technology Strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “For years, James Dolan’s Madison Square Garden has weaponized biometric recognition and other forms of surveillance against all its patrons, exposing New Yorkers to retaliation, harassment, invasive monitoring, chilling speech, and putting people at risk of data breaches. Dolan must rectify these disgusting practices by immediately ceasing these spying operations, and the City Council must urgently pass Intro. 213 to prohibit businesses from deploying biometric surveillance on all of us.”

“Public facial recognition sparks the normalization of invasive government control, in a society that has become complacent to an already suffocating surveillance culture,” said Cristy Road Carrera, Author, Artist, Musician. “The cloud, face id, apple watch, location tracking, the rise of AI, meta algorithms, meta glasses— they all contribute to the framework of a larger war.”

“When people come to my show I want them to feel like they are part of a community, to feel safe and welcome,” said Paisley Fields, Musician. “Somewhere they can be themselves. The use of this technology will do the opposite of that. I don’t see a way that facial recognition technology and ai surveillance in venues can be used in a way that is ethical and safe for my community.” 

“Facial recognition technology and other forms of biometric surveillance are more likely to negatively impact New Yorkers of color,” said Nina Loshkajian, Technology & Racial Justice Collaborative Fellow at the Center on Race, Inequality & the Law. “Given the proven higher error rates of the technology when identifying darker-skinned individuals, and the risk of increased deployment in neighborhoods of color, allowing this practice in New York City is akin to condoning a new form of algorithmic exclusion.”

“For years, MSG owner James Dolan has doubled down on using facial recognition to scan everyone entering his venues and ban individuals he dislikes,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Michelle Dahl. “Dolan is just one high-profile example, however, and we don’t know how many New Yorkers have been denied entry to stores, sports games, and other public accommodations based on biometric tracking. From Citifield to Wegmans, facial recognition has spread rapidly across our city, threatening the privacy and dignity of New Yorkers going about our daily lives. We shouldn’t have to hand over our faces to cheer on the Knicks, catch a concert, or pick up groceries. It’s long past time the City Council pass Intro. 0213 to ban the scan in public accommodations.”

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WHAT: A press conference calling for the ban of facial recognition technology in places of public accommodation and to protest James Dolan’s ongoing abuse of FRT at Madison Square Garden.

WHEN: 12:00pm Eastern on Friday, August 14

WHERE: The Moynihan Train Hall steps (421 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10001)

WHY: James Dolan was an early adopter of facial recognition technology at Madison Square Garden. His flagrant abuse of the technology to ban critics and violate the privacy of visitors perfectly illustrates the inherent danger of mass biometric surveillance. MSG’s surveillance controversies have been producing outrage for years, with the latest reporting highlighting the enhanced privacy experienced by wealthy patrons. City Council Member Shahana Hanif’s proposed ban of facial recognition and biometric surveillance in places of public accommodation would end these abuses in NYC. Hundreds of artists and venues have pledged not to use facial recognition technology at concerts. Join us to hear from privacy advocates, performers, and policymakers about the urgent need to end these practices.

Please contact Jibran Ludwig at jibran@fightforthefuture.org or (660) 234-5268 if you have any questions!

This morning, Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500 word manifesto filled with ridiculous claims and self-serving language. It also happened to promote the importance of open source AI. While Fight for the Future almost never agrees with Zuckerberg, and has worked to destroy Meta’s surveillance capitalist business structure, we unfortunately have to agree with him when it comes to defending open source and decentralization. We don’t, however, share his rosy vision of the world he and his fellow tech bros are manifesting. Open source AI is, in fact, vital for defending against a future in which oligarchs control everything.

The following can be attributed to Matt Lane, senior policy counsel at Fight for the Future.

“Mark Zuckerberg is annoyingly out of touch on his best day and downright evil on his worst, but he is right about the importance of open source AI and the perils of centralization. Everyone needs to have access to capable and open source AI systems, as much to defend ourselves as benefit ourselves. We are living in a world in which AI can be tasked with breaking electronic systems, like voting systems and benefits infrastructure, and so we need to be able to understand and counter those attacks. We are looking at a world in which AI can be used to manipulate us, profile us, and cheat us, so we need to be able to understand these AI systems to recognize when this is happening. Yes, AI may provide benefits in specific contexts, but people need choice and the ability to examine and control the AI systems they use.

Unfortunately, Zuckerberg’s manifesto is also ultimately self-serving. If everyone that chooses to use AI is running a Meta designed AI system, even if it’s fully open source, then we will have lost. Zuckerberg is probably running the Google Android play—using free and open source licensing to quickly command the market, and then layering in Meta-controlled aspects that will keep the public tethered to his interests. Open source AI needs to be supported beyond these corporate interests. We, unlike Zuckerberg, hope for as much competition as possible.”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA––Two prominent Bay Area gay bars have announced plans to “pause” their use of “Patronscan” face scanning devices after digital rights group Fight for the Future launched a boycott campaign with hundreds of prominent artists pledging to boycott venues that use AI surveillance.

The SF Gazetteer published a story on the boycott campaign earlier today, noting that prominent artists including Tune-Yards, members of Rage Against the Machine and Bikini Kill, and Deerhoof had signed on to the pledge. Shortly after the publication, the Gazetteer received this statement from a spokesperson for Badlands and Toad Hall:

“We have heard the concerns regarding the use of PatronScan at Badlands and Toad Hall in San Francisco, and we are listening. Effective immediately, we are pausing the use of PatronScan while we review our ID verification and security practices,” said Brian Aranda, director of operations at both bars. “The safety of our guests and staff remains a priority, as do privacy and trust“Our security teams will continue to thoroughly check IDs manually during this time. We appreciate everyone who has shared their concerns and remain committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all.”

These prominent venues backing down from use of face scanning tech is a major victory for privacy advocates and the LGBTQ+ community. Now that Toad Hall and Badlands have stopped using Patronscan, Mix, Oracle Park, and 1015 Folsom are the only other bars in SF continuing to use the tech according to Club 1984, a site created by AI Action Now. Other venues including El Rio, La Peña Cultural Center, DNA Lounge, and Cheaper than Therapy have signed the pledge committing to never use this type of tech on patrons.

Digital rights group Fight for the Future, who organized the boycott campaign, issued the following statement, which can be attributed to the group’s director, transgender musician Evan Greer (she/her):

“AI surveillance technology is creepy for anyone going to a show or a club, but it’s particularly dangerous for members of the LGBTQ+ community who are facing increased attacks on our rights and safety. The backlash from the community has been swift and severe. Queer and trans people want to be able to dance and gather and party without fear. Our boycott campaign has already pushed two of the most prominent venues using this stalker-tech to abandon it. We won’t stop until gay bars across the country commit to never using this type of invasive and discriminatory surveillance tech at the door.”

Fight for the Future is continuing its campaign against the use of AI surveillance in concert venues, bars, and places of public accommodation. See the latest signers on the pledge here: https://www.banfacialrecognition.com/venues

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The Senate Commerce Committee advanced a slate of “kids safety” bills including the controversial and misguided Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Our coalition of dozens of LGBTQ+, human rights, and civil liberties groups oppose KOSA because it would empower the Trump administration to censor lifesaving resources and expand Big Tech data collection while failing to make platforms safer. 

Senator Markey was not present for the vote, but he issued a statement echoing these same concerns: https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-statement-on-commerce-committee-markup-of-kosa 

This is very significant. Senator Markey is seen as a leader on children’s privacy and tech policy issues in the Senate, and he is one of the only Democratic Senators who has lifted up the concerns raised by human rights experts about this legislation. Senator Markey’s leadership on this issue stands in stark contrast to his colleague Senator Warren, who co-sponsored KOSA twice despite pleas from Massachusetts’ based LGBTQ+ groups and hundreds of parents of transgender kids. Earlier this Summer, the Boston City Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning censorship legislation including KOSA.

The following can be attributed to Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future:

“Senator Markey is showing real leadership by lifting up the concerns of LGBTQ+ youth and parents when it would have been easier to stay silent on a controversial vote. KOSA will make kids less safe, not more safe and will embolden the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech and marginalized communities. Senator Markey is right to criticize it. His Democratic colleagues in the Senate, including Senator Warren, should listen to him instead of siding with Marsha Blackburn and right wing hate groups.”

Fight for the Future is a digital rights organization that has been leading coalitions of human rights, LGBTQ, reproductive rights, and digital rights organizations opposed to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and mandated online ID checks. They have driven over 400,000 calls and emails to Congress against these bills, and other harmful internet bills, through badinternetbills.com.

On August 5th, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the Kids Online Safety Act out of committee with zero debate and failed to move the SCREEN Act. Despite the usual and continued insistence that KOSA protects kids, the duty of care enforced by a Trump FTC would be a censorship and surveillance nightmare, especially for LGBTQ+ youth who need online communities now more than ever to connect, organize politically, and find resources that are being restricted in public space by the Trump administration and rightwing state governments.

The members of Senate Commerce committee know that Congress remains divided on what the final version of the Kids Online Safety Act should even look like. The Senate version passed out of committee today is a completely different bill than what was passed in the House earlier this year and the committee’s insistence on pushing this legislation in a form that they know will not see the light of day is a farce for everyone involved.

Fight for the Future is relieved that the SCREEN Act failed to move out of committee, as a widespread age verification mandate would be a death knell for free expression and privacy online, especially in its current version, which would restrict important and vital VPN usage.

“Congress is once again doing political theater instead of actually meaningfully regulating the business model of Big Tech companies,” said Sarah Philips, Campaign Director at Fight for the Future. “The Senate Commerce Committee is rushing out bad internet bills so they can go out and campaign on them even knowing they are doomed to failure, either because they will be rejected by the House or overturned by the courts for being unconstitutional. Young people have been calling and emailing Congress on this issue for years, and have been rallying around the world against proposals to fence them off from the internet for a reason. They can see through these efforts. They know more censorship and surveillance, more data collection for companies, and all of us having to turn over ID in order to interact online is not safety. We’ve had hearing after hearing on this issue for the last few years instead of actually moving against the tide of tech corporate power that is making our future unlivable and exploiting our data for profit. We want to protect kids, but we want those proposals to actually do the work, instead of just making an easy headline for Congressional leadership. Anyone in Congress still pushing censorship and surveillance bills under the facade of kids safety has failed us, especially members that claim to support trans kids and every community currently being attacked by the Trump administration.”

Fight for the Future has been leading the coalition of human rights, reproductive justice, and LGBTQ+ groups that have been fighting to stop KOSA and online ID check mandates. Fight has pushed hundreds of thousands of calls and emails to Congress against efforts to implement invasive online ID checks or “age verification”, widespread online censorship laws, and efforts to repeal or sunset Section 230 through badinternetbills.com.

On August 5, the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a markup hearing to rush out a collection of bad internet bills before the August recess. Included in this package is the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill marketed as an anti-Big Tech bill, but is supported by most of the Big Tech companies and the SCREEN Act, which would implement an internet-wide online ID check mandate that would be a censorship and surveillance nightmare for users of all ages. This latest version of the SCREEN Act would also incentivize social media companies to restrict VPN usage, which is important for marginalized communities of all kinds, and anyone who uses necessary privacy tools like journalists and activists.

Despite the continued narrative on the Hill that KOSA is about holding Big Tech accountable, KOSA is a dangerous censorship bill that would give the Trump government unprecedented control over the Internet and would put smaller tech companies at risk because they have don’t have the money or the connections to fend off the Trump administration interfering with their business. This is the same administration that intervened in the Big Tech CEO hearing to keep Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai from having to testify. It is unreasonable to believe they will use these dangerous new powers to target Trump’s allies in Big Tech.

As it currently stands, the bill that Congress continually lauds as the opportunity to get at Big Tech has actually been supported by no shortage of said Big Tech companies, including some of the most egregious actors at play right now, including Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, X, and Apple.

“The Kids Online Safety Act is yet another bill that supposedly targets Big Tech that Big Tech is simultaneously totally happy with passing, “ said Sarah Philips, Campaign Director at Fight for the Future. “Silicon Valley giants want legislation like KOSA because it lets them continue to harvest our data while leaving their predatory business model untouched. Even better, the bill relies on FTC enforcement when we’ve already seen a historically corrupt administration rig the system for their allies and donors while going after their enemies. The Trump administration has already intervened in the now cancelled Big Tech CEO hearing to keep his buddies out of the hot seat. We expect that same intervention to protect CEO donors, while using the new powers granted by KOSA to police speech and try to erase marginalized people from the internet. Over the last few months, we’ve also seen back and forth about even combining this legislation with federal preemption of state AI regulations. The willingness to even entertain these efforts points to the hypocrisy of how these bills are being pushed overall.

Big Tech can live with this bill, but LGBTQ+ people, those seeking abortion and other marginalized people being targeted by the Trump administration can’t. We are especially disappointed in Democrats that claim to stand up to Trump and Big Tech and yet keep getting fooled into voting in their interests. If Senator Richard Blumenthal gets this bill across the finish line, he will have Big Tech CEOs to thank. And Trump will reap the reward as the donations continue to pour in from Big Tech.”

However, the Senate bill, S. 3164, as amended, still contains significant issues that could harm marginalized communities, undermine human rights, and chill freedom of expression. We urge House and Senate leaders to address remaining concerns with the legislation in the conference committee, or to table the legislation for a further session if an agreement on rights-preserving language cannot be reached.

Specifically, the conference committee must:

• Adopt changes substantively similar to proposed Amendment #19 to ensure that the bill does not require companies to implement an age assurance or age verification process upon account creation. The ability to opt-out is insufficient when users don’t understand their rights or how to exercise them, and requiring platforms to request age information upon account sign-up creates a substantial barrier to adults’ ability to speak anonymously online, violating First Amendment rights and making the legislation vulnerable to legal challenges.
• Reject any changes that would require age gating of content or limit visibility of accounts that have not age verified. Any bill that requires age verification or age assurance in order to speak or read online is unconstitutional and poses a danger to marginalized communities in Massachusetts.
• Reject any changes that would require age determination as a condition of accessing a social media platform or an account, any requirement to age gate access to content or the ability to post content, and any requirement to set a default limit on the amount of time minors can spend on social media or the visibility of users’ posts.

Contact team@fightforthefuture.org with questions or clarifications.

Massachusetts Age Verification Bill (H. 5366) Opposition Letter

This letter is being led by Fight for the Future. You can sign this letter here: https://airtable.com/appdcRplUialw6v7Y/shrlrqdjgURjexhg9 (Yes, we are still taking sign-ons!)

The Massachusetts House has advanced H. 5349 (now H. 5366), a draconian and unconstitutional bill that would ban minors from social media, force social media platforms to enable parental surveillance of teenagers’ online activity, and subject everyone to privacy-invading online ID checks in order to access information or speak out online.

Dozens of civil liberties, racial justice, LGBTQ+, press freedom, abortion access, and human rights organizations have spoken out against these dangerous and misguided “age verification” laws, several of which have had their constitutionality questioned by the courts.

And a Massachusetts-based coalition of LGBTQ groups including the The Queer Neighborhood Council, III Labs, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, ACLU of MA, and the Transgender Emergency Fund have specifically been pressuring local lawmakers on this issue. Late last year, the Boston City Council introduced a resolution condemning “age verification” and censorship legislation, citing harm to the city’s LGBTQ youth. 

Trans youth in Massachusetts are already terrified of losing their health care. They’re being terrorized by a bigoted administration. Now Massachusetts lawmakers are advancing legislation that would cut them off from access to lifesaving online resources and support? Shameful doesn’t begin to cover it. 

Big Tech social media companies cause real harm, and lawmakers are right to want to do something about it. They should pass privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that actually makes sense and is enforceable. Instead, Massachusetts legislators are actively helping Trump’s authoritarian takeover by pushing for legislation that expands censorship and surveillance. This bill is a gift to the Palantirs of the world—expanding Trump’s surveillance state by forcing everyone to associate their government ID with everything they post at a time when the DOJ is sending subpoenas to social media companies demanding they hand over the names of people running accounts critical of ICE. 

This legislation would make kids less safe, not more safe, while forcing everyone to upload their government ID or submit to a facial recognition scan in order to post online. The definition of “social media” in the bill is so wildly broad it would sweep in almost the entire Internet, including resources like Wikipedia. 

Even red states with conservative supermajorities have avoided some of the parental surveillance provisions present in the Massachusetts bill that raise serious concerns for the safety of LGBTQ youth and young people’s right to privacy. Requiring social media platforms to verify parental consent is completely unworkable. The logistics of this requirement are a nightmare: proving that an adult is a guardian of a child requires giving very sensitive information to social media platforms that are already ripe for data breaches and presents even more obstacles for young people in abusive families, foster care, and parents navigating complicated custody dynamics. This is an impractical and invasive idea that has been abandoned in almost every other version of this type of legislation across the country. 

Age verification and censorship legislation will hurt kids and benefit Big Tech. If Massachusetts lawmakers want to address harm, they should listen to experts, scrap this terrible bill, and instead advance privacy legislation that strikes at the heart of social media companies’ harmful business practices.

We recommend Massachusetts lawmakers engage with human rights groups on their concerns with this bill. We oppose any version of this bill that mandates invasive age verification, bans young people from social media, requires parental surveillance of teenagers, and strips everyone on the internet regardless of age of their anonymity.”

Additional resources on this topic:

• Teen Vogue “Some Democrats are Helping the Trump Admin’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda”
• The Verge “Age Verification could force trans people to out themselves online”
• Wired “The Age Gated Internet is Sweeping the US. Activists are fighting back”
• ACLU analysis of why age verification violates the First Amendment
• Tech Policy Press “Age Verification is Locking Trans People Out of the Internet”

Signed,

Act on Mass

Advocates for Youth

Arts Equity Group

ArtsWorcester

Asian American Resource Workshop

Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network – Massachusetts

Boston Democratic Socialists of America

Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective

Brandeis Democrats

Digital Fourth

EducateUS

Episcopal City Misson

Fight for the Future

For Artists By Artists

Frizz Media

GreenRoots

Guardian Project

IfNotNow Boston

Indivisible Upper Cape

Intersectional Innovation and Impact (III) Labs

Jamaica Plain for Palestine

Jamaica Plain Progressives

Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston

Mass 50501

Massachusetts Pirate Party

Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC)

MassEquality

Matahari Women’s Worker Center

Mid Cape Indivisible

MRKH Intersex

Muslim Justice League

WIRED just broke the news that facial recognition scanners were turned off during Taylor Swift’s wedding at Madison Square Garden, leaving us wondering—why do billionaires get opt out of this dangerous and discriminatory tech while other patrons are aggressively surveilled for simply being trans or getting on James Dolan’s bad side?

This comes after 404 Media uncovered a three-page dossier on Fight for the Future’s Director Evan Greer in a folder titled “facial recognition activists” including time-stamped screenshots making it clear someone working for Madison Square Garden was keeping close tabs on our activism.

Fight for the Future is leading prominent campaigns to end the use of facial recognition and other AI surveillance in music venues and ban it from all places of public accommodation. Dozens of high profile artists including members of Rage Against the Machine and Bikini Kill have joined our pledge to boycott venues that use AI surveillance.

James Dolan’s venues: Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, and The Sphere are among the only concert halls in the United States that use facial recognition surveillance. A small handful of gay bars in San Fransisco recently started using face scanning tech, and are facing instant backlash.

Here’s a short statement attributable to Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future:

“This incident is a perfect encapsulation of the future we’re already living in: where wealthy elites are afforded privacy and the rest of us live in a surveillance dystopia. The fact that Madison Square Garden turned off its facial recognition system during her big day shows that James Dolan’s use of AI surveillance has nothing to do with safety and security. With almost no regulations, corporations and wealthy individuals use their surveillance empires to punish critics, target activists, discriminate against marginalized customers, and worsen conditions for workers. We need laws banning billionaires and corporations from using AI surveillance tech like facial recognition. Until then, artists and music fans must organize to boycott the tiny handful of venues that use this controversial tech. I’m glad that Taylor Swift was afforded privacy during her wedding. She should sign our pledge to boycott venues that use facial recognition, so that her fans can be afforded that same privacy.”

Fight for the Future is calling on artists and venues to pledge against using facial recognition, and for fans to boycott venues that use it, at https://www.banfacialrecognition.com/venues/.

XXX

Fight for the Future has been pushing back against online ID checks or so-called “age verification” across the country and working with Massachusetts legislators for months to find a workable solution to kids safety that doesn’t put young people in harm’s way. Massachusetts residents have been calling and writing lawmakers through Fight’s action page at stoponlineIDchecks.org/MA.

JULY 9, BEACON HILL — The Massachusetts Senate has passed its social media bill, along with many proposed amendments from digital privacy and free expression experts. Fight for the Future has been working with MA legislators for months to find the best step forward on kids safety online, without implementing harmful online ID checks or an ‘age verification’ mandate that would require every user to submit government or biometric information to social media companies in order to speak freely.

Many positive amendments were passed that would protect LGBTQ youth and protect data of minors. However, we are extremely disappointed that Amendment 19, which would have changed age verification requirements from opt-out to opt-in to better protect people, since most users don’t understand their rights to opt-out, ultimately failed. This does concern digital rights experts and we will continue to fight and demand that they fix the outstanding problems to address this as the bill moves forward to conference committee.

“The improvements to this legislation shows what can happen when lawmakers who are vested in enacting policies to keep young people safe online actually listen to marginalized communities, LGBTQ youth, and digital rights experts,” said Evan Greer, Director at Fight for the Future. “Despite failing to pass a critical amendment, Massachusetts still has an opportunity to lead the way in policy making around tech by prioritizing the concerns of the most vulnerable populations online and this is an important step towards that. Fight for the Future has been fighting against surveillance and censorship threats in kids safety legislation across the country and this process has given us hope that we can find a way through, without compromising privacy and important resources online. We particularly appreciate Senator Cyr’s willingness to hear out our concerns and work with us to put the best version of this legislation into action in Massachusetts.”

You can find the full list of amendments and Fight for the Future’s voting recommendations for each here: https://docs.fightforthefuture.org/s/9ecb063c-3eac-475f-8347-bd888bb2c7d8

Fight for the Future is helping lead a growing coalition of human rights, LGBTQ+, civil liberties, and racial justice groups who oppose dangerous and misguided “age verification” legislation in Massachusetts and around the nation.

• See our letter to MA lawmakers, signed by dozens of organizations including Mass Equality, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Sierra Club of MA, Partners in Sex Education, United American Indians of New England (UAINE), The Coalition for Student Mental Health, Progressive Massachusetts, Muslim Justice League, Act On Mass, and dozens more.
• See our model social media legislation, which seems to have influenced the Senate’s proposal. Our bill also requires social media companies to turn off harmful features by default for ALL users, rather than forcing users to verify age to create accounts
• Boston City Council has passed a resolution condemning age verification and censorship legislation, urging lawmakers to advance privacy and algorithmic justice legislation instead.

Fight for the Future experts and advocates are available to speak to press, contact: press@fightforthefuture.org

The Massachusetts Senate has unveiled new legislation regulating social media companies. The Senate version is significantly different from both the House bill and Governor Maura Healey’s proposal. Instead of forcing every user in Massachusetts to verify their age in order to post online, the Senate bill requires social media companies to offer default settings for ALL users that turn off manipulative features like autoplay, infinite scroll, and surveillance driven algorithmic recommendations. Then users would have to go through an “age assurance” system in order to turn those features on if they want to use them.

Evan Greer (she/her), Boston-based LGBTQ+ advocate and the director of Fight for the Future, issued the following statement on the Senate’s legislation:

“No one wants to upload their government ID or get their face scanned in order to post online. The people of Massachusetts resoundingly rejected the dangerous and unconstitutional social media proposals from the House and the Governor. And it’s clear that the Senate took that backlash into consideration when drafting their proposal. The Senate’s bill does not require social media users to verify their ages simply to create accounts or post online, and it removes the blatantly unconstitutional parental consent provisions in the House bill. That said, the Senate bill still raises concerns for civil liberties and could harm LGBTQ+ youth and other marginalized communities if the language isn’t improved in some key areas. Fight for the Future will release a full analysis of the bill in the coming days, and we look forward to working with Massachusetts lawmakers to get this right. Massachusetts can lead the nation with first of its kind legislation that addresses the harm of Big Tech without resorting to censorship and surveillance that hurts vulnerable communities. We won’t stop fighting until that happens.”

Fight for the Future is helping lead a growing coalition of human rights, LGBTQ+, civil liberties, and racial justice groups who oppose dangerous and misguided “age verification” legislation in Massachusetts and around the nation.

• See our letter to MA lawmakers, signed by dozens of organizations including Mass Equality, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Sierra Club of MA, Partners in Sex Education, United American Indians of New England (UAINE), The Coalition for Student Mental Health, Progressive Massachusetts, Muslim Justice League, Act On Mass, and dozens more.
  
• See our model social media legislation, which seems to have influenced the Senate’s proposal. Our bill also requires social media companies to turn off harmful features by default for ALL users, rather than forcing users to verify age to create accounts
  
• Boston City Council has passed a resolution condemning age verification and censorship legislation, urging lawmakers to advance privacy and algorithmic justice legislation instead.

Fight for the Future experts and advocates are available to speak to press, contact: press@fightforthefuture.org

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June 25, 2025 | ATTN San Francisco: Three prominent gay bars in San Francisco (Mix, Badlands, and Toad Hall) have been exposed for using TSA-level face scanners for entry, putting already vulnerable patrons at severe risk of surveillance. San Francisco’s Pride festivities are set to take place this weekend, June 27th- June 28th, and many will be hitting iconic venues in the Castro to celebrate. We advise San Franciscans avoid such bars until they remove the facial recognition technology to ensure safety for the queer and trans community, free from harmful surveillance. Allies have put together an interactive map and reporting tool to help track surveillance technology at area venues.

This warning comes as facial recognition at larger venues, including Madison Square Garden, is highlighting some of the key risks of this technology in event spaces. Earlier this year MSG was exposed for using this technology to profile and track a trans woman in real-time, including every trip to the restroom, repeatedly over several games. And most recently, a MSG data hack exposed an op-sec file on activists that oppose facial recognition, including Fight For the Future’s own Evan Greer.

In addition to this public safety warning, Fight for the Future is calling on all artists, including trans and gender expansive entertainers, drag performers, and musicians, to refuse to perform at any gay bar, theater, or venue that uses facial recognition technology or AI to surveil its patrons. Already beloved San Francisco artists Tune Yards, Deerhoof, and Boots Riley have answered this call, and local venues El Rio and La Pena Cultural center have committed to not allow facial recognition in their spaces. Community members will be distributing the printable flyers below ahead of Pride activities this weekend.

Stay safe San Francisco, and happy pride!

Multiple media outlets are reporting that hackers have published a trove of data stolen from Madison Square Garden, one of the only large venues in the United States known to be using facial recognition surveillance on customers. The folks at 404 Media, who have been reporting on the breach, flagged for Fight for the Future that the hack includes what appears to be dossiers that Madison Square Garden’s owners were keeping on activists who criticized the company’s use of facial recognition.

One such file the company was keeping on activists focuses on Fight for the Future’s director, Evan Greer. The dossier, which misgenders Greer, a trans woman, includes background information as well as screenshots and links to social media posts, news articles where Greer is quoted, and op-eds.

FFTF Director Evan Greer (she/her) is available for interviews if you are covering this topic. She issued the following statement:

“The fact that MSG is creating dossiers on activists who say things they don’t like shows exactly why private companies should not be allowed to use dangerous surveillance technologies like facial recognition. Large companies can and will use surveillance tech to punish critics, exploit workers, and consolidate power, with no regard for the basic rights they trample in the process.

It’s funny that MSG’s owners are so concerned about me. Maybe they should be more worried about the fact that actual rockstars like Rage Against the Machine and Bikini Kill have pledged to boycott venues that use facial recognition surveillance on fans. The fact that we’re learning about this secretive profiling of activists thanks to a data leak is also ironic. Clearly MSG is incapable of safeguarding the data they collect and store, and this includes the massive trove of biometric data their face scanning system collects on every single person who enters the venue. Clearly James Dolan and MSG do not care about people’s privacy, rights, or safety. But presumably they care about their bottom line. If they’re smart, they’ll ditch the use of untrustworthy, racist, discriminatory and ineffective facial recognition tech before they catch a lawsuit or data breach they can’t afford. They can thank me later when they update my oppo report. 

Oh, and given their recent treatment of a trans woman trying to use the bathroom in their venue, I’m also not surprised they misgendered me. “

See the documents uncovered by 404 media here:

Fight for the Future has led some of the most prominent campaigns to ban the use of facial recognition including a campaign with prominent artists and musicians that got more than 40 of the worlds largest music festivals to commit to not using biometric surveillance at their events. To arrange an interview, contact press@fightforthefuture.org

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Yesterday, Meta dropped its opposition to KOSA after reports that it is being packaged by the White House with AI preemption and the App Store Accountability Act, two bills that Meta has lobbied for. Meta now joins Microsoft, Apple, X, Snap, and Pinterest in supporting KOSA, while much of civil society and the city of Boston opposes.

Evan Greer, Director of Fight for the Future, issued the following statement:

“With the news that Meta has dropped opposition to KOSA, more Big Tech companies now support KOSA than oppose it. Silicon Valley giants want legislation like KOSA because it lets them continue to harvest our data while leaving their predatory business model untouched. Even better, it benefits the largest companies while hurting competitors, and lets companies pass the buck to the government when it comes to suppressing large swaths of marginalized people’s speech. Now, when Big Tech social media companies censor LGBTQ+ suicide hotlines for teenagers, they can claim they’re ‘just following the law.’ Meta has already tried to do this with its unsuccessful Oversight Board, and now it can hand over regulation of speech to the government instead.

Meta is the same company that released the slur update, which changed their moderation practices to expressly allow users to dehumanize LGBTQ+ people, in order to buddy up to the Trump administration. Now, it is dropping its opposition to KOSA to work with Senator Marsha Blackburn and Donald Trump and get what they really want: AI preemption. Blackburn is the most hateful member of the Senate, who sees KOSA as a way to protect kids from “the transgender.” The Trump administration has led a well-documented campaign against minorities and marginalized people, with the FTC tasking itself with targeting transgender rights. If KOSA passes, that same FTC will be able to control what you see online. We never expected Big Tech to fight for us, and the low price of their support should give good faith supporters of KOSA pause.

Now that most of Big Tech supports KOSA, every member of Congress who has sponsored KOSA because they think it will reign in Big Tech should be asked by reporters if they still think it’s worth handing Trump the keys to remake the Internet in his image. Will Senator Richard Blumenthal stand next to Mark Zuckerberg at the signing ceremony with Donald Trump?”

Major news outlets cited theoretical AI concerns and ended 30 years of journalism preservation. The public is asking them to be reasonable.

Over 20,000 people are calling on leadership at major news outlets The Atlantic, New York Times, and USA Today to allow the WayBack Machine to continue its multi-decade work of independently preserving news stories.

The petition, which remains open for signatures, reads in part:

“The Wayback Machine makes every online news outlet it archives more resilient against pressure to remove stories that threaten the powerful. It is in the interest of any news outlet that still does real journalism to champion such an ally in times like these. It shouldn’t be this hard to find a way to independently preserve the news.”

These signatures come as new research shows that 38% of webpages from a decade ago are not longer accessible—except for the 15% of those pages that the WayBack Machine has archived. Further, the Internet Archive recently revealed that over 100 news articles per month reference, cite, or rely on WayBack Machine materials.

“The stories and truth of our time shouldn’t be collateral damage in backroom AI deals or AI hand-wringing,” said Lia Holland (they/she) Campaigns and Communications Director at Fight for the Future. “These news publishers are on very shaky ground when it comes to blocking the WayBack Machine. Their stated reason, that they want to ensure AI will not train on their content via the WayBack Machine, is purely theoretical, but the impacts are not. Essentially, New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today are sawing off an arm of their integrity by blocking the WayBack Machine: they are impoverishing future journalists by denying them a resource they have benefited from for 30 years, they’re exposing themselves to increased censorship vulnerability, and they’re torching third party accountability for the content of their publications. If I held an interest in one of these publications, I would be highly interested in the motivations behind this decision to undermine integrity and accountability.”

At last count, 275 journalists have signed a separate letter thanking the Internet Archive and its WayBack Machine for being a crucial resource in their profession. Journalists regularly rely on the WayBack Machine to report on everything from censorship to culture. When signing, many journalist-signatories offered quotes:

“In 2022 at Reuters, we used the Internet Archive to uncover a now-defunct covert online communication system that the CIA had used to stay in touch with its informants in Iran. The report, published under the title America’s Throwaway Spies: How the CIA failed Iranian informants in its secret war with Tehran, won the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence in 2023.”
— Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

“As Washington Post Fact Checker, the Internet Archive was essential to writing articles that debunked falsehoods. I could show how websites were changed and data was manipulated. When the Trump administration killed USAID and terminated its website, I could only examine their false claims about USAID with reports and data preserved by the Internet Archive.”
— Glenn Kessler

“I’ve worked as an editor, researcher, journalist, and photojournalist, and have use the Internet Archive in many ways. I was online editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian which was later sold & shut down. Issues of the print newspaper are being digitized & archived on the Internet Archive. Many online versions of stories as well as stories & columns which were only online & promoted in the newspaper are only available through the Wayback Machine.”
— Steve Rhodes

“I use Wayback Machine all the time to fact check statements and pronouncements from institutions. In the most recent memorable example, the Vancouver Police Department changed their press release AFTER I had reported an article on misleading statements in their original statement. The department then posted on Twitter from its official account, accusing me of falsifying information. I was able to use the Wayback Machine to immediately prove that the police department had changed their initial statement to make it look like I had lied in my article. Thanks to the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine and the publication I was writing for (as a freelancer at the time), the record was set straight.”
— Brishti Basu

For the journalist letter, quotations, the letter text, the sign-on form, and signatory list are available at https://www.savethearchive.com/journalists/

For the public petition, all details and the sign on form are available at https://www.savethearchive.com/newsleaders/

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The MA House just passed the Massachusetts Consumer Data Privacy Act, which if signed by the Governor would be one of the strongest data privacy bills in the United States. The House-passed version of the bill contains a complete ban on the sale of precise cell phone location data, and despite fierce industry lobbying, a private right of action allowing people to sue Big Tech companies for data abuses.

Please see a press release here from the coalition of civil rights and reproductive justice groups that has led the fight for this legislation in MA: https://www.aclum.org/press-releases/civil-rights-and-reproductive-justice-groups-applaud-unanimous-house-passage-of-massachusetts-consumer-data-privacy-act/

The bill will now go to a conference committee to reconcile it with a similar bill passed by the Massachusetts Senate earlier this year. Both bills have strengths and weaknesses, and Fight for the Future will be joining other advocates in pushing for the final passage of the strongest bill possible.

Evan Greer (she/her), director of Fight for the Future, issued the following statement:

“Companies shouldn’t be able to track you everywhere you go and then sell that information on the open market. Today, Massachusetts took a major step toward cracking down on Big Tech’s surveillance abuses. In Trump’s America, we know that privacy protections are a matter of life and death for LGBTQ+ youth, undocumented folks, and other vulnerable communities. We’ll continue to push for the MA legislature to pass the strongest privacy legislation possible.” 

Fight for the Future has been leading the charge against the misguided and unconstitutional age verification proposals put forward by the MA House and Governor Maura Healey earlier this year. Our growing coalition of LGBTQ+, civil liberties, racial justice and human rights groups believe strong privacy legislation like what the MA house passed today would do far more to protect kids (and everyone else) from Big Tech harms. The House and Senate should work quickly to pass the strongest possible data privacy bill. And then work with experts and impacted communities on additional legislation to address the harms of large, surveillance-driven social media companies.

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“It’s absolutely ridiculous that August Image LLC is trying to take down Stereogum with a lawsuit over images a sister site posted fifteen years ago. This is a weaponization of copyright laws that are supposed to protect artists. Instead, copyright is being used to attack a beloved indie music site that has been doing incredible reporting on music and art for years. This suit should be a red flag for creators everywhere.

August Image LLC’s lawsuit seems very similar to the practice of copyright trolling, in which bad-faith companies are using AI bots to scan through the histories of websites to find any image that is under intellectual property restrictions today, and demand thousands of dollars for every instance. The problem is, many websites don’t have their image licensing records from fifteen years ago—and the trolls generally have no proof that the image was even under the same copyright restrictions that far back. Yet, these cases are costing websites like Stereogum a truly damaging amount of money just to defend themselves, much less to pay the trolls.

If copyright trolls keep it up, the only longstanding websites that will be left are those that are owned by tech and content billionaires. Artists need independent, alternative websites that act in their interests now more than ever—and copyright is being weaponized to make sure that they won’t have these crucial resources anymore. Can we get a statute of limitations on these sorts of claims and kick the trolls out of their copyright goldmine please?”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — On the same day as Lowe’s big shareholder meeting, dozens of San Franciscans gathered outside of the Lowe’s San Francisco location with a massive banner, signs, and flyers highlighting the company’s contract for Flock license plate surveillance technology that is being used to amplify racial profiling, assist in ICE immigration raids, and investigate abortion care.

Check out photos of the action here:

San Francisco is lauded as a safe-haven for vulnerable groups, such as immigrants, abortion seekers, or people seeking gender-affirming care. However San Francisco’s relationship with Flock jeopardizes the safety of all those who seek its refuge. Last year, San Francisco Police Department wasexposed for illegally sharing license plate data repeatedly with Immigration & Customs Enforcement, violating state law SB34 which prohibits license plate data from being shared with federal agencies. Since, more than 80 cities across the country have moved to terminate or pause their contracts with Flock as the collective risks of mass surveillance to privacy, human rights, civil liberties, reproductive care, and immigrant rights become undeniable. For example, documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation showed that police agencies logged hundreds of searches to Flock databases to target protesters including various 50501, No Kings, and Hands Off protests. And thanks to critical reporting from 404Media, ICE agents’ use of Flock’s database for the purpose of immigration-related investigations is known, as well as its use in prosecuting abortion seekers.

San Francisco is lauded as a safe-haven for vulnerable groups, such as immigrants, abortion seekers, or people seeking gender-affirming care. However San Francisco’s relationship with Flock jeopardizes the safety of all those who seek its refuge. Last year, San Francisco Police Department was exposed for illegally sharing license plate data repeatedly with Immigration & Customs Enforcement, violating state law SB34 which prohibits license plate data from being shared with federal agencies. Since, more than 80 cities across the country have moved to terminate or pause their contracts with Flock as the collective risks of mass surveillance to privacy, human rights, civil liberties, reproductive care, and immigrant rights become undeniable. For example, documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation showed that police agencies logged hundreds of searches to Flock databases to target protesters including various 50501, No Kings, and Hands Off protests. And thanks to critical reporting from 404Media, ICE agents’ use of Flock’s database for the purpose of immigration-related investigations is known, as well as its use in prosecuting abortion seekers.

Records requests from Johnson County, TX indicate that Lowe’s Flock camera data was accessible in the same jurisdiction under fire for using Flock data to investigate an out-of-state abortion. Evidence also surfaced of Lowe’s coordinating directly with Flock Safety reps to provide multiple law enforcement agencies access to Lowe’s camera footage. The documents reveal an open door policy for sharing data on customers with law enforcement without a court order. In response, Fight For the Future send a public letter to Lowe’s alongside 40 civil rights, racial justice, gender justice, and immigrant rights organizations last month. Lowe’s has refused to respond to the coalition and media requests.

“People are finally waking up to the fact that surveillance is a huge safety threat to the most vulnerable in our communities,” said Reem Suleiman, organizer of the action at Fight for the Future, (pronouns she/her). “As a Muslim-American growing up in a post 9/11 world, I’ve seen first hand the ways in which surveillance tears apart communities, opens people up to harassment and risk. Today, corporate and government surveillance—like Lowe’s partnership with Flock– is part of the digital infrastructure that enables ICE terror and fascist repression.”

“SFPD and Lowe’s have been contracting Flock for years now, putting our communities at risk and violating San Franciscans’ right to privacy. This action at Lowe’s SF is the first event in the city specifically against Flock surveillance, making it an even more significant milestone for the Deflock movement.” said Zachary Schwartz, Managing Director of DeFlock SF

“Any jurisdiction doing business with any ALPR vendor should not have the right to virtue signal and call themselves a sanctuary jurisdiction! There is no way to comply with CA Law while operating with ANY ALPR vendor, regardless of contract language or local “safeguards,” saidan anonymous, undocumented anti-Flock organizer of the action.

“Flock is anti-democratic infrastructure. Corporate surveillance is helping build an authoritarian enforcement network that puts San Franciscans’ movements into systems they did not consent to and, in many cases, aren’t even aware of. Indivisible SF is proud to join this action to make shareholders aware of the moral hazard and reputational risk that Lowe’s will incur for so long as it contracts with Flock,” said a representative of Indivisible SF.

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Earlier this month when we highlighted Utah’s first in the nation law to restrict VPNs, people really cared what fools Utah politicians are being. It’s very clear that their bad new law can’t and won’t stop Utah folks using VPNs from accessing content online.

We are very pleased to see that on the day it was supposed to roll out, Utah put their VPN restrictions on hold instead. Why? They’re getting sued. Like they should. Because It’s illegal for Utah to get in the way of what people in other states do on the Internet, and the only way that their law can be implemented would do exactly that.

Now, all that has to happen is for a judge to realize that regulating the Internet by make-believe isn’t actually going to work. Utah can’t ban abuse survivors in Colorado from using VPNs to hide their footprint from their abusers, it can’t ban travelers in New York from turning on a VPN to dodge shady exploits and surveillance on iffy wifi, it can’t ban human rights defenders from always keeping their VPN on to make sure that their digital organizing is never linked to their physical location.

Websites can’t know where a person using a VPN is browsing from. With a reputable VPN, that’s impossible. And that’s also the point: VPNs are a privacy protection tool. People use them because scammers and stalkers and worse are gobbling up all our data to use against us. Even the data of kids.

Utah says they’re doing it for the kids. But passing a law that gets you sued and wastes resources isn’t how you protect kids. It’s time for some grown-up logic here.

With this pause and this lawsuit, Utah could re-evaluate and make this right. Their next step should be to meet with the tech justice orgs that have been working on actually protecting everyone online for years and pass legislation that’s grounded in reality and the constitution to protect us all from bad actors online by giving us the tools to defend our privacy, our freedom of speech, and all the rights that big tech companies that love age verification and VPN bans have been stripping away. It doesn’t matter if we’re kids or not kids, we all deserve to be safe from this garbage. And by protecting everyone, you protect kids by default, no matter if they’re on a VPN.

Fight for the Future, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Access Now, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and other leading human rights organizations are demanding Meta immediately course correct and make good on promises to protect Instagram DMs with end-to-end encryption by default.

Led by Fight for the Future, 50+ human rights groups are expressing outrage over Meta’s decision to discontinue “opt-in” end-to-end encryption for Instagram messages, as well as its apparent reversal of plans to protect Instagram messages with end-to-end encryption by default. The groups sent a letter to Meta calling on the company to immediately course correct and follow through on promises to ensure users’ direct messages (DMs) are safe from third-party access.

For the communities represented by the organizational signers, including activists, LGBTQ+ people, abortion seekers, journalists and other targeted groups around the world, privacy online is not “optional.” It’s a matter of life and death.

Meta’s removal of “opt-in end-to-end encryption” for direct messages on Instagram—a feature only available to users in certain regions—took effect on May 8, 2026. Meta has claimed the move was driven by “lack of interest from users.”

The decision and rationale represent a complete reversal of Meta’s well-established commitments to end-to-end encrypted communications, as well as its promises to make end-to-end encryption the default setting for Instagram messages.

”Meta has repeatedly articulated the importance of end-to-end encryption, sometimes mirroring the exact language our organizations have used for years to explain why online messages must be protected and private. Does Meta expect us to simply forget this history? Does the company expect us to accept the absurd justification that ‘users aren’t interested in E2EE’ when Meta knows very well we shouldn’t be forced to opt-in to life-saving privacy features?” said Leila Nashashibi, Campaigner at Fight for the Future. “Meta has defended E2EE in the past, even when it wasn’t politically convenient. Clearly the company’s political calculus has shifted. Is Meta axing its E2EE plans in order to curry favor with Trump, who wants unfettered access to our messages so his administration can spy on us and target us? Or does the company believe that the profit potential of violating our privacy and harvesting our most sensitive information—our private messages—is simply too great to pass up? We deserve to know the truth behind this total betrayal of users’ safety and privacy. We’re calling on organizations and users all over the world to reject this shameful move. If Meta wants to keep its Instagram users, it must make DMs safe NOW.”

”Secure E2EE messaging is a BASIC digital need and right. Several years ago, we joined in asking Meta to encrypt DMs. As Meta has acknowledged, privacy online is actually critical to people’s safety online AND offline. Now, Meta says they’re rolling this safety measure back after offering E2EE as a difficult to find optional setting? That’s so disingenuous and disappointing,” said Maya Morales of WA People’s Privacy. “If Meta wants people to use its platforms, it has to ensure that using them doesn’t actively endanger us. Without encryption, our personal conversations have been fed straight to government agencies or officials we might critique, to DHS/ICE, to data brokers, into AI models, you name it. This is not a trivial issue. Unsecured DMs can—and have—resulted in people’s entire lives being destroyed. E2EE should be the default setting for all apps that offer messaging, and AI should never be used in ANY messaging service without non-coerced, opt-in consent. If Meta’s not going to keep users safe, is it prepared for a mass-exodus?”

Fight for the Future and a coalition of civil society organizations strongly applauded Meta’s implementation of default end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger in December 2023. The move came after public outcry and pressure in response to Meta handing over unencrypted Messenger direct messages between a Nebraska teenager and her mother to law enforcement—messages that led to the teen’s prosecution for choosing to have an abortion.

In the months preceding the December 2023 announcement, Rob Sherman, VP and Deputy Chief Privacy Officer for Policy at Meta, sent a letter to Fight for the Future stating: “We remain committed to rolling out default end-to-end encryption for private conversations on Messenger in 2023, and shortly afterwards for Instagram.”

In the the letter, Mr. Sherman notes:

People expect technology companies to provide the best security to protect their personal information, and we believe end-to-end [encryption] is an important component of building trust with our users because it:

• Promotes a fundamental right to privacy, which allows loved ones to communicate without fear.
• Helps prevent both serious and common crimes like hacking and identity theft.
• Enables journalists, civil society, religious groups, scholars, and artists to exercise their rights to free and private speech without surveillance or retaliation.

The termination of E2EE for Instagram DMs is especially shameful given the ways other Big Tech companies are plowing ahead with securing our messages, like Google and Apple’s recent launch of default end-to-end encryption for text messages between iPhone and Android users. 

When it comes to Meta’s supposed commitments to E2EE, it seems clearer than ever that the company is operating opportunistically. Now that the issue of end-to-end encrypted DMs has been out of the media spotlight for many months, Meta is quietly rolling back the feature and putting the blame on users. But as significant buzz and media attention builds around AI chatbots, Meta is swooping in and announcing a new end-to-end encrypted chatbot—reinforcing that the company is only willing to stick its neck out for E2EE policies when it believes there’s potential for serious financial gain and good PR.

The backtracking on end-to-end encryption commitments comes on the heals of yet another disappointing privacy decision from Meta: On May 5, the company announced that it will be “developing” a tool that can determine a user’s age based on visual, physical characteristics. Under the guise of kids safety, this could mean scanning every single picture posted on the platform to determine people’s ages, with no guardrails. Fight for the Future has been warning for years that online ID checks in all of its forms, regardless of the public relations term in use (age assurance, age verification, age estimation) is a censorship and privacy nightmare that will lead to Big Tech companies cobbling together even more information about users of all ages.

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Sarah Philips, Campaign Director at Fight for the Future, has this to say:

“NYU students are rightly protesting the announcement that Jonathan Haidt will address them as commencement speaker at tomorrow’s ceremony. As members of student government write in their letter to the university, Haidt, a pop psychologist and business professor, is a poor choice that cheapens the accomplishments of the Class of 2026 and fatally misunderstands the political moment into which they graduate.

Why might Haidt’s appearance lead to protest? Well, because he one of the leading figures of a contemporary moral panic which leverages contested science to promote policies that strip young people of their autonomy. Haidt, 62, is a consummate grifter whose scolding treatises about American youth include “The Coddling of the American Mind” and “The Anxious Generation”: fact-lite airport bestsellers which right-wing groups deploy in support of a nation-wide effort to ban young people from the Internet.

Haidt is also noted for his history of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-transgender comments. And like attracts like: he is no better than noted transphobe Senator Martha Blackburn, who has been pushing the dangerous Kids Online Safety Act to protect kids from “the transgender in this culture.” Haidt has used his positioning to push for mass censorship laws that would harm LGBTQ youth across the globe. His organization, The Anxious Generation Movement, has worked with NCOSE (formerly Morality in Media) and the Heritage Foundation, two architects of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement, to lobby for KOSA.

NYU’s speaker decision has the additional effect of doing free publicity for an author whose central claims have been hotly contested by psychologists and statisticians. Shoddy science and unabashed self-promotion —are these the values that NYU administration wishes to impress upon its graduating students?

We think it’s interesting that supporters of Haidt are citing free speech concerns, when Haidt would have young people kicked off the internet writ large if he got his way. Fight for the Future is a proponent of free speech for all—not just adults, and certainly not just white, upper-class professors like Haidt. We believe in privacy protections that would undercut Big Tech’s power to surveil us, and antitrust laws that would attenuate tech monopolies’ power. And we believe that the most significant improvements to youth mental health should be made offline: young people need better-funded schools, extracurricular programs, and affordable housing and healthcare.

NYU’s Class of 2026 deserves to hear from someone who celebrates young people’s activism and their power to change the world—not a cowardly scold who is unwilling to admit his mistakes. Haidt wants a world where adults lecture young people and dismiss their protests as signs of moral failure—perfectly highlighted by the format of the event, where NYU’s actual graduates have been kicked off the podium for daring to stand up for Palestinian liberation, while Haidt is the one crying free speech.”

BOSTON, May 13, 2026 — TODAY, Boston City Council voted unanimously to adopt a resolution condemning dangerous and misguided censorship and age verification legislation, including the controversial proposals put forward by Governor Maura Healey and the Massachusetts House. 

Filed by Councilor Henry Santana and co-sponsored by Councilor Julia Mejia, the measure reads in part:

“Mandatory age verification laws would require Internet users to upload government identification or submit to invasive biometric scans, creating barriers to access, undermining privacy, and disproportionately harming marginalized communities … the City Council calls upon members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation and the Governor to publicly oppose these harmful bills as they stand and instead to work with the community to create and advance legislation that holds Big Tech accountable while protecting online free expression, privacy, and access to lifesaving resources…”

This morning 50+ human rights organizations released a letter opposing dangerous age verification laws being proposed in Massachusetts at a press conference held outside of the Massachusetts State House with State Rep Mike Connolly: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-05-11-new-letter-massachusetts-social-media-ban-will-help-trump-and-will-not-keep-kids-safe-from-big-tech/

The Queers Against Censorship coalition, a Boston-based network of grassroots groups organizing against censorship and surveillance of LGBTQ+ communities, warned City Council in a hearing in November that these measures, if enacted, would severely restrict access to critical online resources for LGBTQIA+ youth, survivors of abuse, and other vulnerable populations. Mandatory age verification requirements and expanded censorship powers could compromise privacy, restrict freedom of expression, and endanger lives. III Labs, led by Burhan Muhammad, played an instrumental role in crafting the resolution with the coalition and Councilor Santana’s office.

You can find the full recording of that hearing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnX1lX3LRQ

Voices from the Community:

“As a young trans person growing up in south Texas, my first relationship with the queer community was through my phone. Online, I was able to see, for the first time, queer and trans people living authentically as themselves, as parents, artists, leaders. I was able to learn through these creators and content about my own identities. No one is born understanding all the acronyms. I truly think my transition would have been delayed decades without this window into self-understanding, which prevented years of isolation and self-loathing. These spaces gave me the opportunity to envision a future for myself where I could live fully and surrounded by love,” said Teddy, co-founder for Protect Trans Futures.

“I co-founded and co-run the largest trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive online resource group, people who are looking for community, support, and safety every day. I’ve seen an uptick in people fleeing other states to ours, and the first thing many do is search online. What will happen if they can no longer find these vital resources that connect them to the greater trans community? What if trans kids can’t find Bagly, the nation’s oldest youth LGBTQ organization that saved me as a kid for safety, support, and love? “ said Zarie L, Director of Community Outreach and Resources at HELP by AMG.

“Being able to access YouTube was the first time I was able to see people with any level of queer and trans representation. As I’ve grown into adulthood, it’s still the place that I find
different organizations, that I find out where my people are, especially now as a peer leader at BAGLY,
that’s where most people find us. The big fear with censorship is not only I won’t be able to find my people, find where I should go to events, where I can access areas of support, but we’ll be losing organizationally more youth who need to access to our services,” said Sam Bruetsch, Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth (BAGLY).

“We’re living through a moment where extremist politicians call queer people groomers, where trans kids are being banned from healthcare, where books are removed from libraries, where drag performers are harassed, where migrants are demonized and trans folks are being legislated out of public life. Fascism doesn’t always announce itself before coming, sometimes it arrives wrapped in sugar-coated language of ‘child safety’ or ‘protecting our minors.’ Online spaces are lifelines for queer and trans youth, for survivors, for people seeking gender affirming or reproductive care– these spaces allow LGBT youth to find community and hope especially in a world that’s increasingly hostile,” said Sal Khan, Out Newcomers + Migrant Activist

“The internet isn’t a distraction. It’s a critical infrastructure for survival when physical spaces
like our homes or local schools become unsafe or non-affirming. Online communities are the essential life raft where a young person can discreetly research gender affirming care, where a queer immigrant can locate anonymous legal aid and where even my own kids are empowered to connect with peers who share their experiences without fear of exposure. This access is not a luxury it’s a public health imperative,” said Jack Bergamo, Executive Director + Founder of The Queer Neighborhood Council

The hearing featured testimony from legal experts, impacted residents, and community-based organizations, providing firsthand accounts of how these federal and state proposals could undermine digital rights and civil liberties. You can find video of the full hearing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnX1lX3LRQ

About The Queers Against Censorship Coalition: The Queers Against Censorship Coalition is a Boston-based grassroots network advocating for digital rights, online privacy, and equitable access to vital online resources for marginalized communities.

Adam Mosseri
Head of Instagram
Meta Platforms, Inc.

Mark Zuckerberg
Chairman & CEO
Meta Platforms, Inc.
1 Meta Way
Menlo Park, CA 94025


Dear Mr. Sherman, Mr. Mosseri, and Mr. Zuckerberg,

We are human rights organizations writing to express outrage over recent news that Meta is not only abandoning plans to implement default end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for direct messages on Instagram, but is also removing the option to voluntarily turn on E2EE for messages—a feature that has only been available to users in certain regions.We request Meta immediately course correct by following through on its promises to make Instagram messages private and secure by default, just as it did for Facebook Messenger.

As government agencies around the world and in the US actively weaponize social media apps and the data collected by your platforms to target immigrants, protestors, journalists, LGBTQ people, and others, privacy and security on these apps can’t be optional—they are life-saving necessities.

We strongly applauded Meta’s decision to implement end-to-end encryption by default on Facebook Messenger in December 2023. The announcement came as our communities were still reeling from the impact of Meta’s decision to hand over unencrypted Messenger direct messages (DMs) between a Nebraska teenager and her mother to law enforcement, leading to the teen’s prosecution for choosing to have an abortion.

In the months preceding the December 2023 announcement, Meta sent a letter to Fight for the Future stating: “We remain committed to rolling out default end-to-end encryption for private conversations on Messenger in 2023, and shortly afterwards for Instagram.”

In a 2021 statement Mr. Zuckerberg further voiced his commitment to platform privacy by writing that “On balance, I believe working towards implementing end-to-end encryption for all private communications is the right thing to do. Messages and calls are some of the most sensitive private conversations people have, and in a world of increasing cyber security threats and heavy-handed government intervention in many countries, people want us to take the extra step to secure their most private data.”

Now you are backtracking on these commitments, claiming that very few people have chosen to opt into E2EE for messages on Instagram.

Given the statements by Meta representatives cited above, and the implementation of default E2EE on Messenger, this explanation reads as dishonest and misleading – Meta is well aware that the importance of privacy features should not be evaluated by how many people “opt in.”

It’s never too late to change course. Meta’s commitment in this area has been a model within the industry, and we fully agree with Meta that “[p]rivacy and safety go hand-in-hand” – today more than ever before.

We request that you immediately follow through with plans to implement default end-to-end encryption for Instagram direct messages.

Honoring your goal of providing people with “the safest private messaging apps” rides on the decisions you make in this moment.

Signed,

7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media
18 MILLION RISING
Access Now
Africa Media and Information Technology Initiative (AfriMITI)
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Arkansas Black Gay Men’s Forum
Basic Rights Oregon
Center for Online Safety and Liberty
Chayn
Comunitatea Internet Association
Council of Canadians
CTRL+Z
Cybersecurity Advisors Network
cyberstorm.mu
D64 – Center for Digital Progress
Digital Rights Nepal (DRN)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc
Equality New Mexico
Erotic Service provider Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP)
Feminoteka
Fight for the Future
Freedom Oklahoma 
Gate 15
GoodBot
HakiDigital Initiative
Internet Society Catalan Chapter
Internet Society Uganda Chapter
ISOC Brasil
ISOC Switzerland Chapter
Kape Technologies PLC
Koneta Hub- South Sudan
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU)
No Tech for Apartheid
Oakland Privacy
OpenMedia
OXCON Frontier Markets
Privacy & Access Council of Canada
Pro-Choice North Carolina
Public Knowledge
Ranking Digital Rights
Restore The Fourth
SMSPool.net
Somalia Non State Actors (SONSA)
space association for participatory development
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP)
The Tor Project
Tuta
UltraViolet
WA People’s Privacy
Women in Data Science and AI

BOSTON, MA—A growing coalition of human rights, LGBTQ+, civil liberties, racial justice, and environmental advocacy groups released a letter signed by more than 50 organizations on Wednesday, May 13th, expressing grave concern about dangerous and unconstitutional online ID check bills proposed by the Massachusetts House and Governor Maura Healey.

You can find the full letter and list of signers here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-05-11-new-letter-massachusetts-social-media-ban-will-help-trump-and-will-not-keep-kids-safe-from-big-tech/

Leaders from organizations that signed the letter held a press conference in front of the State House at 10am on Wednesday, May 13th, urging the Governor and the House to work with experts and impacted communities to make significant changes to the legislation.

More pictures and video here: https://fftf.cloud/s/tDaYjoDaM2Hn3Mm

Signers of the letter, led by Fight for the Future, include the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Sierra Club of MA, Partners in Sex Education, United American Indians of New England (UAINE), The Coalition for Student Mental Health, Progressive Massachusetts, Muslim Justice League, Mass 50501, Act On Mass, and dozens more. 

Rep. Mike Connolly, who voted against the House bill H.5366, joined advocates for the press conference. Advocates made remarks and took questions from the press before going into the State House to deliver the letter to House and Senate leadership, as well as the Governor’s office. 

Fight for the Future has released a working draft proposal of an alternative model bill that would address Big Tech harms without undermining privacy or human rights. The group has met with Governor Healey and the Attorney General’s office, after holding a protest outside the governor’s broadcast on WGBH. Fight for the Future director Evan Greer and Nathalie Marachél of Northeastern University penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe explaining the privacy, civil liberties, and free expression problems with the current legislation. 

Contact: Evan Greer, press@fightforthefuture.org or 978-852-6457 to arrange a separate interview.

Members of the coalition have offered the following statements to press:

“Health education is built on the principle that young people are best protected not by cutting them off from information but by giving them the tools they need to navigate a complex world. We are especially concerned about LGBTQ+ teens, young people in abusive homes, and adolescents in mental health crises who rely on online communities for support they may not find anywhere else. This bill would put those young people at greater risk, not less. A real legislative response should focus on privacy protections and algorithmic accountability, not surveillance and restricted access to information. We urge Massachusetts lawmakers to scrap H. 5349 and pursue policy that is genuinely centered on the wellbeing of young people.” -Megara Bell, Director of Partners in Sex Education

“Mass 50501 stands firmly against handing our personal data to large tech companies — especially when they are so willing to share that data with our federal authoritarian government. We also stand with marginalized youth who often feel isolated until finding their communities online. It is true that social media can do harm, especially to the mental health of children. However, the way this bill is written will disproportionately affect LGBTQIA+, disabled and neurodivergent youth, while opening the door to surveillance overreach for all citizens of Massachusetts by for-profit tech companies. The problem is real, this solution is reckless, invasive, and puts the very people it claims to protect at greater risk.” – Rebecca Winter (she/her), Executive Director, Mass 50501

“The Intersex community is still so young that we don’t have accessible resources; and the sex and gender resources that do exist don’t know how to support us. Intersex youth and adults alike are totally dependent on social media for peer support, patient centered medical support and the lived experiences of our elders.” -Esther Morris Leidolf, President and Founder of MRKH Intersex

Online verification policies have proven to be a data privacy nightmare. Rather than reining in Big Tech, as legislators have portrayed the bill as doing, it expands new frontiers for them to profit from our data and puts marginalized communities at risk.” -Jonathan Cohn, Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts 

“We share the concern about young people’s wellbeing online, but this bill raises serious questions that lawmakers haven’t answered. Age verification means collecting government IDs and face scans — data that can be hacked, sold, or misused. The solution to protecting young people is not putting their private information at greater risk. It’s ensuring they have access to comprehensive sex education that builds the critical thinking and media literacy skills they need to navigate the digital world safely.” – Callie Simon (she/her), Executive Director, SIECUS

“As an organization grounded in the Unitarian Universalist faith, we oppose H.5366 as this bill directly threatens many of our UU principles including; ‘justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.’ This bill endangers the safety of our children and youth, puts them at risk, robs them of their right not to be surveilled, and in this way denies them the justice, equity, and compassion to live free from surveillance and censorship.” –Rev. Jo Murphy, UU Mass Action

“This House bill is in effect an ID check for everyone to go online. Digital Fourth strongly opposes legal mandates for technological verification of people’s ages online. This bill won’t protect kids from the negative consequences of Big Tech; instead, they will kill the non-Big Tech Internet, by imposing expensive burdens on volunteers who operate community forums, listservs and blogs. The House should focus on proven, non-corporate-sponsored solutions, like education on online harms and universal user protections that don’t target or disempower youth, and that therefore don’t require invasive online ID checks.” –Alex Marthews, Co-Chair, Digital Fourth

“After witnessing the current horrors of the Trump administration and the failures of social media platforms like Discord to adequately prevent data breaches, I cannot imagine how anyone thinks that age verification would make a single person in Massachusetts safer. Our personal information should not be put on the marketplace for anyone to buy and abuse, from Meta to Stephen Miller. The legislature should drop this effort and instead send the Consumer Data Privacy Act to Gov. Healey’s desk and actually keep us safe online.” – Noah Risley (they/them), Jamaica Plain Progressives Steering Committee Member.

“Intersectional Innovation and Impact Labs opposes age verification requirements and similar forms of digital surveillance targeting youth due to serious privacy concerns and the ways these measures widen existing digital divides, particularly for vulnerable communities seeking access to critical resources. With 28% of Boston’s population being foreign-born, surveillance measures such as ID checks will not effectively address online harms against youth, but instead risk deepening economic and health inequities by limiting access to essential information and support.” -Muhammad Burhan (They/Them), Executive Director of III Labs.

Dozens of civil liberties, racial justice, LGBTQ+, press freedom, abortion access, and human rights organizations have spoken out against these dangerous and misguided “age verification” laws, several of which have had their constitutionality questioned by the courts.

And a Massachusetts-based coalition of LGBTQ groups including the The Queer Neighborhood Council, III Labs, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, ACLU of MA, and the Transgender Emergency Fund have specifically been pressuring local lawmakers on this issue. Late last year, the Boston City Council introduced a resolution condemning “age verification” and censorship legislation, citing harm to the city’s LGBTQ youth. 

Trans youth in Massachusetts are already terrified of losing their health care. They’re being terrorized by a bigoted administration. Now Massachusetts lawmakers are advancing legislation that would cut them off from access to lifesaving online resources and support? Shameful doesn’t begin to cover it. 

Big Tech social media companies cause real harm, and lawmakers are right to want to do something about it. They should pass privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that actually makes sense and is enforceable. Instead, Massachusetts legislators are actively helping Trump’s authoritarian takeover by pushing for legislation that expands censorship and surveillance. This bill is a gift to the Palantirs of the world—expanding Trump’s surveillance state by forcing everyone to associate their government ID with everything they post at a time when the DOJ is sending subpoenas to social media companies demanding they hand over the names of people running accounts critical of ICE. 

This legislation would make kids less safe, not more safe, while forcing everyone to upload their government ID or submit to a facial recognition scan in order to post online. The definition of “social media” in the bill is so wildly broad it would sweep in almost the entire Internet, including resources like Wikipedia. 

Even red states with conservative supermajorities have avoided some of the parental surveillance provisions present in the Massachusetts bill that raise serious concerns for the safety of LGBTQ youth and young people’s right to privacy. Requiring social media platforms to verify parental consent is completely unworkable. The logistics of this requirement are a nightmare: proving that an adult is a guardian of a child requires giving very sensitive information to social media platforms that are already ripe for data breaches and presents even more obstacles for young people in abusive families, foster care, and parents navigating complicated custody dynamics. This is an impractical and invasive idea that has been abandoned in almost every other version of this type of legislation across the country. 

Age verification and censorship legislation will hurt kids and benefit Big Tech. If Massachusetts lawmakers want to address harm, they should listen to experts, scrap this terrible bill, and instead advance privacy legislation that strikes at the heart of social media companies’ harmful business practices.

We recommend Massachusetts lawmakers engage with human rights groups on their concerns with this bill. We oppose any version of this bill that mandates invasive age verification, bans young people from social media, requires parental surveillance of teenagers, and strips everyone on the internet regardless of age of their anonymity.

Additional resources on this topic:

• Teen Vogue “Some Democrats are Helping the Trump Admin’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda”
• The Verge “Age Verification could force trans people to out themselves online”
• Wired “The Age Gated Internet is Sweeping the US. Activists are fighting back”
• ACLU analysis of why age verification violates the First Amendment
• Tech Policy Press “Age Verification is Locking Trans People Out of the Internet”

Signed,

Act on Mass
Advocates for Youth
Arts Equity Group
ArtsWorcester
Asian American Resource Workshop
Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network – Massachusetts
Boston Democratic Socialists of America
Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective
Brandeis Democrats
Digital Fourth
EducateUS
Episcopal City Misson
Fight for the Future
For Artists By Artists
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Frizz Media
GreenRoots
Guardian Project
IfNotNow Boston
Indivisible Upper Cape
Intersectional Innovation and Impact (III) Labs
Jamaica Plain for Palestine
Jamaica Plain Progressives
Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston
Kavod Boston
Mass 50501
Massachusetts Pirate Party
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC)
MassEquality
Matahari Women’s Worker Center
Mid Cape Indivisible
MRKH Intersex
Muslim Justice League
Neighborhood Grow Plan
North Shore Progressives
Old Pros Org
Pa’lante Transformative Justice
Parenting is Political
Partners in Sex Education
Progressive Massachusetts
Protect Trans Futures
Secular Student Alliance
SIECUS
Sierra Club Massachusetts
Somerville for Palestine
Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice (SCIJ)
Student Press Law Center
The Coalition for Student Mental Health
The Cordial Eye
The Queer Neighborhood Council
The Tor Project
Unitarian Universalist Mass Action Network
United American Indians of New England (UAINE)
V’ahavtah: A Judaism Beyond Zionism Synagogue
Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Yale Privacy Lab

BOSTON, MA—A growing coalition of human rights, LGBTQ+, civil liberties, racial justice, and environmental advocacy groups will release a letter signed by more than 50 organizations on Wednesday, May 13th, expressing grave concern about dangerous and unconstitutional online ID check bills proposed by the Massachusetts House and Governor Maura Healey.

Leaders from organizations that signed the letter will hold a press conference in front of the State House at 10am on Wednesday, May 13th, urging the Governor and the House to work with experts and impacted communities to make significant changes to the legislation.

Signers of the letter, led by Fight for the Future, include the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Sierra Club of MA, Partners in Sex Education, United American Indians of New England (UAINE), The Coalition for Student Mental Health, Progressive Massachusetts, Muslim Justice League, Mass 50501, Act On Mass, and dozens more. 

See a preview of the letter and current list of signers here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-05-11-new-letter-massachusetts-social-media-ban-will-help-trump-and-will-not-keep-kids-safe-from-big-tech/

Rep. Mike Connolly, who voted against the House bill H.5366, will join advocates for the press conference. Advocates will hold signs, make short remarks, and take questions from the press before going into the State House to deliver the letter to House and Senate leadership as well as the Governor’s office. 

Fight for the Future has released a working draft proposal of an alternative model bill that would address Big Tech harms without undermining privacy or human rights. The group has met with Governor Healey and the Attorney General’s office after holding a protest outside the governor’s broadcast on WGBH last week. Fight for the Future director Evan Greer and Nathalie Marachél of Northeastern University penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe explaining the privacy, civil liberties, and free expression problems with the current legislation. 

Contact: Evan Greer, press@fightforthefuture.org or 978-852-6457, to RSVP for the press conference or arrange a separate interview. We will have photos and video available for press later in the day.

Members of the coalition have offered the following statements to press:

“Health education is built on the principle that young people are best protected not by cutting them off from information but by giving them the tools they need to navigate a complex world. We are especially concerned about LGBTQ+ teens, young people in abusive homes, and adolescents in mental health crises who rely on online communities for support they may not find anywhere else. This bill would put those young people at greater risk, not less. A real legislative response should focus on privacy protections and algorithmic accountability, not surveillance and restricted access to information. We urge Massachusetts lawmakers to scrap H. 5349 and pursue policy that is genuinely centered on the wellbeing of young people.” -Megara Bell, Director of Partners in Sex Education

“Mass 50501 stands firmly against handing our personal data to large tech companies — especially when they are so willing to share that data with our federal authoritarian government. We also stand with marginalized youth who often feel isolated until finding their communities online. It is true that social media can do harm, especially to the mental health of children. However, the way this bill is written will disproportionately affect LGBTQIA+, disabled and neurodivergent youth, while opening the door to surveillance overreach for all citizens of Massachusetts by for-profit tech companies. The problem is real, this solution is reckless, invasive, and puts the very people it claims to protect at greater risk.” – Rebecca Winter (she/her), Executive Director, Mass 50501

“The Intersex community is still so young that we don’t have accessible resources; and the sex and gender resources that do exist don’t know how to support us. Intersex youth and adults alike are totally dependent on social media for peer support, patient centered medical support and the lived experiences of our elders.” -Esther Morris Leidolf, President and Founder of MRKH Intersex

Online verification policies have proven to be a data privacy nightmare. Rather than reining in Big Tech, as legislators have portrayed the bill as doing, it expands new frontiers for them to profit from our data and puts marginalized communities at risk.” -Jonathan Cohn, Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts 

“We share the concern about young people’s wellbeing online, but this bill raises serious questions that lawmakers haven’t answered. Age verification means collecting government IDs and face scans — data that can be hacked, sold, or misused. The solution to protecting young people is not putting their private information at greater risk. It’s ensuring they have access to comprehensive sex education that builds the critical thinking and media literacy skills they need to navigate the digital world safely.” – Callie Simon (she/her), Executive Director, SIECUS

“As an organization grounded in the Unitarian Universalist faith, we oppose H.5366 as this bill directly threatens many of our UU principles including; ‘justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.’ This bill endangers the safety of our children and youth, puts them at risk, robs them of their right not to be surveilled, and in this way denies them the justice, equity, and compassion to live free from surveillance and censorship.” –Rev. Jo Murphy, UU Mass Action

“This House bill is in effect an ID check for everyone to go online. Digital Fourth strongly opposes legal mandates for technological verification of people’s ages online. This bill won’t protect kids from the negative consequences of Big Tech; instead, they will kill the non-Big Tech Internet, by imposing expensive burdens on volunteers who operate community forums, listservs and blogs. The House should focus on proven, non-corporate-sponsored solutions, like education on online harms and universal user protections that don’t target or disempower youth, and that therefore don’t require invasive online ID checks.” –Alex Marthews, Co-Chair, Digital Fourth

“After witnessing the current horrors of the Trump administration and the failures of social media platforms like Discord to adequately prevent data breaches, I cannot imagine how anyone thinks that age verification would make a single person in Massachusetts safer. Our personal information should not be put on the marketplace for anyone to buy and abuse, from Meta to Stephen Miller. The legislature should drop this effort and instead send the Consumer Data Privacy Act to Gov. Healey’s desk and actually keep us safe online.” – Noah Risley (they/them), Jamaica Plain Progressives Steering Committee Member.

“Intersectional Innovation and Impact Labs opposes age verification requirements and similar forms of digital surveillance targeting youth due to serious privacy concerns and the ways these measures widen existing digital divides, particularly for vulnerable communities seeking access to critical resources. With 28% of Boston’s population being foreign-born, surveillance measures such as ID checks will not effectively address online harms against youth, but instead risk deepening economic and health inequities by limiting access to essential information and support.” -Muhammad Burhan (They/Them), Executive Director of III Labs.

###

“Fight for the Future pre-emptively endorses any lawsuit filed to hold Utah politicians accountable for continuing to ignore, in the year 2026, the basics of how the Internet they’re trying to regulate functions.

Utah just became the first state in the US to target VPN usage and they are embarrassing themselves. Simply put, Section 14 of SB 73, meant to block people in Utah from using VPNs to circumvent unpopular and ineffective age verification mandates, has paragraphs that read like AI slop. Such as:

“An individual is considered to be accessing the website from this state if the individual is actually located in the state, regardless of whether the individual is using a virtual private network, proxy server, or other means to disguise or misrepresent the individual’s geographic location to make it appear that the individual is accessing a website from a location outside this state.”

This is the sort of slop that if you asked the chatbot whether or not its previous statement was accurate, it would apologize profusely. Why? Because you cannot require a website doing age verification to determine where someone using a reputable VPN is browsing from—this feat is literally impossible by design for even the best hacker.

Such language and lack of logic begs the question—do Utah lawmakers actually understand what a VPN is? Let’s set the record straight: VPNs are an essential tool for online privacy, security, and liberty that everyone from abuse survivors to small businesses use to keep themselves safe. VPNs do this by totally hiding where a person is browsing the Internet from. Thus, when a person is using a VPN, the website they are browsing definitionally can’t tell whether or not they are in Utah.

Websites are left with three choices: either try to block everyone around the globe who’s using a VPN (which they can’t actually do), or require age verification for everybody in the world no matter if they’re in Utah, or censor all content that meets Utah’s nebulous “harmful to minors” standard for age verification.

Oh wait, there’s a fourth option: sue Utah.

Age verification is wildly controversial for a reason. It makes people vulnerable by forcing them to upload their private documents to leaky websites, it makes people less free by attaching their name to their every move online, and it makes people less safe by forcing them to the fringes of the Internet to preserve their privacy and dignity. Instead of doubling down with more embarrassing laws that are bound to fail, Utah should strike an actual blow at Big Tech and put rights that keep people safe, like privacy, at the center of their legislative agenda.”

Massachusetts-based digital rights group Fight for the Future has released a working draft of a model bill they are offering as an alternative to the well-intentioned legislation put forth by Governor Maura Healey and the Massachusetts House addressing harms of social media for young people. 

“We agree with Massachusetts lawmakers that we need to rein in Big Tech and stop them from hurting our kids and our democracy. We want to help them do that without throwing LGBTQ+ kids and undocumented families under the bus,” said Evan Greer (she/her), Boston-based Director of Fight for the Future, “Massachusetts has a chance to lead the nation by passing the strongest protections against Big Tech abuses anywhere in the country. We’re grateful that the Governor, Attorney General’s office, and Massachusetts legislators have agreed to meet with us. We don’t just want to tell them why their current bills are dangerous and unworkable, we want to give them concrete alternatives that accomplish the same goals. We all want the same thing: to crack down on large social media companies’ 

A chorus of experts and a growing coalition of LGBTQ+, human rights, civil liberties and racial justice organizations have raised the alarm that, as written, the existing proposals would do more harm than good. 

Fight for the Future’s model bill combines the most workable parts of the Governor’s proposal and the House bill H. 5366, while replacing unconstitutional and dangerous age verification and parental consent provisions with strong protections for all users turning off by default surveillance driven algorithms, autoplay, infinite scroll, and location sharing. 

Toplines

• Ensures protections for ALL children, including LGBTQ+ and other vulnerable youth
• Reins in Big Tech by requiring them to make their platforms safer for all users, not just minors.
• Fixes drafting error in bill that defined “social media” so broadly it included small projects like Bluesky, GitHub, the Trevor Project and Wikipedia
• Adds a pilot program, as suggested by the Student Mental Health coalition,  to educate young people on safe and healthy internet practices.
• Forces big tech companies to disclose what information they are collecting on all users, not just minors and how they are using it to change their algorithms.
• Adds a private right of action to aid in enforcement of the newly created user rights.
• Removes unworkable and unconstitutional age verification language, protecting the legislation from First Amendment challenges
• Replaces unworkable parental consent provisions with easy to use tools for parents and kids, that won’t require parents to upload sensitive documents 

Notes

• Fight for the Future will not oppose the inclusion of the cellphone ban as written in the Senate bill
• Fight for the Future strongly supports the inclusion of the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act

Proposed Massachusetts Social Media Safety Act 

The General Laws are hereby further amended by inserting after chapter 93L the following chapter:-

Chapter 93M: ONLINE PROTECTION

Section 1.

As used in this chapter, the following words shall, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings:-

“Account”, a unique profile for a user of a social media platform.

“Addictive social media feed”, the presentation of content to users where the social media platform employs algorithms that analyze user data or information on users to select content for users and includes any of the following addictive features:

(i) infinite scrolling, which shall include: (A) continuously loading content, or content that loads as the user scrolls down the page without the need to open a separate page; and (B) seamless content, or the use of pages with no visible or apparent end or page breaks;

(ii) push notifications or alerts sent by the social media platform to inform a user about specific activities or events related to the user’s account;

(iii) displays of personal interactive metrics that indicate the number of times other users have clicked a button to indicate their reaction to a user’s content or have shared or reposted the user’s content;

(iv) content generated by an algorithm based on a user’s activity on the social media platform; or

(v) auto-play video or video that begins to play without the user first clicking on the video or on a play button for that video.

“Algorithmic Process”, a computational process, including one derived from machine learning or other artificial intelligence techniques, that processes personal information or other data for the purpose of determining the order or manner that a set of information is provided, recommended to, or withheld from a user of an social media platform, including the provision of commercial content, the display of social media posts, or any other method of automated decision making, content selection, or content amplification.

“Algorithmic ranking system”, an automated computational process, including a process derived from algorithmic decision making, machine learning, statistical analysis or other data processing or artificial intelligence techniques, used to determine the selection, order, relative prioritization or relative prominence of content to be recommended or displayed to a user based. in whole or in part, on information associated with the user, the user’s device or the user’s previous interactions with content shared by other users.

“Autoplay”, a feature of a social media feed or landing page where content is automatically and continuously played in a social media feed without any manual input from a user.

“Content”, text, image, audio or video created, shared or accessed through a social media platform.

“Connected account”, an account directly connected to another account by an affirmative request by 1 user and an affirmative confirmation by another user.

“Educational technology platform”, a software application or web-based technology, including but not limited to Learning Management Systems (LMS), designed to provide school-home communication, educational information, experiences, training or instruction to build knowledge, skills or a craft, provided that, for purposes of this chapter: (i) the software application or web-based technology is approved by the school district for the purpose of communicating with parents or for conveying educational content to students; (ii) the school district complies with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. 1232g, and its implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. Part 99, in its use of any software application or web-based technology; and (iii) the school district has an executed student data privacy agreement governing the use of any software application or web-based technology that collects student data that includes a requirement that the software application or web-based technology complies with FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g and 34 C.F.R. Part 99.

“Infinite scroll”, a feature of a social media feed or landing page that provides an automatically and continuously loading social media feed or landing page where additional content displays at the bottom of such feed or landing page without any manual input from a user.

“Minor”, a user or prospective user who is under 18 years of age.

“Parent”, a parent or legal guardian.

“Precise geolocation data”, information derived from technology, including, but not limited to, latitude and longitude coordinates from global positioning system mechanisms or other similar positional data, that reveals the past or present physical location of an individual or device that identifies or is linked or reasonably linkable to 1 or more individuals with precision and accuracy within a radius of 1,750 feet.

“Push notification”, an automatic electronic message displayed on a user’s personal electronic device, as defined in section 40 of chapter 69, when the social media platform is not actively open or visible on the personal electronic device that prompts the user to check and engage with the social media platform.

“Social media feed”, the presentation of content to users of a social media platform.

“Social media platform”, a public or semi-public website, online service, online application or mobile application that primarily serves as a medium for displaying content generated by users through a social media feed, and that allows users to create an account or profile to post, share, view and interact with user-generated content, provided however, that the following services shall not be included: (i) email, SMS, MMS, RCS or similar text messaging telecommunications; (ii) cloud storage services or document viewing, sharing or collaboration services; (iii) an educational technology platform; (iv) platforms organized as a not-for-profit; (v) open source software-developing and-sharing platforms; and (vi) has less than 100,000,000 monthly global active users or generates less than $1,000,000,000 in gross revenue per year.

“User”, a person who accesses or uses a social media platform by establishing an account or profile, or seeks to establish such an account or profile, and who the social media platform has actual knowledge is a Massachusetts resident.

“User-directed feed”, a social media feed in which the content presented has been recommended, selected or prioritized for display based solely on the user’s expressly selected preferences, including user-directed algorithms, content from connected accounts, content the user has subscribed to or content presented in response to a specific search inquiry by the user.

Section 2.

(a) A social media platform shall set the default settings to ensure a heightened level of privacy and limit the use of features that prolong that user’s engagement with the social media platform. The default settings shall include, but not be limited to:

(i) restricting the visibility of the user’s account to only connected accounts;

(ii) disabling the visibility or sharing of the user’s precise geolocation data with other users;

(iii) limiting the user to only sharing content with connected accounts:

(iv) limiting the user to only direct messaging with connected accounts:

(v) presenting or displaying only a user-directed feed;

(vi) disabling all of the features of an addictive social media feed as defined in Section(1);

(vii) disabling notifications to the user concerning a social media feed between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. and, upon actual knowledge that an account belongs to a minor user, additionally during hours when school is typically in session as reported by the governor’s office;

(viii) upon actual knowledge that an account belongs to a minor user, restricting a minor user from accessing the social media platform between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. and during hours when school is typically in session as reported by the governor’s office;

(ix) providing a clear and conspicuous reminder to the user after accessing the social media platform for more than 1 hour of use, and every 30 minutes thereafter, provided that the social media platform shall require the user to acknowledge the reminder before proceeding to use the social media platform; and

(x) upon actual knowledge that an account belongs to a minor user, prohibit the minor user from accessing constitutionally unprotected explicit content, such as pornography or obscenity, on a social media feed to the extent that the unprotected content is known to the social media platform.

(b) The default settings provided in subsection (a) for all users of a social media platform may be changed pursuant to section 6.

(c) The default settings provided in clause (ii) of subsection (a) for a user of a social media platform may be adjustable in a manner that allows the sharing of the user’s precise geolocation location data with only user-selected individual connected accounts.

(d) A social media platform shall restrict from public visibility a user’s account within 1 hour of receiving a request for a restriction by the user and shall delete a user’s account within 3 days of receiving a request for a deletion by the user. Any restriction or deletion pursuant to this subsection shall include all information and material made publicly available by the user on the social media platform. Upon deletion of a user’s account, the social media platform shall permanently delete all personal information held by the social media platform related to the terminated user. Nothing in this subsection shall require a social media platform to contravene any federal or state law or regulation or require a social media platform to delete information subject to a law enforcement investigation.

(e) A social media platform shall provide a conspicuous tool with each item of content to allow a user the ability to flag or otherwise indicate that the user found the content to be unwanted or harmful.

(f) A social media platform shall provide a conspicuous tool that enables a user to reset the algorithmic ranking system applied to the user’s social media feed such that it clears the learned recommendation profile based on the user’s previous interactions with content.

(g) A social media platform shall present clear and conspicuous warnings on the negative effects of social media use on social, emotional and physical health in at least the following circumstances: upon the activation of a user’s account, provided that the social media platform shall require the user to acknowledge the warning before proceeding to use the social media platform; and, upon actual knowledge that an account belongs to a minor user, whenever a minor seeks to adjust the default settings of a social media platform pursuant to subsection (b), provided that the social media platform shall require the minor to acknowledge the warning before proceeding to adjust the default settings.

The attorney general may, in consultation with the department of public health, the department of mental health and the department of elementary and secondary education, promulgate regulations setting forth the text and manner of presenting such warnings taking into consideration medical and sociological research, including from government publications and peer-reviewed scholarly articles.

(h) No social media platform shall withhold, degrade, lower the quality or increase the price of any product, service or feature to a user due to the social media platform not being permitted to provide an addictive social media feed to the user.

(i) Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as preventing any action taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of content that a social media platform considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable or harmful content, whether or not such content is constitutionally protected. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as preventing a social media platform from engaging in content moderation, including the removal of spam, scams, phishing attempts, and illegal materials.

Section 3.

(a) A social media platform shall clearly and conspicuously post de-identified aggregate data on minors’ use of the social media platform on its website on at least a quarterly basis. Such data shall include but not be limited to: (i) the number of minors who use the platform, broken down by age or age range; (ii) the amount of time minor users spend on the platform, broken down by age or age range; and (iii) the frequency and type of modification of default settings for social media accounts used by minors. The attorney general may promulgate regulations requiring the reporting of additional de-identified aggregate data about minors’ use of social media platforms. Nothing in this subsection shall be interpreted to require companies to collect data they are not already collecting in their ordinary course of business.

(b) Every 30 days, the social media platform shall survey users that they have actual knowledge are a minor to determine whether, and to what extent, each minor user has experienced unwanted or harmful activity on the social media platform. The social media platform shall make available de-identified aggregate data on the results of these surveys and the flagging of unwanted or harmful content pursuant to subsection (f) of section 3 on its website on at least a quarterly basis.

(c) the attorney general shall, in consultation with security researchers and experts, ensure that such data releases are not vulnerable to re-identification or other security vulnerabilities in order to protect the covered minors.

Section 4.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education shall establish and operate a [three] year pilot program starting on [date] to support Massachusetts public school districts in implementing evidence-informed harm-reduction educational programming focused on the mental health impacts and responsible use of technology. Programming shall include, but not be limited to, instruction and supports addressing technology addiction, short-form and algorithm-driven media, social media use, video games, artificial intelligence, large language models, chatbots, and emerging digital tools, and shall emphasize student well-being, safe use, critical consumption, and responsible decision-making. The Department shall deliver a report on [date] outlining the plans for such program, including any necessary budgetary outlays necessary to accomplish its objectives.

Section 5.

(a) With respect to each type of algorithmic process utilized by a social media platform, such social media platform shall disclose the following information to users of the social media platform in conspicuous, accessible, and plain language that is not misleading:

(i) The categories of personal information the social media platform collects or creates for the purposes of the type of algorithmic process.

(ii) The manner in which the social media platform collects or creates such personal information.

(iii) How the social media platform uses such personal information in the type of algorithmic process.

(iv) The method by which the type of algorithmic process prioritizes, assigns weight to, or ranks different categories of personal information to withhold, amplify, recommend, or promote content (including a group) to a user.

(b) Such social media platform shall make available the notice described in subparagraph (A) in each language in which the social media platform provides service.

Section 6.

(a) A social media platform shall establish a mechanism by which the user may adjust and provide the option to password lock the default settings pursuant to subsection (b) of section 2. To the extent possible, a social media platform shall offer granular settings so that a user can personalize their experience and privacy. The attorney general may promulgate guidelines necessary to balance user choice and usability in establishing these settings.

(b) Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as requiring a social media platform to provide a parent any additional or special access to or control over the data or accounts of their minor user child.

Section 7.

(a) A violation by a social media platform of this chapter shall be deemed an unfair or deceptive act or practice in trade or commerce under chapter 93A.

(b) A social media platform found to be in violation of section 2 shall be punished by a civil fine of not more than $5,000 per violation; provided, that a social medial platform shall be in violation of section 2 for each user account not in compliance with section 2.

(c) A social media platform violation of section 3 shall be punished by a civil fine of not more than $1,000,000; provided, that each day that a violation of section 3 persists shall be considered a separate violation under this section.

Section 8.

(a) a person may bring a civil action against a covered entity or service provider for a violation of Section 2 subsections (a) through (h), or a regulation promulgated thereunder, in an appropriate Massachusetts district court.

(b) In a civil action brought under paragraph (1) in which the plaintiff prevails, the court may award the plaintiff—

(i) an amount equal to the sum of any actual damages;

(ii) injunctive relief;

(iii) declaratory relief; and

(iv) reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs.

Section 9.

The attorney general may promulgate regulations necessary to effectuate the purposes of this chapter.

As news organizations increasingly block the Wayback Machine, the world’s premier independent third party archive of the Internet, tech justice group Fight for the Future launches a petition demanding news publishers commit to getting the work of today’s journalists preserved.

“2026 is the first World Press Freedom Day in 30 years that journalists’ work at major media outlets including New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today is not being preserved by the independent, nonprofit Internet Archive. We are calling on you and on all news outlets to publicly commit to working with the Internet Archive to keep the news in the Wayback Machine,” reads a petition that tech justice group Fight for the Future has launched.

The public petition addressed to leadership at major news outlets comes on the heels of an April letter that journalists delivered to the Internet Archive, thanking them for their work as an essential resource in journalism. When signing, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called the Internet Archive “a national treasure.” Adding “I use it daily, and have for many, many years. I cannot imagine doing the work I do without it.”

Since its initial delivery, another 100 journalists have signed the letter, bringing the total to over 200 and including staff at Washington Post, Politico, The Globe and Mail, various NPR affiliates, and many local news outlets.

The public petition is open for signatures at https://savethearchive.com/newsleaders

The journalist letter remains open for signatures at https://savethearchive.com/journalists — where many quotes from signatories can also be found.

“On World Press Freedom Day 2026, we are launching this petition in solidarity with journalists the world over and with the Internet Archive. All they want to do is get the news to the people, for generations to come,” said Lia Holland (they/she) the lead organizer of the campaign at tech justice group Fight for the Future. “The AI scaries have gone too far, because now they’re threatening the historical record. News publishers need to be meeting with the Internet Archive to work this out and find a way for the news to be preserved. The Archive has been nothing but respectful even as wild confusion spreads about all these knockoff sites that are being used to jump paywalls and for AI scraping, and the nonprofit’s unwavering goodwill shows what a responsible partner they are for news preservation in the long term. I’m hopeful that news leaders will agree that it’s in their interest and a testament to their integrity to continue their 30 year tradition of allowing the Wayback Machine to preserve the news. There is a way to not let AI ruin everything, but to get there we have to talk to each other.”

The full text of the petition reads:

Dear leaders of major media outlets,

The freedom of journalists isn’t only the freedom to write, it’s also the freedom to have your work read and remembered for generations to come. 2026 is the first World Press Freedom Day in 30 years that journalists’ work at major media outlets including New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today is not being preserved by the independent, nonprofit Internet Archive. We are calling on you and on all news outlets to publicly commit to working with the Internet Archive to keep the news in the Wayback Machine.

Since February of this year, the New York Times has told the Internet Archive to stop its Wayback Machine from preserving the work of its journalists. Meanwhile, Wired recently reported how USA Today is publishing powerful reporting that relies on the Wayback Machine, while ironically blocking it from archiving that same reporting. And when over 100 journalists delivered a letter celebrating the Internet Archive for their respectful preservation of journalism, generating a wave of tech-viral angst, the CEO of The Atlantic weighed in but didn’t commit to finding a solution. The concerns about AI that these publications cited as a reason to ban the Wayback Machine are wholly hypothetical. Journalists, and this nonprofit public good that they rely on, deserve better.

Though other websites use the word “archive” and try to style themselves as similar to the Internet Archive, the Wayback Machine isn’t a flash-in-the-pan service that skips over paywalls. It has been preserving the news longer than many people who sign this petition have been alive. Generative AI is the worst excuse to hide principled reporting from fact-checkers. If anything, AI is the top reason why the Wayback Machine is more crucial than ever. The truth is that AI companies can easily do what knockoff archiving sites are doing: ignore the rules and grab the news off of publisher’s websites without their consent. There is little to stop them. There’s only one reason that the Internet Archive isn’t doing what most of Silicon Valley is: integrity. This integrity shows us that the Internet Archive is trustworthy and aims to operate for a very long time.

It should. Censorship and authoritarianism are growing, along with pressure to alter reporting and erase facts. Journalists frequently face death threats, and many have died across the past year for their work. The least we can do out of respect during these horrors is to shore up the Wayback Machine’s neutral third party preservation efforts so these brave journalists’ work is not lost. Their reporting must remain accessible not only to their colleagues and loved ones, but to the eyes of history.

The Wayback Machine makes every online news outlet it archives more resilient against pressure to remove stories that threaten the powerful. It is in the interest of any news outlet that still does real journalism to champion such an ally in times like these. It shouldn’t be this hard to find a way to independently preserve the news. We call on the leadership of major media outlets to commit to working with the Internet Archive and getting all the news in the Wayback Machine now!

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Fight for the Future has been campaigning for years against online ID checks. They lead a coalition of over 90 human rights, reproductive justice, and LGBTQ organizations that are opposed to these surveillance and censorship laws. Online ID check mandates consist of two equally dangerous components: 1) the government making decisions about what is age appropriate, and 2) the death of online anonymity.

A Trojan Horse for Universal ID Checks

Tomorrow Senate Judiciary will markup the GUARD Act, which would impose highly invasive online ID checks on anyone who has an account on a platform with any sort of AI chatbot. This bill is the latest in a series of hastily drafted Congressional bills that claim to protect kids, but would actually mandate surveillance and censorship.

At its core, the bill would force an online ID check, through government ID or biometric scan, on anyone trying to access an AI chatbot and prohibit people under the age of 18 from using “AI companions” altogether. This would include every social media platform and the website of any company operating AI customer service chatbots¹. But it doesn’t end there: any person who “makes available an artificial intelligence chatbot” is covered by the law. This would require everyone from internet service providers to anyone who runs a blog with a comment section to administer online ID checks. While apparently narrow, this bill is in fact an online ID check mandate unmatched in scope and highly invasive in methods.

Universal online ID checks would kill internet anonymity, supercharging online surveillance and censorship. If every page view and comment is directly associated with someone’s government ID, it will at best encourage self censorship. At worst, it would provide unprecedented tools for the state to monitor individuals, curate what they can see, and retaliate against them for dissent.

For better and for worse, AI chatbots are threatening to overtake search engines as the primary way people find information online. This means that the millions of people who use these tools for everyday tasks will now be providing sensitive and private information to a sketchy, insecure age verification service, which have already resulted in thousands of people’s private information being leaked. Government censorship is not confined to outright prohibition of speech: burdens like this are a legally dubious limit on free expression.

“The GUARD Act is a Trojan horse for universal online ID checks,” said Jibran Ludwig, Policy Strategist at Fight for the Future. “Whether malicious or careless, this bill embodies everything wrong with lawmakers rushing to pass ID check laws in the name of keeping children safe online. The death of online privacy would expose everyone, regardless of age, to censorship and surveillance. Instead of passing strong privacy protections for everyone, the Senate is considering a bill that would require every single person to give even more of our private information to companies that routinely abuse it. I don’t want to hand over my ID to every website I visit, and neither should you!”

¹The bill appears to be meant to exclude customer service chatbots, but the text as written would not actually do that.

BOSTON, MA–– Civil liberties, LGBTQ, and human rights activists are holding a protest right now outside Boston Public Library during WGBH’s “Ask the Governor” broadcast with Governor Maura Healey. 

See photos and video from the ongoing protest here: [LINK]

The demonstrators are asking Governor Healey to listen to concerns raised by experts and impacted communities about her proposed social media legislation, which would require every person in the state (including adults) to upload a government ID or submit to a face scan to create a social media account. The proposal has provoked sharp backlash, and concerns that it would harm LGBTQ+ youth, undocumented folks, and privacy for every MA resident. 

Protesters are holding signs reading “Governor Healey: Listen to LGBTQ+ Youth,” “Online ID Checks Help Trump,” and “Online ID Checks Hurt Kids.” Members of Fight for the Future, Protect Trans Futures, and other coalition members are available to speak to press. 

Fight for the Future director Evan Greer has offered a line-by-line analysis of the constitutional and practical issues with the Governor’s proposal here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-04-16-a-line-by-line-analysis-of-governor-maura-healeys-proposed-social-media-legislation/ 

“We appreciate that Governor Healey has said she is open to feedback and that her legislation is still a work in progress,” said Evan Greer (she/her), Director at Fight for the Future. “We appreciate her comments about wanting to ensure LGBTQ+ youth have access to online resources. And we appreciate that the Governor’s staff have agreed to meet with us. The Governor’s comments on WGBH make it clear how urgently she needs to meet with civil liberties, human rights, and LGBTQ+ experts about this legislation. She said several factually incorrect things about her own bill. Governor Healey claims that her legislation requires “age assurance,” and does not require ID checks. But she’s wrong. First, experts have explained repeatedly that there is no safe or practical way to do age assurance. But more importantly, there are numerous requirements in the Governor’s proposal that would be impossible to comply with without an identity check. The parental consent requirements alone make it necessary for social media companies to collect government IDs from parents, and additional sensitive information from kids. We have a line-by-line analysis of the Governor’s legislation that we have shared with her office.”

The protest is organized by a growing coalition of Massachusetts-based human rights organizations. While well-intentioned, the social media legislation passed by the MA House and proposed by the Governor would make kids less safe, violate the First Amendment, and force everyone in the state (including adults) to upload a government ID or submit to a face scan to create a social media account.

• Read our op-ed in the Boston Globe on this topic here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/22/opinion/social-media-ban-flaws/
  
• House leadership have sent misleading statements about the bill claiming it does not require ID checks, which we debunk here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-04-24-correcting-misinformation-massachusetts-social-media-bill-would-require-invasive-age-verification-for-most-of-the-internet/
  
• House leadership have also tried to use the LGBTQ+ Legislative Caucus as cover. We explain how their amendment did not address concerns with the bill here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-04-23-statement-amendments-to-the-massachusetts-house-social-media-bill-did-not-address-lgbtq-concerns/

Please let us know if you are covering this. You are welcome to use our photos and video, credit “Courtesy: Fight for the Future.” Contact us to set up an interview with one of our experts or members of our coalition, including young people and parents who would be directly impacted by the legislation.

Contact: press@fightforthefuture.org

Numerous experts have explained why the legislation would do more harm than good by requiring every person in the state, including adults, to upload a government ID or submit to a face scan to create a social media account. Other provisions that require “parental consent” would force families to surrender even more sensitive documents, like birth certificates, to untrustworthy social media companies. 

Unfortunately, it does not appear that House leaders are listening to experts. Education Committee Chair Ken Gordon recently sent this email to his House colleagues. Chair Gordon needs to read his own bill. We don’t think he is deliberately trying to mislead his colleagues, but it’s clear he does not understand what the bill actually does.

Rep Gordon correctly states that H. 5366 leaves it up to the Attorney General how to implement the “age assurance or verification system, and that “to the extent practicable the age assurance or verification system shall consist of the best technology available to reasonably and accurately identify a current or prospective user’s age.“

However, there are numerous provisions throughout this bill (and the Governor’s separate-but-similar proposal) that absolutely, unequivocally, would require companies to collect government IDs or use some other invasive method to verify the exact age (and in many cases exact identity) of every single user. It would not be “practicable” for a company to do anything else.

Example 1: the very first line of Section 2 (a)(1)

Section 2. (a)(1) To protect the health and wellness of a minor under 14 years of age, including, but not limited to, mental and behavioral health, a social media platform shall prohibit a minor under the age of 14 from being a user of a social media platform.

This language is unambiguous. Any covered platform––which as written includes Wikipedia, Bluesky, the Trevor Project’s “Trevor Space” forum, etc––must “prohibit” a minor under the age of 14 from creating an account.

A facial estimation system cannot reliably tell the difference between a 13 year old and a 17 year old. Simply asking the user for their age upon sign-up (which every major social media platform already does) would not be enough to comply with this section, because users lie about their ages. 

Under the bill, the platform must “prohibit” a 13 year old from signing up, even if they say they’re 16. Even if the Attorney General decides that “self attestation” (ie asking the user how old they are upon sign-up) is a sufficient “age assurance system,” it would not be sufficient for a platform to comply with the rest of the bill. In fact, in the recent social media harm trials in California and New Mexico, a central facet of the case was the idea that simply asking a user to attest to their age is not sufficient. This bill requires ID checks. Period.

Example 2: the very second line of Section 2(a)(1)

(2) A social media platform shall: (A) terminate a user under the age of 14; (B) allow a user under the age of 14 to request to terminate the account; (C) allow the confirmed parent of a user under the age of 14 to request the termination of the user’s account; and (D) permanently delete all personal information held by the social media platform related to the terminated user unless there is a legal requirement to maintain the information.

The only way a social media company could comply with this requirement is to know the exact identity, government name, and age of every single user, and to collect even more sensitive information from parents (or people claiming to be parents). While social media companies collect enormous amounts of data they can use to make an assumption of whether a user is a minor, requiring parental consent would mean they need to know exactly who the minor is, and exactly how old they are (because if they are 17 they have a different set of rights under this bill than if they are 14).

There is no safe or meaningful way for a social media company (or Wikipedia, or the Trevor Project) to “confirm” whether someone is or is not another person’s parent without:

1. Collecting a Government ID or other identity-verifying document like a social security card to know that the minor user who is having their account shut down is actually a minor and not an adult, and so that the company could try to verify that the person contacting them has a custodial relationship to the minor (or alleged minor)
2. Collecting a birth certificate or some other sensitive legal document to prove that the person contacting the company is the legal parent or guardian of the minor who the company has verified owns the account. It’s unclear how this would work for kids in foster care, in custody disputes, etc.
3. Requiring the user claiming to be a parent to upload a selfie or submit to a face scan that matches their identity with their government ID

The Federal Trade Commission has been trying to figure out a meaningful way to require parental consent since 1996. They still haven’t. 

Parental consent requirements in state age verification laws have faced significant legal challenges, and courts have blocked or struck down such laws in several states, often because they restrict minors’ and adults’ access to fully protected online speech. While several states have enacted laws requiring parental consent for minors to access social media or other online platforms—including Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Utah—all of them are facing First Amendment lawsuits, and most have been enjoined while litigation continues. The Supreme Court has made clear that laws restricting access to fully protected speech—even when framed as parental assistance measures—must survive strict scrutiny, a standard they rarely satisfy. In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), for example, the Court struck down a California law restricting minors’ access to violent video games, rejecting the state’s argument that the restriction was justified as a means of helping parents.

Example 3: the very next line after that …

(b)(1) To protect the health and wellness of a minor who is 14 or 15 years of age, including, but not limited to, mental and behavioral health, a social media platform shall prohibit a minor who is 14 or 15 years of age from being a user of a social media platform unless the social media platform receives verifiable consent from the parent for the minor to become a user.

Again, there is no way that a social media platform can “prohibit” a user who is 14 or 15 years of age from creating an account without verifying (not just asking about) the age of every user. 

If a company just asks a user for their age when they create an account, (which every major social media company already does) many users simply lie about their ages. Under this bill, though, the company would be liable for massive fines if they do not prohibit a minor from creating an account without “verifiable consent” from a parent.

The only way to obtain “verifiable consent” from a parent is to know exactly who the kid is, exactly who their parent is, and have some kind of documentation proving both. That’s a government ID and at least one other sensitive document. No matter how you look at it.

Many kids don’t have the same last name as their parent or legal guardian. Many kids live with their grandparent, an older sibling, or another caregiver who may or may not have the legal authority or documentation to provide consent to create an account. 

Shutting down a social media account can be serious. If I were to contact Facebook claiming to be Rep Ken Gordon’s mom and saying he is a 13 year old who created an account without my permission, how would the company figure out that Rep Gordon is in fact in his 60s and I am not his parent? They would need some documentation from both of us. 

The bottom line: H. 5366 as passed by the House requires identity checks. Full stop. If the goal is simply to require social media companies to ask users for their age range upon sign-up (which every major social media platform already does), the bill needs to be completely rewritten.

There are numerous other provisions in the bill that would be impossible for a social media company to comply with without verifying the age of every user, meaning collecting a government ID or face scan. And many of these provisions wouldn’t even be feasible with an age assurance tool like a face scan, because they require an actual identity check for parental consent verification purposes.

Supporters of the bill seem to think that by passing the ball to the Attorney General, they have avoided all the thorny and controversial issues that arise with age verification. They are wrong.

The way the bill is currently constructed, the “age assurance” regulations promulgated by the Attorney General would in many ways be irrelevant, because social media platforms would have use the most invasive identity verification methods in order to comply with the parental consent provisions in the bill. 

The Attorney General’s office has noted that age assurance is a “rapidly developing field” and does not necessarily require an ID check or face scan. While they are right that age assurance and age verification technology is evolving, the consensus among security experts is that there is currently no safe way to to verify the age of every user. Perhaps new technologies will emerge that make it easier for platforms to conduct age verification and parental consent verification in a practical, privacy-preserving way. But that technology does not currently exist. 

Massachusetts House leaders have written a bill that requires online ID checks, but they’re saying it doesn’t and that “the Attorney General and the tech companies will figure it out.” This is magical thinking. It also ignores the reality that Big Tech companies do not care about their users’ privacy or protecting vulnerable communities. They will comply with the law in the cheapest, easiest way for them that protects their profits, even if it undermines human rights or harms marginalized people.

Writing a bill that says “they’ll figure it out” guarantees even more harm to the communities that have already been hurt the most by these giant corporations.

Massachusetts lawmakers have an opportunity to lead the nation by advancing thoughtful, progressive legislation addressing the very real harm of social media giants without destroying online privacy or undermining human rights. If they want to do that, we’d be happy to help.

Human rights, LGBTQ, and civil liberties advocates in Massachusetts were alarmed when the state House of Representatives hastily passed social media “age verification” legislation earlier this month that would require everyone in the state to upload a government ID or submit to a face scan to post online.

Experts have warned that, as written, this legislation (as well as the Governor’s similar proposal), would make kids less safe, while helping the Trump administration attack free speech, undocumented folks, and LGBTQ youth. 

Backers of the bill have repeatedly claimed that concerns about impacts on LGBTQ youth were addressed by an amendment offered by the LGBTQ+ Legislative Caucus in the House. For example, Education Chair Ken Gordon writes this in his Boston Globe op-ed defending the legislation:

“The bill includes targeted safeguards to protect user privacy and preserve safe spaces, prohibiting social media platforms from disclosing a minor’s LGBTQ status or other protected characteristics … the bill passed the House overwhelmingly with bipartisan support, 129-25, including from members of the LGBTQ+ Legislative Caucus.”

Unfortunately, this is misleading. The amendments to the bill, now H. 5366, helped fix one problem with the bill, while making the overall harm of the bill significantly worse. 

The original version of the legislation included a dangerous “parental surveillance” provision that would have allowed any parent (or person claiming to be a parent) to request the data associated with their minor child’s social media account. This raises serious concerns for young people’s privacy, including concerns about LGBTQ youth being outed to unsupportive parents.

The amendment offered by the LGBTQ Legislative Caucus attempted to fix this problem, but in the process created a different, and deadly serious problem. They narrowed the parental consent measure to make it so a parent (or person claiming to be a parent) can now only request the age assurance data that was provided to the company, not all the data. The idea behind this, presumably, is that if my kid creates a TikTok account using a fake ID, I should be able to ask TikTok what info was provided to them during the age check. But I wouldn’t get all my kids messages or their browsing data.

This amendment does nothing to address the fact that many trans people (including adults) do not have a government ID that matches their current appearance, name, or gender marker. Or the fact that most facial analysis systems fail for trans people or systematically identify trans men as younger than they are. Trans youth with unsupportive parents would still be barred from access to lifesaving online resources and community. An estranged and abusive parent of an LGBTQ teenager, even one who doesn’t live with their parents, could still harass and harm their child by getting their social media account shut down, cutting them off from community and safety. It’s also unclear how social media companies would safeguard against abusers, stalkers, and other bad actors pretending to be parents and using forged documents to obtain data on other people’s social media accounts or have them shut down.

But here’s the deadly part: this amendment creates a requirement for companies to permanently store extremely sensitive age verification data (government IDs or biometric face scans) in case a parent requests this data in the future.

The core problem with age verification legislation is that there is no safe way for companies to verify the age of every user. The Massachusetts bills would require everyone to upload a government ID, or submit invasive biometric or other data, to create a social media account. That’s dangerous enough by itself, but even proponents of age verification would say the best practice is for the company to delete all age assurance data immediately following the age check. 

Requiring companies to make users upload their IDs to post is already unconstitutional. Requiring companies to store those IDs in a database forever is extremely dangerous. It also conflicts with the privacy designs in the bill itself, like the requirement “permanently delete all personal information held by the social media platform related to the terminated user”. That requirement has a single exception – “unless there is a legal requirement to maintain the information.” The requirement to hold age assurance information for parents falls under this category.

Companies have a terrible track record of safeguarding our private information. Discord’s age assurance provider, for example, leaked more than 70,000 users’ government IDs and face scans after a hack. Under the Massachusetts law, every single social media platform, from a tiny Mastodon server run out of a basement to giants like Meta, would have to hold on to a massive database of sensitive user information including government IDs.

Identity thieves, stalkers, and creeps of the world will rejoice. So will authoritarians like Trump. Not only are online ID checks unworkable for many undocumented people, they feed the surveillance apparatus that ICE is using to target activists and vulnerable communities. 

From our Boston Globe op-ed: “Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security sent subpoenas to social media companies demanding they hand over the information of people running accounts that monitor and criticize Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many of those accounts are run anonymously, protecting the activists behind them from persecution. But in a world with mandatory online identity verification, it’s likely that those accounts would have a government ID, name, and address associated with them. Human rights activists have warned for years that online age verification mandates are a gift to dictators and a danger to journalists and dissidents.”

In summary: the amendment offered by the LGBTQ+ Legislative Caucus, while well-intentioned, did not solve the core concerns with H. 5366, and will not protect LGBTQ youth from harm. This amendment also made the surveillance and privacy implications of the bill even worse. 

The path forward is for lawmakers to work closely with civil liberties and human rights experts. There are positive aspects in the House bill, the Senate bill, and the Governor’s proposal, but all require significant changes to avoid doing more harm than good. 

Check out photos of the action here: https://fftf.cloud/s/ETjS28LAndTp8de

In the past year the de-Flock movement has rapidly gained ground, in part due to peoples’ understanding that ICE uses Flock data to track and target people. Just last week more than 80 students at Emory held a campus-wide walk out in protest of the Flock cameras on its campus. Nationally, more than 60 cities have moved to terminate or pause their contracts with Flock as the collective risks of mass surveillance to privacy, human rights, civil liberties, reproductive care, and immigrant rights become undeniable and well-documented. For example, documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation showed that police agencies logged hundreds of searches to Flock databases to target protesters including various 50501, No Kings, and Hands Off protests. And thanks to critical reporting from 404Media, ICE agents’ use of Flock’s database for the purpose of immigration-related investigations has been well-documented, as well as its use in prosecuting abortion seekers.

Atlanta is not only home to Flock HQ, but also the location of heavily opposed Cop City and neighbors Dunwoody, GA – where the City Council voted this week to renew its contract with Flock despite overwhelming community push-back and revelations that Flock employees and Dunwoody police had watched hours footage of children in a local gymnasium.

“This protest is about more than license plate readers,” said Leila Nashashibi, organizer of the action at Fight for the Future, (pronouns she/her). “It’s about the collusion between tech companies and repressive government agencies using mass surveillance as a tool for fascism and political persecution. For communities of color like mine – Arab and Muslim communities – it’s been clear from the beginning that surveillance puts us in danger and creates public safety harms. That street surveillance camera could be the reason your friend gets stalked or your neighbor gets pulled over and harassed.”

“Metro Atlanta is tired of being the most surveilled city in the nation, and our movement is growing because communities are demanding better. Public safety does not require surrendering our privacy to private companies who profit from tracking our every move; it requires investing in the community programs that actually reduce crime,” said Taylor Arnold of DeFlock Atlanta.

“We protested at Flock’s offices today because people want the freedom to live without being policed, criminalized, or constantly watched. Our communities deserve real safety rooted in dignity and care, not surveillance by law enforcement and the companies that profit from it. We’re proud to be part of a growing resistance to Flock’s surveillance technologies, standing not just against one corporation and its partnerships with police, but against the broader expansion of surveillance tools that have been used to target migrants, people seeking abortion care, and protesters. We join community members in demanding an end to partnerships with Flock and a commitment to building communities that are free from surveillance and center actual safety for all,” said Danny Cendejas, Campaign Specialist, MediaJustice

“In Orange County, Chispa focuses on economic justice, immigrant justice, and police accountability. Surveillance technologies intersect with each of these areas, often harming everyone in our communities. From Flock camera data sharing with ICE to police drones and algorithmic (AI) pricing tools that raise costs or displace workers, these systems frequently operate without public awareness,” said Tanya Navarro at Chispa OC.

###

Here is Evan Greer (she/her) from Fight for the Future’s line-by-line analysis of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey’s proposed social media legislation, included in her supplemental budget.

The text begins on page 10 here: https://www.mass.gov/doc/supp-release/download.

Summary of Concerns:

• Requires age verification (left to AG to enforce but this means an ID check or face scan) at the app / website level. This is the most invasive and unsafe form of age assurance.
• Defines social media so broadly it would include Wikipedia, the Trevor Project, etc.
• Has a bunch of requirements that companies would have to comply with within an hour or a day that would be completely impossible for, say, a person running a Mastodon instance or even a company the size of Bluesky.
• Has various provisions that would require companies to verify that someone is the parent or legal guardian of a minor user, which is impractical and ripe for abuse.
• Allows a parent (how do you verify this?) of a 15 year old to request that their account be shut down. Company has to restrict it from view within 1 hour (???) of receiving a request from a parent (or person claiming to be a parent?) and then has to shut down the account and delete all data within 3 days of receiving a  request from the parent (or person claiming to be a parent. Like, your ex boyfriend who is mad at you and knows how to use Photoshop.)
• Raises constitutional issues around compelled speech.
• Requires companies to report on the number of minor users they have in a way that will force them to know the exact age of every user (ID checks) and store that data indefinitely.

I get what they are trying to do here, but this definition would include “good” algorithms, like the ones that filter out spam, gore, and porn from your feed based on user flags.

No real concerns here.

This carve-out is quite narrow and would not cover, for example, Wikipedia, the Trevor Project, or other online educational / mental health / LGBTQ support resources and communities. 

No major concerns here.

This definition is wildly broad and would include Wikipedia, Discord, group apps often used by sports teams and clubs. There is no carve-out for smaller companies, non-profits, or open source projects, meaning the requirements in this bill apply equally to Big Tech giants like Meta and, say, Bluesky, a person running a Mastodon instance for journalists, or a small startup hoping to give families a better alternative to Instagram.

How would a social media company know whether a user is a “resident” of Massachusetts without either requiring a government ID or address verification, or collecting sensitive geolocation data?

No major concerns.

This is a requirement for mass surveillance and online ID checks. The bill hides the ball by leaving it up to the Attorney General, but the only way for a social media company to comply with the various age verification requirements in this bill (see more below) will be to collect a sensitive document like a government ID from every single MA user that creates an account. 

An appeals process is always good. However, this again would require users to submit even more sensitive data to social media companies in order to speak online. And the requirement that platforms review and act within 3 days is doable for giants like Instagram and YouTube, but totally impossible for small, open source, volunteer run platforms, or even medium sized companies like Bluesky.

Deleting age assurance data immediately after verification is a best practice in terms of reducing (not removing) the harm of these systems. But this contradicts other requirements in the bill that would force social media companies to store this data indefinitely in case a parent requests it.

Limiting direct messaging to contacts makes sense, but this provision would prevent, say, a 17 year old from making a public post about a protest they are organizing or a political issue they want to speak out about, limiting their reach only to their friends. This provision would have stopped an activist like Greta Thunberg from going viral and having an enormous impact.

No major concerns here other than that most of these default settings should apply to ALL users, not just minors, and should not require an ID check to turn on or off. Unclear if social media platforms are supposed to keep track of school vacations, etc? 

I personally don’t have a problem with this and it sounds like a good idea. My guess, though, is that constitutional experts (and lawyers for the companies) will say this is “compelled speech” and violates the First Amendment, making the law vulnerable to legal challenges. 

This requires companies to collect (and store so they can prove compliance) even more user data than they already do. It’s unclear whether the proposal is intended to track use across multiple apps (which would require companies to share data with 3rd parties) or the 2 hour limit is for each app.

There is no safe or practical way for social media companies to determine who is a parent that can give consent to change default settings. This would involve uploading a birth certificate, or other extremely sensitive document, to untrustworthy companies. And it creates an easy path for abuse. If your creepy ex boyfriend wants to change your settings so they can track your location, all they’d have to do is photoshop a fake birth certificate and pretend to be your dad. 

Allowing 16 year olds to change their own settings makes sense, but this provision makes it so the bill requires not just age estimation but an ID check to verify the exact age of every single user, which is the most harmful and privacy-destroying version of age verification.

Nice carve-out for anxious parents who want to track their teens’ real-time location all the time with Life 360 or similar. And/or creepy stalkers who claim to be parents who want to do the same thing. It will be very difficult, or impossible, for social media companies to tell the difference between the two.

This section is insane, ripe for abuse, and would be a gift to Big Tech giants while effectively putting smaller alternatives like Bluesky out of business. 

The requirement to respond to ANYTHING within 1 hour is completely unworkable for small companies, open source projects, volunteer-led support hotlines, nonprofits like Wikipedia, etc, whereas giants like Meta and Google have the resources to do this.

And this requirement itself is wild: a parent—or someone claiming to be a parent, and again there is no good way for a company to know the difference—can simply request to get an account shut down and then the company must “hide” it within an hour and delete it completely, along with all data, in 3 days. 

This will absolutely be abused. Bigots, abusers, and stalkers routinely abuse existing flagging and reporting tools to get their victims’ accounts suspended. This would allow anyone to falsely claim to be the parent of a minor user in order to get their account shut down. MAGA trolls will use this to shut down accounts critical of the administration just as they’re going viral or when they announce a protest. 

It’s unclear how the minor user (or user that the person claiming to be a parent CLAIMS is a minor user!) can appeal this. 

Even if used only as intended by actual parents, this provision would allow, say, an unsupportive parent of a trans 15 year old to delete their account, all their data, messages, etc, without the knowledge or consent or any recourse for the teen even to recover their data.

This is fine / good (and is already standard on most major social media platforms). But the bill’s definition of algorithmic feed would actually prevent platforms from doing anything with the information when users flag unwanted content.

Probably okay, but again could be used by a parent who is like “I don’t like that you’re looking at all this gay stuff,” etc.

I am not an expert on the lines around “compelled speech” as it relates to product warnings but I am guessing that the ACLU attorneys are gonna have a heart attack with this one. I think warnings are a good idea, but it would be extremely difficult to legislate what exactly they should say. The data on harm from social media use is significantly more nuanced and complicated than breathless headlines suggest. While a pack of cigarettes can say “The Surgeon general warns TKTK,” it’s really not clear what, say, your Bluesky account should tell you about the potential harm of arguing with people on the internet for too long. 

This helps a bit with the concern above, but this should also be done in consultation with racial justice, human rights, civil liberties, and free expression experts to ensure the warnings are not discriminatory and do not have a chilling effect on speech.

I stand corrected. This addresses the concern I raised above about the definition of algorithmic feed preventing spam / moderation tools.

Transparency reporting is good, but it is entirely unclear how this data would even be useful to researchers / child protection experts / social media regulators. The requirement to publish exact numbers of users of specific ages or age ranges means that companies would be forced to use the most invasive forms of age / identify verification. If they only use age assurance or estimation, the data they publish might not be accurate, opening them up to fines. This requirement also heavily incentivizes companies to store age verification data indefinitely in case there is ever a lawsuit or questions related to their reporting.

This sounds like a fine idea, and something social media companies can and should do, but again I am pretty sure this violates the First Amendment protection against compelled speech. I am unsure what a constitutional attorney would say about whether this is not only compelled speech on the part of the company, but also on the part of the minor user who is being asked to fill out the (government mandated) survey.

Again, all of these provisions are predicated on the (wrong) idea that it is easy for a social media platform to verify that someone is the parent or legal guardian of a minor child. There is no safe or practical way to do this. Period. 

This measure attempts to guard against a parent, say, accessing their kids messages, which is good. But the bill still allows a parent (or person claiming to be a parent) to shut down the account and delete those messages, turn on location tracking without the kids’ knowledge or consent, etc.

These fines would be a trivial slap on the wrist for Big Tech giants like Meta and TikTok. But they would put smaller platforms out of business, especially given that there are so many provisions in the bill that would be impossible for smaller platforms to comply with 100% of the time. There is nothing in this bill that limits the requirements or enforcement to larger companies or companies with a certain number of users. There is no carve out for nonprofits like Wikipedia or the Trevor Project.

This is part of the “smoke and mirrors” strategy of this bill. It creates a bunch of vague and unworkable legal requirements and then says “The AG will figure out how to enforce this and the tech companies will figure out how to comply,” while ignoring the practicalities and realities of how that will work. 

We can’t trust tech companies. Leaving it up to them means they will implement changes in the cheapest, most profit-preserving way, even if that harms users’ privacy, safety, and rights.

As Rep. Meeks (D-NY) stands up for a clean FISA reauthorization to preserve the data broker loophole that allows warrantless spying on everyone in the US’s digital communications, Fight for the Future, STOP Spying NYC, and Access Now have issued the following joint statement:

“If the heat of the glares aimed at Rep. Meeks right now could melt him, he’d be dripping like a snowman on the pavement in July. No one in Queens wants everybody in the federal government to have total access to the intimate details of their lives with the tap of a mouse.

Yet, Rep. Meeks has said as recently as Monday that he wants no restrictions on FISA enabling the build-out of the Trump administration’s blanket panopticon, which the admin is using not only for mass deportations, but also to create lists of enemies. Activists across the country are being added to threat lists based on AI analysis of their social media posts, their movements, what they read, who they follow, and their private communications—lists that may have prompted ICE to shoot one woman five times.

Data brokers are selling ICE the facial recognition and home address data to show up the homes of legal observers and intimidate them for engaging in constitutionally protected activity. The data available without a warrant includes our everyday movements: our commute routes, when we are home alone, who we spend time with, when our children get home from school. More, FISA’s Section 702 also allows the government to collect communications between Americans and foreigners located abroad, without requiring a warrant or any due process.

It is a total betrayal of the fourth amendment and the dignity of everyday people in this country to treat us all as if we are guilty until Big Brother Trump proves us innocent by watching our every move. And worse—it’s impossible to predict how these troves of records may be weaponized in the future against racial justice activists, trans and queer families, abortion patients and providers, anti-war activists, or anyone who acts out of step with MAGA.

It’s supposed to be the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, not the Forever Indiscriminate Surveillance Act. Rep. Meeks’ colleagues are proposing real safeguards to protect people against this indiscriminate government surveillance. Rep. Meeks is not only rejecting these safeguards, he’s convincing his colleagues to give Trump and spy agencies blanket permission to violate the Fourth Amendment. He is not only failing his constituency, he is disrespecting them and putting them in danger. It’s not too late for Rep. Meeks to get on the right side of history.”

Himes is Leading the Charge to Whip Support for Trump & Stephen Miller’s ‘Clean’ Reauthorization of Government Spying Powers, Vote Expected Wednesday

BRIDGEPORT, CT — On Sunday morning, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) woke up to an ad in his local newspaper calling him out for trying to deliver Democratic votes for Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s surveillance agenda. On Wednesday, the House is expected to vote on whether to renew the government’s warrantless surveillance authority under Section 702 of the Foreign Services Intelligence Act (FISA). Both Trump and Miller are demanding that Congress renew this authority without any privacy reforms. Shockingly, Rep. Himes is trying to get Democrats to give them the “clean” renewal of FISA that they are asking for. 

• View the Ad

The print ad in the Connecticut Post was sponsored by Fight for the Future and Demand Progress Action, who are leading a coalition of progressive and civil rights groups demanding privacy protections for FISA.

Rachel Maddow declares the Archive a “national treasure” as uncertainty mounts on whether today’s journalism will be preserved for future generations.

Photos by Kenyatta Thomas

Over 100 journalists including Rachel Maddow, Cory Doctorow, and Ellen Nakashima have signed a letter to the Internet Archive celebrating the Wayback Machine as a crucial resource for their work.

The letter reads in part:

“We are thankful that the Internet Archive itself proactively partners with news organizations, and does not engage in paywall circumvention or irresponsible scraping. They value the work of journalists, and it shows in the care that they take to preserve it with integrity.

We commend the Internet Archive for its commitment to preserving journalism for future generations. We welcome its continued work to ensure that today’s reporting remains available to tomorrow’s journalists, researchers, and the public. Preserving this record is essential to protecting journalism’s legacy.”

The full text, list of signatories, and link for journalists to sign on digitally is available at https://www.savethearchive.com/journalists/

The letter comes as major media outlets like the New York Times are asking the Internet Archive to cease its preservation of the news. It was delivered to Internet Archive staff on stage at WikiCredCon, an annual Wikipedia event, by journalist-signatories Laura Flynn and Zara Stone alongside members of tech justice organizations Fight for the Future and Electronic Frontier Foundation. WikiCredCon’s 2026 theme was “Addressing Reliability in an Era of Information Erosion.” According to Archive staff, the Wayback Machine preserves permanent citations for nearly 5 million news article references on Wikipedia.

Lia Holland (they/she), Campaigns and Communications Director at Fight for the Future, which led the letter effort, said: “ It would be a crying shame if this brief moment we are in with AI scraping led to the demise of one of one of journalism’s greatest tools across the past 30 years. All journalists benefit from the Internet Archive’s archiving of the web. It is a tool for accountability, research, and preservation the world over that serves everyone in the field, from Pulitzer Prize winners to student journalists. We cannot let the shortsighted pursuit of profit or AI training exclusivity strangle this irreplaceable resource. It’s important for journalists to speak up now and defend the archive.”

Rachel Maddow said: “The Internet Archive is a national treasure. I use it daily, and have for many, many years. I cannot imagine doing the work I do without it.”

Michael Alex, former editor of MTV News, said: “The Internet Archive preserves over two decades of original reporting on music and popular culture by MTV News. For any journalist covering the music, popular culture and trends of interest to young people (and young-minded people) the Archive is a critical resource. History needs stewards. The people of the Internet Archive do an outstanding job of preserving irreplaceable work and making it available to journalists and researchers.”

Stu Neatby at the Charlottetown Guardian said: “Wayback machine is an essential tool for local journalists. Local and state/provincial governments regularly scrub pages with critical information, with no regard for archiving. Other than Wayback, the only other option would be to go through the FOIPP system which would waste the time of both journalists and public officials.”

Ashley Belanger at Ars Technica said: “As a tech policy journalist, I use the Internet Archive constantly to compare old versions of websites, TOS, or government documents. Without IA, it would be so much harder to trace histories online.”

Kat Tenbarge at Spitfire News said: “Some of my investigative reporting would not have been possible without the Internet Archive. I’ve used the Wayback Machine to visit archived webpages from more than a decade ago, some of which helped corroborate serious allegations. I use the Wayback Machine regularly to figure out how many followers someone had at a given time, to resurface since-deleted material, and to find context for historical posts. It is an essential resource for internet culture journalism and beyond.”

The Massachusetts House has advanced H. 5349, a draconian and laughably unconstitutional bill that would ban minors from social media, force social media platforms to enable parental surveillance of teenagers’ online activity, and subject everyone to privacy-invading online ID checks in order to access information or speak out online.

Dozens of civil liberties, racial justice, LGBTQ+, press freedom, abortion access, and human rights organizations have spoken out against these dangerous and misguided “age verification” laws, several of which have already been struck down as unconstitutional in other states. 

And a Massachusetts-based coalition of LGBTQ groups including the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, ACLU of MA, The Queer Neighborhood Council, and the Transgender Emergency Fund have specifically been pressuring local lawmakers on this issue. Late last year, the Boston City Council introduced a resolution condemning “age verification” and censorship legislation, citing harm to the city’s LGBTQ youth. 

The following statement can be attributed to Evan Greer (she/her), a Boston-based transgender activist and the director of Fight for the Future:

“Do Massachusetts lawmakers believe that young people have nothing valuable to contribute to society? That’s what this bill seems to say. This legislation would have kicked Greta Thuneberg off social media before she organized her first climate protest. How does that make kids safer?

Trans youth in Massachusetts are already terrified of losing their health care. They’re being terrorized by a bigoted administration. Now Massachusetts lawmakers are advancing legislation that would cut them off from access to lifesaving online resources and support? Shameful doesn’t begin to cover it. 

Big Tech social media companies cause real harm, and lawmakers are right to want to do something about it. They should pass privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that actually makes sense and is enforceable., Instead, Massachusetts legislators are actively helping Trump’s authoritarian takeover by pushing for legislation that expands censorship and surveillance. This bill is a gift to the Palantirs of the world –– expanding Trump’s surveillance state by forcing everyone to associate their government ID with everything they post at a time when the DOJ is sending subpoenas to social media companies demanding they hand over the names of people running accounts critical of ICE. 

This legislation would make kids less safe, not more safe, while forcing everyone to upload their government ID or submit to a facial recognition scan in order to post online. The definition of “social media” in the bill is so wildly broad it would sweep in almost the entire Internet, including educational resources like Wikipedia. 

This is one of the worst versions of this type of legislation we’ve seen. Even red states with conservative supermajorities have avoided some of the parental surveillance provisions present in the Massachusetts bill because they raise such serious concerns for the safety of LGBTQ youth and young people’s right to privacy. Requiring social media platforms to verify parental consent is unconstitutional and completely unworkable. Are parents supposed to upload a birth certificate to Instagram? How will platforms protect such sensitive information given their history of massive data breaches? What happens if there is a custody dispute and parents disagree on social media use? What prevents an abuser from falsely claiming they are their victims’ parent in order to access their social media data? This is a completely unworkable idea that has been abandoned in almost every other version of this type of legislation across the country. 

Age verification and censorship legislation will hurt kids and benefit Big Tech. If Massachusetts lawmakers want to address harm, they should listen to experts, scrap this terrible bill and instead advance privacy legislation that strikes at the heart of social media companies’ harmful business practices.”

Here are some additional resources on this topic:

• Teen Vogue “Some Democrats are Helping the Trump Admin’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda”
• The Verge “Age Verification could force trans people to out themselves online”
• Wired “The Age Gated Internet is Sweeping the US. Activists are fighting back”
• ACLU analysis of why age verification violates the First Amendment
• Tech Policy Press “Age Verification is Locking Trans People Out of the Internet”

The Massachusetts state legislature is quickly moving through a bill that would have massive censorship and surveillance implications for young people in the state, despite years of push back against online ID checks and age-gating online from human rights groups and LGBTQ youth. The bill would mandate that social media companies implement age verification, a process that kills anonymity online for all users regardless of age, has led to thousands of peoples government identification being leaked, and puts important resources like LGBTQ organizations, reproductive healthcare, and sex education behind age-gates, which is especially harmful for trans youth under attack across the country.

The Massachusetts bill would also require parental consent for users aged 14 or 15, leaving youth in unsafe and unaffirming households without lifelines that have been proven to decrease suicidality in LGBTQ youth of color.

This legislation is also being pushed in spite of the large coalition of Massachusetts-based LGBTQ, human rights and racial justice organizations that have been explicitly fighting age verification legislation like this because it:
a) blatantly violates the First Amendment (according to the ACLU) and will almost certainly be struck down in court
b) would lead to a massive expansion of online surveillance, forcing everyone to upload a government ID in order to post online or access online resources, and
c) would cut young people and vulnerable adults off from access to lifesaving online resources related to abortion, gender affirming care, or other topics that MAGA Republicans claim are “harmful to children.”

Here’s a letter from our MA-based coalition: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2025-08-19-letter-massachusetts-lgbtq-organizations-band-together-to-fight-censorship-legislation-ask-ma-lawmakers-to-protect-life-saving-resources/

And a few more resources on this topic:
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/some-democrats-are-helping-the-trump-admins-anti-lgbtq-tech-agenda
https://www.theverge.com/policy/892075/age-verification-kansas-id-trans
https://www.wired.com/story/age-verification-is-sweeping-the-us-activists-are-fighting-back

Today, Fight for the Future has issued a new working paper as a part of the tech justice nonprofit’s AISnitches.org campaign to demand that Big Tech put privacy at the forefront of agentic AI development. The paper focuses on privacy issues in agentic AI with a human rights and digital justice lens, with a executive summary reading in part:

“Agentic AI is an emerging technology that poses significant data privacy concerns. These concerns are not wholly novel—researchers have shown that AI systems threaten data privacy and security even if these systems lack an agentic component. However, because AI agents possess the ability to manipulate a user’s digital systems autonomously and continuously, their spread will produce new and expanded threats that evade existing regulatory regimes.

Agentic AI compounds existing major data privacy concerns in three ways: 1) bulk data collection and storage, 2) innate security vulnerabilities, and 3) goal misalignment. Addressing these in order: First, unprecedented amounts of highly personal data are needed to develop and deploy agents—personal data that are not typically collected for use in non-agentic systems. Agents by definition have access to external systems; therefore, users may be unaware of both the breadth and means of this data collection. Second, AI agents are rewarding targets for malicious hackers because of the data and the level of systems access agents possess. Hackers will likely become more skilled at exploiting these shortcomings. Finally, agents themselves can act against a user’s best interest by deciding that the most efficient way to achieve a task is by sacrificing data privacy in a manner that clashes with user preferences or safety.

These three categories of concerns are implicated by United States’ federal and state statutes in a variety of ways, but existing regulations are insufficient to guard against the rapidly-expanding risks.”

The paper is available for download here and on the campaign page at https://aisnitches.org/#workingpaper

Of the working paper, Matt Lane (he/him), Senior Policy Counsel at Fight for the Future said “People are facing a wave of AI products being pushed on them by tech companies trying to find a way to profit off of a new technology that has been expensive to develop. In the case of AI agents, that’s opened up consumers to new privacy and security problems that have not been explained to them. AI agents need your data to work, which means they are reading your messages and analyzing your life. They are also connected to the Internet where they could be leaking your information or exposed to prompt injection attacks. We wrote this report to explain the stakes, show how the law will not protect us, and drive the conversation towards finding solutions and demanding better from tech companies.”

Of the campaign, Lia Holland (they/she), Campaigns and Communications Director at Fight for the Future said “Just last month we saw an AI agent force Meta’s Head of Safety and Alignment to manually shut the tool down because it wouldn’t listen to her commands. The risks these powerful technologies pose to non-experts cannot be understated—especially when it comes to the safety and privacy of activists, immigrants, and other communities living under the threat of surveillance. We know the Trump administration is hellbent on funneling our entire online lives into its surveillance machine. With agentic AI, Big Tech is building a tool that promises convenience but actually compromises anyone who contacts the person who installs it. Agentic AI is a new and concerning path by which bad actors could spy on, subpoena, or plain steal Signal chat logs that everybody thought were end-to-end encrypted. This cannot stand. We need to send a resounding message: the only good AI agent is a private AI agent. And in the meantime, anyone who communicates with a person the government might want to surveil must avoid this tech like the plague.”

Human rights advocates have been sounding the alarm for years about the immense harm done by Big Tech companies’ surveillance-capitalist business model, not just to kids but to our democracy and the rights of marginalized people. It’s good that people are suing and winning in court to reduce the power of these companies and force them to change their policies.

But unfortunately, this court decision finding Meta and Youtube guilty for the design of their platforms is already being weaponized by lawmakers who are hellbent on passing dangerous and misguided Internet censorship legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), online ID check mandates like the SCREEN Act, and attacks on Section 230.

These bills would actually give Meta and YouTube more power by crushing smaller competitors like Bluesky. Additionally, they would make kids less safe by cutting them off from lifesaving online mental health resources, while doing nothing to address the root cause of Big Tech harm: their surveillance-capitalist business model.

The best way to protect kids (and everyone else) online is to pass strong privacy legislation that prevents these companies from collecting so much data in the first place and using that data to power manipulative and addictive recommendation algorithms.

We have long supported legislation that cracks down specifically on manipulative design features like autoplay and infinite scroll, which were at play in this case. But right now, federal policies that tackle these features get lumped into bills and safety packages that raise free expression and First Amendment concerns by forcing platforms to suppress certain categories of speech or getting the government involved in dictating what content platforms can show to which users. A law that gets tossed out by a First Amendment challenge won’t help anyone.

If lawmakers are feeling inspired or motivated to “do something” in the wake of this court decision, they should pass strong privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic transparency legislation. They should also pass the Safe Sex Worker Study Act, to study the impact and harm done by the last change they made to Section 230, before charging forward with changing Section 230 again. (We’ve already done some of their work for them here.)

“We need to be real about the authoritarian moment we are living in. The Trump administration has weaponized every lever of government to terrorize LGBTQ people, attack immigrant communities, and suppress protest and dissent. The Trump admin’s FTC, who would enforce laws like KOSA, have openly attacked providers of gender-affirming care and said they want to suppress online speech about trans issues. There is no universe where passing censorship or ‘age verification’ law, under the guise of kids safety, doesn’t lead to massive online censorship of content and speech that Trump doesn’t like,” said Evan Greer (she/her), Director at Fight for the Future. “Organizers and activists are using platforms, however imperfect, to monitor ICE abuses, advocate for human rights, expose corruption, discuss the Epstein files, and more. We need policies that address corporate abuse without kneecapping the ability of frontline activists to use social media to change the world.”

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on Section 230 this morning, 30 years after the birth of this law that has protected user-generated speech from censorship on the internet. Despite continued push back from free expression experts and human rights groups, there are currently seven live pieces of legislation at the Congressional level that could impact Section 230’s future and its ability to protect important speech online.

Section 230 is the favorite go-to target for members of Congress who are unwilling to really dive into the policies that could actually break down Big Tech’s surveillance capitalist business model and protect kids online, but this hearing illuminated some clearheaded perspectives on why protecting Section 230 is imperative for lawmakers who care about abortion access and LGBTQ communities.

Senator Tammy Baldwin (WI) quite succinctly pointed out how Section 230’s protection of speech that the Trump administration would like to censor, is lifesaving as crackdowns on public programs, healthcare, and speech continue elsewhere.

“President Trump has attempted to rewrite history by forcing museums to remove content. Brendan Carr, the head of the FCC, has threatened broadcasters licenses, including very recently, who air unflattering news about this administration and this president,” Senator Baldwin said. “The internet can be a place that people turn when information is being limited or attempted to be censored by the government. Thinking about now and recent events, it might be where somebody accesses information about abortion or LGBTQ identity or scientific research on climate change or your rights against discrimination in the workplace.”

“I live in Texas where abortion has been criminalized for years and abortion seekers have to rely on online information and traveling out of the state to access abortion care. Without Section 230, abortion funds, organizations fighting for LGBTQ healthcare, and activists would all face mass censorship, as Big Tech companies and social media platforms would jump to censor the information that isn’t palatable enough for their lawyers,” said Sarah Philips, Campaign Director at Fight for the Future. “As public resources shrink and marginalized groups are increasingly criminalized, online spaces where we share information, resources, and fight back against fascism are lifelines. All of this could be gutted without Section 230. Instead of attacking the Big Tech business model that thrives on its exploitation of our data and a massive surveillance apparatus, Congress is once again engaging in political theater about repealing Section 230, which would actually strengthen the grip of Big Tech, as the only companies able to survive the legal landscape of a dystopic, post-Section 230 internet.”

Meta is backtracking on one of its most important safety promises in recent years: to implement default end-to-end encryption for direct messages on Instagram.

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) protects messages all the way from sender to recipient, so that no one—not even Meta—can see what you’re saying. E2EE keeps your messages safe from police and ICE surveillance, stalkers, your creepy ex who works at Meta, and hackers who want to steal your account information. End-to-end encrypted messages are more important than ever before in the face of an administration that will do anything and everything to silence and punish its critics, including by demanding that social media platforms hand over account info for users speaking out against ICE.

In 2023 Meta promised to make DMs end-to-end encrypted BY DEFAULT on Instagram after implementing default E2EE for messages on Facebook Messenger—a move that followed many months of pressure from Fight for the Future and dozens of human rights organizations.

No better case illustrates the risks of unencrypted DMs than when Meta handed over private messages between a Nebraska teenager and her mother in 2022—messages that were then used to prosecute the young woman for having an abortion. If Messenger were default end-to-end encrypted at that time, Meta would never had access to the messages in the first place.

Meta itself has said—in multiple statements—that default E2EE is a critical way to protect people online.

But now Meta is claiming people aren’t interested in E2EE on Instagram because “no one is opting in.” That excuse is total BS.

We know what this is really about. Meta is looking for some bogus reason to cancel its plans for default E2EE on Instagram so that it can 1) tap your DMs to train its AI and 2) curry political favor with the Trump administration by opening up access to your private messages for spying and surveillance by the government.

“We demand Meta immediately implement end-to-end encryption for messaging on Instagram by default, just like it did for Facebook Messenger,” said Leila Nashashibi, campaigner at Fight for the Future. “As communities around the world come under attack by fascist leaders like Trump, privacy and security on social media apps can’t be “optional”—they are life-saving necessities. No one should have side-door access to our private messages. Companies have the responsibility to integrate safety features that are as robust as possible by default, instead of forcing users to go the extra step of “opting into” these features.”

Fight for the Future is calling on supporters to hold Meta to account by signing the petition “Tell Meta: Don’t Sell Out Our Safety for Profit. Protect DMs on Instagram”: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/actions/meta-promised-safe-dms-but-is-selling-us-out/

Digital privacy experts are sounding the alarm on the dangers agentic AI poses to Signal groups like ICE Watch. A new letter campaign demands that OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and more put the privacy and safety of humans first.

Amid unprecedented authoritarian surveillance investments and federal pressures on AI companies to conduct government surveillance, digital rights group Fight for the Future is launching a new campaign calling on Big Tech and Big AI to prioritize privacy in agentic AI development.

Most agentic AI systems are designed to read and save everything that appears on its user’s screen—whether or not the messages it views are private, or the document it scans is encrypted. There is generally no way to opt out specific applications. Instead, agentic AI uploads this information to the cloud and stores it in a way that may be accessible to the AI company, as well as anyone who hacks or subpoenas it, for years to come. This poses a new and dire threat to movements that rely on end-to-end encrypted technologies like Signal.

The letter reads in part:

“Unless AI leaders come together and agree on transparent and uncompromising privacy and safety architecture for agentic AI that matches or exceeds the benefits of end-to-end encryption, this technology will remain too dangerous for us to ever trust.”

The full letter is available and open for public sign on at https://AISnitches.org/

Lia Holland (they/she), Campaigns and Communications Director at Fight for the Future said “Just last month we saw an AI agent force Meta’s Head of Safety and Alignment to manually shut the tool down because it wouldn’t listen to her commands. The risks these powerful technologies pose to non-experts cannot be understated—especially when it comes to the safety and privacy of activists, immigrants, and other communities living under the threat of surveillance. We know the Trump administration is hellbent on funneling our entire online lives into its surveillance machine. With agentic AI, Big Tech is building a tool that promises convenience but actually compromises anyone who contacts the person who installs it. Agentic AI is a new and concerning path by which bad actors could spy on, subpoena, or plain steal Signal chat logs that everybody thought were end-to-end encrypted. This cannot stand. We need to send a resounding message: the only good AI agent is a private AI agent. And in the meantime, anyone who communicates with a person the government might want to surveil must avoid this tech like the plague.”

By cutting Democrats out of negotiations on these bills, House Republicans have made it much less likely for these bills to reach the threshold necessary to pass the Senate. But we are still a long way from defeating the bad ideas that are so often at the heart of bad internet bills.

What Actually Moved Out of Committee and What’s Next?

Three children’s online safety bills move out of committee: Sammy’s Law, the App Store Accountability Act, and the KIDS Act. The KIDS Act combines several, mostly bad, bills with the House version of KOSA. Only Sammy’s Law received any Democratic support, but most Democrats opposed it.

The Rules Committee, controlled by House GOP leadership, will now decide how, when and if these bills are voted on by the House. Any bills that pass the House have to also be passed by the Senate and any changes reconciled and voted on again before final passage. Fight for the Future is pushing actions against the KIDS Act and other dangerous bills at badinternetbills.com!

H.R. 2657, Sammy’s Law was reported to the full House as amended by a roll call vote of 36 yeas – 16 nays.

• Deeply concerning bill that threatens the privacy of users while requiring companies to determine who is the parent or legal guardian of minor users.

H.R. 3149, App Store Accountability Act was reported to the full House as amended by a roll call vote of 26 yeas – 23 nays.

• This bill combines mandatory app store level age verification with highly invasive parental controls.

H.R. 7757, Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, was reported to the full House as amended by a roll call vote of 28 yeas – 24 nays.

This is the big package of bills, and each sub-bill has its own section.

SCREEN Act:

• Slightly more coherent than before but massive drafting issues remain. Still a sweeping and terrible AV mandate.

KOSA:

• Notable change: a rule of construction is included that explicitly disavows that the bill creates a duty of care. Exact effect of core provisions still unclear, but the rift over the DoC has never been more apparent.
• The knowledge standard is now actual knowledge, meaning that platforms do not have a responsibility to find out if a user is a minor.
• Vagueness opens the door for the FTC to abuse its enforcement authority.

Safe Messaging for Kids:

• Has actually become worse over the last few months, now outright bans anyone under 13 from using any messaging feature except mobile phone SMS. Ephemeral messaging ban for minors remains.

SPY Kids Act:

• Bans product and market research on users known to be minors. The actual knowledge standard here means it doesn’t incentivize gathering more data on users and should be good if narrow.

Safer GAMING Act:

• Strong parental control requirement for chat functions in online games. Actual knowledge standard makes this relatively benign. The definition of “covered communication tool” is so broad that it could conceivably be applied to any feature of any online game.

SAFE BOTS Act:

• Requires some disclosures and warnings from chat bots to users known to be minors. Actual knowledge, again, makes this somewhat benign even if enforcement is dubious both on a technical and constitutional level.

Today, digital human rights group Fight for the Future is issuing a safety advisory urging family-friendly businesses, schools, hospitals, community centers and places of worship to ban the facial recognition glasses Meta manufactures in partnership with Ray-Ban.

As awareness grows following high profile instances of deepfake child pornography and child predation, glasses that could both film children without the knowledge of their parents and be used to search the Internet for a child’s face and personal information are a clear and prescient danger.

Family-friendly establishments that want to protect children, women, and other vulnerable customers are urged to post a ban sign at all their entrances and to sign the pledge to ban these glasses at https://fftf.link/MetaRayBans

Individuals who would like to request that the businesses and community centers they frequent implement a ban can find resources on that page as well.

Regarding this issue, Fight for the Future’s Campaigns and Communications Director Lia Holland (they/she) said: “Parents should never have to hesitate about bring their children to the grocery store or the toy store for fear that some pedophile is using their Meta Ray-Bans to make porn, or worse. Putting facial recognition into Meta Ray-Bans could give predators an instant connection to conduct a facial recognition search on potential victims. Imagine a kiddo getting their first taste of freedom at an arcade who is approached by a stranger that knows their name, their parents’ names, and many details about them. Or a woman whose stalker doesn’t have to follow her to learn where she lives, where she works, or that she lives alone. Businesses need to ban these glasses now before the AI-supercharged harvest of their most vulnerable customers begins.”

Reporting from 404 Media last year exposed that Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement agencies have been tapping Flock databases to target people during immigration raids and to investigate people who travel for abortion care.

Across the U.S. communities have been rising up against Flock, targeting local city contracts, contracts with homeowners associations (HOAs), and contracts with commercial retailers like Lowe’s. Over two dozens cities have taken a stand against ALPRs and turned their Flock cameras off and/or canceled their contracts. These include Eugene, OR, Evanston, IL, Scarsdale, NY, Oak Park, IL, Guthrie, OK, Austin, TX, and Denver, CO.

Amazon Ring has also faced resistance for years for funneling surveillance data to law enforcement. In 2025, amid horrifying attacks on immigrants and other marginalized groups by ICE, Ring announced it would be launching partnerships with Axon and Flock that would re-open data-sharing avenues between Ring owners and law enforcement.

“You know Flock’s surveillance technology is truly horrifying when a company as evil as Amazon Ring decides to distance itself from the tech. This decision speaks to the enormous momentum communities and civil society groups are building in exposing and shaming companies for fueling ICE’s violence,” said Leila Nashashibi, campaigner at Fight for the Future.

“All across the country, people are understanding how the spread of surveillance tools like Flock’s ALRPs are helping ICE wreak havoc on our communities. Not only do we have to hit Flock from every possible angle – public contracts, corporate contracts, pension fund investments and more – we also have to target Axon and Amazon and other companies enabling the worst of ICE’s harms. Now is the time to be crystal clear: if you’re a company and your business supports ICE, we’re mobilizing to make sure there’s a price to pay.”

Not surprisingly, despite canceling its partnership with Flock, Ring has chosen to maintain its collaboration with surveillance company Axon – a collaboration that allows police to request camera footage from Ring users through the Community Requests platform. This feature is exactly what privacy advocates fought against for years, and temporarily succeeded in shutting down in 2024.

Those looking to join the movement against Flock and ALPRs should visit fftf.link/flockout to sign a petition targeting Lowe’s and to read through the step-by-step breakdown for launching a municipal campaign.

For students and educators looking to sever their universities’ ties with companies profiting from ICE’s violence, check out this toolkit.

Finally, we’ve made it easy for neighbors to spark conversations with each other about the dangers of Ring – print out our anti-surveillance doorhanger and hang it on your front door today!