Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban Fails: 73% Ignore It

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Cindy Harper

Compliance sits at 27% and the model says it has further to fall.

Australia’s under-16 social media ban has been in force for four months and the headline finding from a new working paper out of the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute is that around three-quarters of the teenagers it targets are ignoring it.

The paper, “Why Bans Fail: Tipping Points and Australia’s Social Media Ban,” surveyed 746 Australian teenagers between March and April 2026. Among 14- and 15-year-olds covered by the ban, only about 27% are complying. The other 73% are still using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, Threads, or Kick, the ten platforms the law designates off-limits to anyone under 16.

The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 took effect on 10 December 2025, making Australia the first country to outlaw teenage social media accounts at the federal level.

More than a dozen other countries and numerous US states are now considering versions of the same approach. The Australian model places enforcement entirely on the platforms, which face penalties of up to A$49.5 million for failing to take “reasonable steps” to keep under-16s off their services. Teenagers themselves face no legal sanction.

The teenagers know this. According to the survey, only 22% of banned teens believe they personally face any consequence for using a banned platform.

47% correctly understand that the consequences fall on the companies. Awareness of the ban is near-universal at 86%. The teens aren’t confused about what the law says. They’ve simply concluded, accurately, that the law isn’t aimed at them.

Getting around the restrictions takes minimal effort. 75% of banned teens describe circumvention as easy or very easy.

The most common workarounds are the obvious ones: lying about age on verification prompts (57%), entering false birthdates at sign-up (44%), borrowing a parent’s or older sibling’s account (42%), and routing through a VPN (30%). 64% of 14- and 15-year-olds in the survey have not had their accounts removed at all. The platforms haven’t found them. A quarter of non-compliers report that a parent, older sibling, or other adult helped them sign up for a new account after a previous one was deactivated.

The researchers also asked teenagers a more interesting question. What share of your peers would need to stop using social media before you stopped? The average answer was 69%. Some teens placed the threshold even higher. The result holds across every way the question was framed, whether the reference group was age peers, classmates, the wider school, or “a typical person your age.” The numbers came out between 62% and 69% in every variant.

That gap, between 27% actual compliance and a 69% threshold, is the paper’s central finding. The model the researchers build from the data suggests that the only stable equilibrium under current conditions is around 18% compliance, lower than what’s already observed. Compliance is more likely to erode than to grow.

Then there is the social composition of who complies. 47% of surveyed teenagers said the kids who comply with the ban are less popular than the kids who don’t. Only 5% said compliers are more popular. Among current users of banned platforms, 52% rated compliers as less popular. The teens still on the platforms have, on average, around twice the Instagram follower count of those who have left, 470 versus 200.

The authors point to cigarette smoking as the inverse precedent. Higher-status smokers quit first, connected friend groups quit together and over time continued smokers became peripheral in their social networks.

The Australian ban is producing the opposite pattern. The popular kids are staying, the less popular kids are leaving and being on social media remains the cool thing to do.

The justification for the ban rests on adolescent mental health concerns and the government’s framing presents the law as protective.

The data shows what happens when a state assumes the authority to wall off entire categories of speech and association from a class of citizens, then leaves the actual decision-making to companies operating under threat of nine-figure fines.

The companies decide, by means they don’t fully disclose, who is and isn’t allowed to participate. Detection methods used so far include facial age estimation, identity verification, behavioral inference from language and login patterns and signals from peer networks. Algorithms parse user behavior to guess at age. Errors fall on individual users with no recourse worth speaking of.

The paper’s authors are careful not to dismiss the law’s longer-term prospects entirely. They note that norms can shift over decades and that the cigarette precedent to which we return below is a reminder that decades-scale norm change is possible.

The current architecture, which places enforcement on platforms and makes individual non-compliance invisible, doesn’t activate the channel through which laws change behavior by changing what people see their peers doing. When visible peer behavior continues to signal widespread use, the descriptive norm works against the legal message rather than reinforcing it.

The law tells teenagers they cannot have these accounts. The teenagers can see, on the same platforms the law says they can’t use, that everyone they know still has them. Among the 14- and 15-year-olds who believe all five of their closest friends are still on banned platforms, 86% report using those platforms themselves in the past week. Among those who believe none of their five closest friends are still on them, the figure drops to 15%.

What Australia has produced, four months in, is a law that almost no one under 16 obeys, that targets the least popular kids most successfully, that the targeted kids consider trivial to evade, and that has not changed the social environment it was designed to change.

The government got a press cycle, the platforms got a compliance theatre to perform, and the kids got a lesson in how laws work when they’re written about them rather than for them.

[…]

Via https://reclaimthenet.org/australias-under-16-social-media-ban-fails

US National Debt Exceeds Size of Economy for 1st Time Since World War II

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This Wednesday, April 3, 2019, file photo shows a box filled with dollar bills, in New York. - Sputnik International, 1920, 01.05.2026

 

Sputnik International

The US national debt exceeded the size of the country’s economy at the end of March for the first time since the end of World War II, Fox Business reported, citing data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Bureau reportedly estimated on Thursday that the national debt held by public amounted to $31.27 trillion as of March 31. GDP at that time was estimated at $31.22 trillion, meaning the US national debt exceeded 100% of the country’s economy.

Last time such a situation was observed in 1946, when the percentage of public debt to GDP was 106%, the report read.

On Thursday, Fitch Ratings suggested that US national debt, under its baseline scenario, would exceed 120% of GDP no later than 2027. The US public debt-to-GDP ratio was 116.6% in 2025, will reach 119.3% this year, and will increase to 122.2% in 2027, the agency estimated.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20260501/us-national-debt-exceeds-size-of-economy-for-1st-time-since-end-of-world-war-ii–reports-1124071645.html

Brazil Quietly Shifts Away from US Dollar to Gold

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Brazil Quietly Shifts Away from the Dollar to Gold

Armstrong Economics
May 1 2026

The Banco Central do Brasil has raised gold’s share of reserves from 3.55% to 7.19% in just one year, effectively doubling its exposure and making gold the second-largest reserve asset after the US dollar, while total reserves stand at approximately $358.23 billion and the dollar’s share has declined to about 72%, marking a record low. This is not a marginal adjustment or routine diversification, it is a structural repositioning that reflects a growing unease with sovereign debt markets.

When a central bank reduces dollar exposure while increasing gold holdings, it is not acting randomly but responding to a shift in confidence, and this aligns directly with the broader trend we are witnessing globally as central banks collectively purchased roughly 863 tonnes of gold in 2025 and are expected to remain strong buyers into 2026. The driving forces behind this are not inflation in the traditional sense, but geopolitical fragmentation, the weaponization of reserves, and the realization that sovereign debt levels are no longer sustainable without continued central bank intervention.

Brazil’s move mirrors what we have been warning about for years, which is that capital flows, not trade balances, dictate the strength of currencies, and once confidence begins to erode in government debt, that capital begins to migrate into assets that are not someone else’s liability. Gold fulfills that role because it cannot be printed, defaulted on, or frozen by a foreign government, and this becomes critical in a world where sanctions and financial restrictions are increasingly used as political tools.

The significance of Brazil’s decision is that it is not repatriating gold like France or Germany, but instead reallocating reserves in a way that quietly reduces dependence on the dollar without triggering market disruption. This is often how such transitions begin, as they unfold incrementally until they reach a tipping point. This is not about abandoning the dollar overnight, it is about gradually preparing for a world where confidence in sovereign debt is no longer taken for granted.

[…]

Via https://www.activistpost.com/brazil-quietly-shifts-away-from-the-dollar-to-gold/

81 Iran-linked Vessels Successfully Evade Alleged US Blockade

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New maritime data shows that 81 Iranian or Iran-linked vessels have successfully passed through the Strait of Hormuz despite Washington’s claim of a naval blockade on Iran.

Via https://t.me/presstv/188106

Oil giants defy US pressure to boost production to ease fuel crisis 

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Press TV
Oil giants defy US pressure to boost production to ease fuel crisis 

US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron have openly defied ongoing pressure from the White House to increase oil production despite soaring prices and an escalating energy crisis sparked by the US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

The Financial Times reported on Friday that senior executives from both companies stood firm in their commitment to current strategies, even as the United States faces rising fuel costs linked to the war against Iran.

Neil Hansen, Exxon’s chief financial officer, said there has been “no change” in operations in the Permian Basin, emphasizing that the company is already operating at maximum capacity.

“There’s really no need for us to shift up because we’re already in high gear,” he said, underlining the unwavering commitment of the oil giant to their established practices.

Similarly, Chevron’s finance chief, Eimear Bonner, reinforced the company’s stance, arguing that the current crisis caused by geopolitical instability does not warrant a significant change in their plans.

“The crisis has not prompted any change to any of our plans,” she said, noting that the company’s focus remains on improving free cash flow rather than simply boosting production.

“You wouldn’t expect us to be changing our plans significantly on the back of eight weeks of disruption,” she added, referring to the ongoing turmoil affecting global oil supply.

Iran closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz to shipping associated with the US, Israel and their allies, days after the war began, sending energy prices soaring worldwide. The US later imposed a blockade of Iranian ports, further shaking the global markets.

Oil prices surged to approximately $126 per barrel, with US gasoline prices climbing above $4 a gallon.

In the first quarter of the year, Exxon reported a net income of $4.2 billion, representing a 46 percent decline compared to the previous year. This drop was primarily attributed to a $3.9 billion loss related to undelivered cargo hedges.

The company also acknowledged that the war against Iran is expected to decrease its global output by about six percent.

Meanwhile, Chevron reported a net income of $2.2 billion, a 37 percent decrease, although its overall production saw an increase due to acquisitions and heightened output in certain regions.

Despite the challenges, both companies have reported that their refineries are functioning at record levels, taking advantage of high prices for diesel and other refined products, even while they refuse to increase crude production.

In response to the mounting pressure from the Trump administration, senior officials have been engaging directly with industry leaders to advocate for an increase in drilling activities.

The government’s outreach aligns with President Donald Trump’s longstanding energy policy, characterized by the mantra “DRILL, BABY, DRILL.”

The pressure is escalating as ongoing inflation and rising gasoline prices threaten political consequences, intensifying the urgency for domestic production to alleviate costs for American consumers.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/05/02/767914/Oil-giants-defy-US-pressure-to-boost-production-to-ease-fuel-crisis

Grassroots Opposition Sinks Bill to Limit Local Control Over Cell Towers

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Capitol Building and cell tower

 

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.
April 20, 2026

Federal lawmakers today delayed voting on a bill that would have largely stripped local governments of the authority to reject the installation of unwanted cell towers near homes, schools and parks in their communities.

After facing opposition from local governments and health freedom advocates, and failing to garner enough support from Republican representatives, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Rules postponed today’s scheduled vote on H.R. 2289, the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2025.

The proposed bill included language stating that local governments “may not deny, and shall approve” applications for most cell towers and antennas. The bill would have allowed antennas to be installed on practically any structure, including homes, schools and utility poles, overriding local zoning laws.

Miriam Eckenfels, director of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program, credited “grassroots advocacy groups, local governments, and MAHA leaders” with helping to pause the bill.

A Rules Committee vote is largely procedural. The committee can reconsider the bill and prepare for a floor vote, but legislative experts told The Defender that without sufficient Republican support, the bill is unlikely to proceed in the Republican-led House.

“We sincerely hope they will abandon this misguided effort for good and work with their constituents on finding a way forward that works for all. Stripping away local control and individual rights to hand more power to big industry will never be an acceptable solution,” Eckenfels said.

Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News, first broke the news in a post on X earlier today.

CHD opposed the bill, along with MAHA Action and a coalition of health freedom advocates and organizations representing local government, including the National Association of Counties, the United States Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors.

A coalition of telecommunications industry lobbying groups supported the bill, urging House members to support it in a letter last week.

Eckenfels said CHD opposed the bill since it was first introduced last year.

“We firmly believe that communities, not bureaucrats at the FCC and the telecom industry, should decide where cell towers are placed in our neighborhoods,” Eckenfels said. “This bill would have stripped away all remaining community rights to fight unwanted cell towers, on top of an already restrictive federal framework.”

In an action alert today, CHD called the bill “a federal power grab” and an example of “federal overreach.”

Attorney W. Scott McCollough, CHD’s chief litigator for EMR cases, called H.R. 2289 a “bad bill” that should not proceed to the House floor “without significant changes.”

McCollough said the bill would have left the public with “no impact over placement, including towers right next to their homes and schools even though the towers reduce property values, increase home insurance costs, lead to involuntary exposure to a known toxin, one that is especially harmful to children.”

According to MAHA Action, a nonprofit supporting U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, the bill “strips parents, cities, and school boards of any meaningful authority to decide where cell towers and wireless antennas are placed.”

This loss of local control would have consequences for children’s health, MAHA Action warned:

“The long-term health effects of electromagnetic radiation exposure on children have never been adequately studied, especially in the places kids spend their days: classrooms, playgrounds, and youth sports fields. Until the science catches up, communities must retain the right to apply caution near schools and children’s outdoor spaces.

“This bill removes that right and eliminates informed consent for millions of families.”

Fourteen Republicans, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), co-sponsored the bill.

FCC hasn’t updated wireless safety standards since 1996, concealed risks

Advocates opposing the bill argued that it violates states’ rights and fails to protect public health — particularly children’s health.

In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Sunday, Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, urged Johnson to oppose the bill.

Lyons wrote that what “began as a narrow, one-page proposal has expanded into a roughly 100-page omnibus bill that would strip state and local governments of meaningful control over wireless infrastructure,” transferring that authority to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and private industry.

His letter suggested the bill violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — which protects states’ rights — and would have eroded local accountability and used federal taxpayer funds to subsidize the continued buildout of mobile infrastructure across the U.S.

Lyons told Johnson that rejecting the bill would preserve states’ rights and protect property rights by allowing property owners to challenge the development of mobile infrastructure in their area.

Rejecting the bill would also protect public health, Lyons argued. He noted that the FCC has not updated its radiation exposure guidelines since 1996. Although a 2021 federal court ruling found that the FCC’s refusal to update those guidelines was “arbitrary and capricious, the FCC continues to defy the ruling.

According to data obtained in 2024 by the Environmental Health Trust via Freedom of Information Act requests, the FCC knew for years that certain popular smartphones exceeded the agency’s safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation when held close to the body.

Rather than going public with the testing results, the FCC concealed them — even when important lawsuits concerning cellphone radiation’s impact on people’s health were underway.

“H.R. 2289 would accelerate buildout under guidelines a federal court has already found inadequately justified,” Lyons wrote.

A rule the FCC proposed last year is aimed at “eliminating barriers to wireless deployments” by silencing local communities. The rules target communities that attempt to resist efforts by telecom companies to build new cell towers next to homes and schools. CHD opposed the proposal in comments filed in December 2025.

Eckenfels said:

“We simply know too much about the damage cell towers can do to people living close by, as reports of people being harmed pile up from across the nation. Unless and until the FCC complies with the 2021 court order to revise its outdated radiation exposure standards, we call on all federal leaders to use precaution as a matter of policy and oppose any acceleration or expansion of wireless infrastructure. Our children’s health is at stake, and we’ll do anything we can to protect them.”

In November 2025, CHD filed a motion with the FCC asking it to comply with the 2021 ruling.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cell-towers-bill-limit-local-control-grassroots-opposition/?utm_id=20260426

 

Are Russia and Iran Allies?

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Iran Top Diplomat in Russia as US Talks in Limbo | Rigzone

Dmitry Orlov

On April 27, an Iranian delegation headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Abbas Araghchi was in St. Petersburg, Russia, for meetings with Vladimir Putin and Russian top officials. In his published remarks from their meeting, Putin “confirm[ed] that Russia, just like Iran, intends to maintain our strategic relations.” “Iran-Russia relations are regarded by us as a strategic partnership at the highest level,” Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Abbas Araghchi responded.

Note that Araghchi chose to fly to St. Petersburg instead of meeting with some slimy New York City slumlord and Donald Trump’s son-in-law (who is an Israeli stooge) whom Trump inexplicably considers fit to meet with foreign diplomats. Clearly, Araghchi wanted to use his time to solve problems, not to waste time talking to some nobodys.

So, how have Russia and Iran — these two strategic partners — helped each other strategically in recent times? Here is a list of ways in which Russia has helped Iran:

• The Russian army destroyed ISIS* in Syria. If Russia hadn’t destroyed many thousands of ISIS cadres, they would now be used by the US to invade Iran. By eliminating them, Russia eliminated a major threat to Iran.
• In the hapless country formerly known as the Ukraine, which for the past four years and counting has been used by the US and NATO as a proxy to attack Russia, the Russian army has destroyed most of the US and NATO countries’ stockpiles of all types of weapons. If it were not for the Russians, all of this war materiel would now be put to use to destroy Iran. But, as we see, the Americans’ stockpiles are depleted to such an extent that the Americans themselves consider the situation to be dangerous to their own security. This, again, was of major help to Iran.
• Russia is also building a nuclear power plant at Bushehr in Iran. It’s worth remembering that the Iranians had turned to Russia out of desperation: they had first signed a contract with Germany to build this power plant. The Germans screwed them, and only then did the Iranians turn to Rosatom. By the way, Germany was a spectacularly bad choice for this project, given that that country has been busy destroying its existing nuclear power plants, not building new ones.
• Russia has also supplied all kinds of weapons to Iran: air defense systems, fighter jets, bombers, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, MANPADS, helicopters, small arms, and much more. Western media reports claim Russia is also supplying Iran with intelligence.
• Russia’s Roscosmos has been launching Iranian satellites into space.
Where, then, is the list of ways in which Iran has helped Russia? All we saw from Iran was the sale of Shahed drones during the initial stages of the military operation. These were excellent drones, and Russia was able to modify and improve their original design in many incremental ways, making its Geranium II (initially, a Shahed copy) a highly advanced and formidable weapon.

Was it that the Russians were not in any need of Iranian help, or perhaps too proud to accept it? That is clearly not the case: North Korean troops were most helpful in destroying and expelling Ukrainian Nazi and NATO invaders from Russia’s Kursk region, the southern tip of which was partially occupied by them from May of 2024 to April of 2025. The Koreans fought valiantly and showed themselves to be skilled, disciplined and fearless warriors. In return for their valor, they gained invaluable experience in modern warfare, where the battlefield is saturated with drones and any significant force concentration is automatically detected and targeted. Together with the Russian forces, the Koreans helped destroy some 70 thousand of the invaders, which included professional soldiers from several NATO countries. To commemorate these events, several days ago the Kursk Memorial Complex and Museum were opened in Pyongyang. The event was attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, and Russia’s Defense Minister Andrei Belousov.

The fact that Russia has done so much more for Iran than Iran for Russia is not in any way unfair or disadvantageous from the Russian point of view. There are many military, geopolitical and economic considerations that make Iran’s security and independence extremely important to Russia — far too many to discuss in a short article.

[…]

Via https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/c10c9ae7-ea6c-4aab-ac6b-567bd0db035f

More Details Emerge of Trump’s Secret Use of ICE to Spy on Critics

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Lawmakers and privacy advocates are demanding answers from the Trump administration about its weaponization of digital tools and popular web platforms to spy on critics and activists. Targets have included a student who attended a pro-Palestine protest and anonymous web users posting about President Donald Trump’s violent immigration crackdown, but the administration’s secret systems of surveillance likely cast a wide net.

Privacy groups are also making demands of Big Tech firms such as Meta and Google, which have come under pressure from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hand over identifying information for anonymous users. Officials from the agency have wielded legally dubious administrative subpoenas — meant to be used to determine duties on imported products — in an attempt to compel the information.

The efforts to expose domestic spying under the Trump administration offer a preview of how Democrats could yield subpoena power next year if voters hand them the House majority in November. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Democrat from Illinois who was appointed ranking member of the cybersecurity subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security this week, said emerging technologies are being used to violate civil rights and target Trump’s critics.

“The Trump-Miller regime is weaponizing the government and abusing every authority to persecute anyone whom they perceive as an enemy,” Ramirez told Truthout in a text on April 29, referencing Stephen Miller, the anti-immigrant extremist serving as a top adviser to Trump. “And fascism always requires a public enemy.”

ICE Targets Personal Information of Trump Critics

On April 17, attorneys with the Civil Liberties Defense Center filed a motion in federal court to throw out a grand jury subpoena that Reddit received from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demanding “extensive private information” about an anonymous user. The user had posted statements critical of ICE and other political content on Reddit, a popular online discussion forum.

Reddit originally received an administrative subpoena from an ICE official in Virginia demanding the user’s personal information, The Intercept first reported earlier this month. The Civil Liberties Defense Center, representing the Reddit user, immediately filed a motion against the summons. Rather than defend the original administrative subpoena in court, ICE switched tactics in early April and demanded that Reddit attorneys appear before a secret grand jury, according to organization’s executive director Lauren Regan.

“First the government is filing these administrative summonses in hopes that the users won’t know what do to or how to challenge them in court, and as soon as lawyers step in litigating the lawfulness of these subpoenas and summonses, the administration is withdrawing them so there isn’t a court ruling against them in regard to these shenanigans,” Regan said in a recent interview with Truthout.

On April 22, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued DHS for the release of public records detailing the use of administrative subpoenas by ICE to try and unmask the administration’s online critics. So far, what little is publicly known about the practice comes from Regan and other civil liberties attorneys who have defended web users against ICE’s subpoenas.

In at least six cases reported in 2025, ICE claimed users were “doxxing” immigration agents by documenting their activity online, part of a broader crowd-sourcing movement that works to publicly identify masked agents who make violent arrests and alert communities about their presence. Attorneys for the users argue that social media posts and websites such as StopICE.net are protected by the First Amendment.

According to the EFF complaint, the administrative subpoenas are issued under an obscure 1930 tariff law that empowers customs officials to file summonses for “determining liability for customs duties, taxes, fees, and other monetary obligations arising from the importation of merchandise into the United States.”

However, since early 2025, DHS and ICE have issued subpoenas under the 1930 law to web platforms including Google, Meta, Reddit, and Discord demanding names, email addresses, and IP addresses linked to anonymous accounts, the complaint alleges. The lawsuit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

EFF Deputy Legal Director Aaron Mackey said DHS should not claim legal authority to unmask online critics and then run away from court when attorneys for the same users challenge the administrative subpoenas.

“We want to know if there has been any internal audit, and if the office of legal counsel has actually looked at any of this and said, ‘yes this is legal,’ and what are the legal reasons,” Mackey said in an interview on April 29.

Targeted via Google After 5 Minutes at a Protest

As a Ph.D. candidate with a British passport studying at Cornell University in upstate New York, Amandla Thomas-Johnson thought he would be “the last person to be hunted down by the immigration authorities.” However, Thomas-Johnson is Black and attended a pro-Palestine protest on campus in October 2024 as pro-Israel groups used a mix of doxxing, public threats, and financial pressure to push university leaders to punish anti-genocide activists as campus protests spread nationwide.

Thomas-Johnson said he spent only five minutes at the protest but was banned from campus shortly after. When Trump returned to office in January 2025, Thomas-Johnson went into hiding at a professor’s rural home. Three months later, after a friend was detained at an airport in Florida and questioned about his whereabouts, Thomas-Johnson self-deported to Canada before fleeing to Switzerland.

“I did not return to the UK as reports that pro-Palestine journalists had been arrested there made me fearful,” Thomas-Johnson wrote in October 2025. “I hoped my arrival in Switzerland would mark the end of my ordeal.”

After a few weeks in Switzerland, Thomas-Johnson received an email from Google informing him that the company had revealed his personal information to DHS. At first, he was not alarmed because an associate, Momodou Taal, had received similar emails from Google and Facebook notifying him that the U.S. government had requested personal information. After Taal challenged the requests — administrative subpoenas likely filed under the 1930 tariff law — law enforcement eventually withdrew them and Taal’s data reportedly remained private.

“This is the standard playbook for authoritarianism I think — intimidation of the people, and making the people live in fear,” Regan said. “Making them think that if they critique the government or have beliefs contrary to the current regime in power, then somewhere they will be threatened and targeted.”

During Trump’s first administration, tech companies routinely fought federal subpoenas on behalf of their users who were targeted for protected speech, according to The Intercept. However, in Thomas-Johnson’s case, Google released personal information to DHS before notifying him and providing time to challenge the request in court.

“My data was handed over without warning — at the request of an administration targeting students engaged in protected political speech,” Thomas-Johnson wrote for EFF on April 14.

For nearly a decade, Google has promised billions of users that it will notify them before disclosing their personal data to law enforcement — and the company has done so many times, according to EFF. On Google’s Privacy & Terms page, the company pledges that, “When we receive a request from a government agency, we send an email to the user account before disclosing information.” However, the group says that promise was broken in Thomas-Johnson’s case.

On April 14, EFF sent complaints on behalf of Thomas-Johnson to the attorneys general of California and New York requesting they investigate Google for deceptive trade practices.

“Google should answer the question: How many other times has it broken its promise to users?” EFF Senior Staff Attorney F. Mario Trujillo said in a statement on April 14. “Advance notice is especially important now, when agencies like ICE are unconstitutionally targeting users for First Amendment-protected activity.”

In an email, a Google spokesperson said all subpoenas undergo a review process designed to protect user privacy while also meeting legal obligations.

“We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance,” the spokesperson said. “We push back against those that are overbroad, including objecting to some entirely.”

Mackey said EFF is also suing DHS for more information on the practice, but Congress must also provide oversight and accountability. Lawmakers must use their own subpoena power to determine the extent of surveillance under Trump.

Democrats Demand Answers About Israeli Spyware

The lawsuit came as Democrats in Congress continue to press DHS for details about domestic surveillance. ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, acknowledged earlier this month that the agency is deploying Israeli spyware that can intercept encrypted messages, as well as advanced data tools that monitor smartphones and social media to enforce Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The admission came several months after House Democrats Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), Shontel Brown (Ohio), and Yassamin Ansari (Arizona) sent a letter to DHS demanding information on the department’s use of foreign spyware.

The lawmakers had requested information about Graphite, a spyware program produced by the Israeli firm Paragon Solutions that can covertly access encrypted messages, photos, and location data on smart devices. In an April 3 joint statement, the lawmakers said Lyons acknowledged that ICE is using a “specific tool” but did not name Graphite and “failed to provide the documentation and evidence requested by Congress to verify what safeguards, standards, and oversight mechanisms are actually in place.”

“They are moving forward with invasive spyware technology inside the United States, and instead of answering the serious constitutional and civil rights concerns that we raised, DHS is asking the public to accept vague assurances and fear-based justifications,” Representative Lee said.

“We must be clear that giving our rights away won’t ensure our security,” Ramirez said. “That’s why we must — through oversight, policy, and regulation — take away every weapon fascists would wield against us.”

Lee added that the people most at risk — including immigrants, Black and Brown people, journalists, and anyone speaking against the government — deserve more from ICE, an agency with “a long record of overreach and abuse.”

“Constitutional rights do not disappear because this administration wants more surveillance power, and fear tactics cannot be used as a way to sidestep accountability, privacy, and due process,” Lee said, adding that she will continue to fight for transparency.

Transparency may be difficult to achieve while the GOP controls Congress, but Representative Ramirez said more oversight could come if the balance of power changes after the midterms. Ramirez said she is also looking at oversight of consumer technology, such as Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which have been used to identify and record unsuspecting people in public.

“We must be clear that giving our rights away won’t ensure our security,” Ramirez said. “That’s why we must — through oversight, policy, and regulation — take away every weapon fascists would wield against us.”

[…]

Via https://truthout.org/articles/more-details-emerge-of-trumps-secret-use-of-ice-to-spy-on-critics/

Israel pours $730m into global propaganda machine as reputation collapses

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(Photo credit: Shutterstock)

The Cradle

Israeli lawmakers last month approved a sharp increase in the 2026 public diplomacy budget, allocating roughly $730 million to the global messaging apparatus, also known as “Hasbara,” according to a report by the Jerusalem Post on 29 April.

Surveys point to a deepening collapse in international support, as Israel’s genocide in Gaza and continued aggression toward its neighboring countries have sent the Tel Aviv’s reputation into freefall on the global stage.

The funding accounts for more than four times the previous year’s allocation, and forms part of a broader push led by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who characterized the effort as a strategic imperative, saying it should be treated “like investing in jets, bombs, and missile interceptors” and calling it “an existential issue.”

The campaign spans large-scale digital outreach and political engagement aimed at bending perceptions and  influencing  narratives around Israel.

Around $50 million is being funneled into social media advertising, and roughly $40 million is going toward flying in foreign delegations such as politicians, clergy, and influencers as part of the outreach effort.

Officials insist the strategy improves perceptions abroad, with Israel’s consul general in Los Angeles, Israel Bachar, claiming that “Everyone who returns from the country understands better and is more supportive. But you have to fly out a lot of people.”

However, polling data cited in the reports shows a sharp collapse in public opinion towards Israel, particularly in the US.

A Pew Research Center survey found that 60 percent of US respondents now view Israel unfavorably, with declines cutting across political, religious, and demographic groups.

Analysts and researchers dismiss the spending outright, arguing it cannot offset the impact of Israel’s actions on the ground.

Communication scholar Nicholas Cull said, “Our conclusion was, it’s the policy, stupid,” referring to Israel’s policy of genocide and apartheid, and its broader military conduct as a central pillar of its expansionist agenda.

“Yes, you can do a lot with public diplomacy, and there are strategies that could help on the margins. But they’re only going to affect a small percentage, because the bulk of the impressions on issues that people care about are shaped by the actual policies, not how well you sell those policies.”

“The problem is that people don’t believe the state anymore,” said Ilan Manor, another expert cited in the report, warning that increased funding may expand reach but will not restore trust.

That push is reinforced by what Israeli officials describe as a parallel “Eighth Front” – a so-called “Digital Iron Dome” that combines mass reporting campaigns, AI-driven targeting, and coordinated influencer networks to suppress dissenting content and flood platforms with state-approved narratives in real time.

Israel had invested millions in coordinated digital influence campaigns, including a $6-million contract to shape AI outputs, targeted Gen Z messaging, and large-scale ad buys, in an effort to control online narratives and counter declining public support in the US.

The country’s propaganda arm had previously deployed a large network of at least hundreds of fake social media accounts and fabricated news sites to spread unverified claims linking UNRWA to Hamas’s 7 October Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in order to undermine its humanitarian mission in Palestine.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-pours-730m-into-global-propaganda-machine-as-reputation-collapses

Iran Shoots Down Hostile Drones Over Tehran

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Late Wednesday night — explosions lit up the sky over Tehran. Iranian air defenses opened fire on drones flying over their own capital. No one claimed responsibility. And that silence? That might be the scariest part.

Read more at: https://www.oneindia.com/videos/u-sisrael-bomb-iran-irgc-shoots-down-hostile-drones-over-tehran-with-antiaircraft-guns-video-4300362.html