YunoBlog

Author: tio

  • Palantir Has a Human Rights Policy. Its ICE Work Tells a Different Story

    For years, EFF has pushed technology companies to make real human rights commitments—and to live up to them. In response to growing evidence that Palantir’s tools help power abusive immigration enforcement by ICE, we sent the company a detailed letter asking how the promises in its own human rights framework extends to that work.

    This post explains what we asked, how Palantir responded, and why we believe those responses fall short. EFF is not alone in raising alarms about Palantir; immigrants’ rights groups, human rights organizations, journalists, and former employees have raised similar concerns based on reports of the company’s role in abusive immigration enforcement. We focus here on Palantir’s own human rights promises.

    At the outset, we appreciate that Palantir was willing to engage respectfully, and we recognize that confidentiality and security obligations can limit what it can say. Nonetheless, measured against Palantir’s own human rights commitments, its decision to keep powering ICE with tools used in dragnet raids and discriminatory detentions is indefensible. A good-faith application of those commitments should lead Palantir to end its contract with ICE, and refuse new, or end current, contracts with any other agency whose work predictably violates those commitments.

    Palantir’s Public Promises

    Palantir has long said it performs comprehensive human rights analysis on its work. It has also worked with ICE for years, apparently in a more limited capacity than today. It has publicly embraced the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Additionally, in its response to EFF, Palantir says its legal responsibilities are only “the floor” for broader risk assessments.

    That was the point of our letter. We asked what human rights due diligence Palantir conducted when it first contracted with ICE and DHS; whether it performed the “proactive risk scoping” it advertises, how it reviews work over time, what it has done in response to reports of misuse, and whether it has used “every means at [its] disposal”—including contract provisions, third‑party oversight, and termination—to prevent or mitigate harms.

    For the most part, Palantir did not answer our accountability questions. It did correct one point: Palantir says it does not currently work with CBP, and available evidence supports that, though it also made clear it could work with CBP in the future.

    Palantir also raised a red herring it often deploys in response to criticism. It denied building a ‘mega’ or ‘master’ database for ICE and denied creating a database of protesters, which some ICE agents have claimed to have been built. We call it a red herring because those denials sidestep the central issues: what capabilities Palantir’s tools actually provide to ICE.

    To be clear, EFF has never claimed that Palantir is building a single centralized database. Our concern is grounded in how Palantir’s tools allow ICE to query and analyze data from multiple databases through a unified interface—which from an agent’s perspective can be a distinction without a difference.

    In the sections that follow, we compare Palantir’s account of its work for ICE with evidence about how its tools seem to be used, and explain why legality, internal process, and sustained “engagement with the institutions whose vital tasks exist in tension with certain human rights” are no substitute for real human rights due diligence—because respect for human rights must be measured by outcomes, not just process.

    Palantir’s ICE Work Undermines Its Own Standards

    Palantir says ICE uses its ELITE tool for “prioritized enforcement”: to surface likely addresses of specific people, such as individuals with final orders of removal or high‑severity criminal charges. But according to sworn testimony in Oregon, ICE agents use ELITE to determine where to conduct deportation sweeps, and the system “pulled from all kinds of sources” to identify locations for raids aimed at mass detentions, including information from the Department of Health and Human Services such as Medicaid data. A leaked ELITE user guide for ‘Special Operations’ also instructs operators to disable filters to “display all targets within a Special Operations dataset.” Those details directly conflict with Palantir’s narrow description of ELITE’s role.

    Additionally, Palantir’s response leans on legal authority and the Privacy Act. But it does not identify any specific lawful basis for using Medicaid data in this way or explain how its software enables that access. Even if a legal theory exists, turning sensitive medical information into fuel for dragnet sweeps is hard to reconcile with its commitments to privacy, equity, and the rights of impacted communities. Its own human rights framework requires grappling with foreseeable harms its products may enable, not just invoking possible legal authorization.   

    Reporting shows that many people detained by ICE had no criminal record, much less a serious one, and in many cases no final order of removal. An overwhelming percentage of those detained were, or appeared to be, from Central and South America, and nearly one in five ICE arrests were street arrests of a Latine person with neither a criminal history nor a removal order.

    These facts raise obvious questions about discriminatory impact, racial profiling, and whether Palantir’s tools are facilitating detention practices far broader than the company claims. Palantir’s response does not meaningfully engage those questions, despite the company’s commitments to non-discrimination and due process.

    EFF’s letter asked Palantir to explain how it is honoring its commitments to civil liberties in light of reports linking Palantir-owned systems to facial recognition and other tools used to identify and target people engaged in observing and recording law enforcement, including in connection with the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. The letter also cites an incident in which an officer scanned protesters’ and observers’ faces and threatened to add their biometrics to a “nice little database.” Palantir’s response denies involvement in any such database.

    A narrow denial about a single database does not answer the broader question: if ICE, its customer, claims it has this capability, what has Palantir done to ensure its tools are not used to chill protected speech, retaliate against observers, or facilitate targeting of people engaged in First Amendment‑protected activity? For a company that claims to value democracy and civil liberties, this is not a marginal issue; it goes to the heart of its human rights commitments.

    Legality, Process, and Engagement with ICE Are Not Human Rights Standards

    As mentioned above, Palantir leans heavily on legal compliance. It says government data sharing is “subject to, and governed by, data sharing agreements and government oversight” and that any sharing it facilitates is done according to “legal and technical requirements, including those of the Privacy Act of 1974.” It describes its role in ELITE as “data integration,” enabling ICE “to incorporate data sources to which it has access,” including data shared under inter‑agency agreements.

    EFF is very familiar with the Privacy Act—we are suing the Office of Personnel Management over it currently. But Palantir’s response does not clarify how ICE legally has access to this information, how Palantir ensures that it follows those legal processes, or how Palantir’s software may have enabled access in the first place. More critically, that is still a legal answer to a human rights question, and legal compliance alone is insufficient as a human rights standard.

    Human rights due diligence requires assessing foreseeable harms, responding to credible evidence of abuse, and changing course when the facts demand it—something Palantir, on paper, recognizes. That’s why it stresses that its legal responsibilities are only “the floor for [its] broader risk assessments,” pointing to the way it built toward GDPR‑style data protection principles and incorporated international humanitarian law principles before those requirements were formalized. If those commitments mean anything, Palantir has to explain how specific practices—like enabling ICE to use Medicaid data in dragnet raids—square with that broader standard.

    Palantir also leans heavily on process. It points to a “layered approach” to risk, frameworks that purportedly examine multiple dimensions of privacy and equity, and “indelible” audit logs that track how its tools are used. Audit logs are not sufficient for protecting human rights. There is a long history of authoritarian regimes keeping extensive logs of their human rights abuses. Those structures can be useful for protecting human rights, but only if they are used to detect harm, trigger reassessment, and lead to changes in design, access, support, or contract enforcement when credible reports of abuse emerge.

    That is why we pressed Palantir to spell out clearly what reports of misuse Palantir has received, what changes it made, and on what timeline. Again, instead of offering specific examples, Palantir points back to its internal framework and its willingness to “move towards the hardest problems” as evidence of effective efforts. But human rights are an outcome, not just a process.

    Human rights due diligence is not a one-time approval at contract signing; under the UN Guiding Principles, it is supposed to be continuous, with new facts triggering reassessment. Complaints, media reports, leaks, litigation, and sworn testimony are exactly the kinds of events that should prompt review. If Palantir has an account for that work— how often it reviews ICE contracts, who conducts the reviews, what triggers them, and how findings reach the Board— it had every opportunity to describe it. Instead, it offered a generic assurance that it remains committed to human rights without engaging in the specifics. Confidentiality may sometimes limit disclosure, but it is no substitute for accountability.

    What Needs to Happen Next 

    Palantir wants credit for “mov[ing] towards the hardest problems” and engaging with institutions whose missions it says are “in tension with certain human rights” while having a human rights framework. But when the record includes violent raids, dragnet detentions, use of sensitive medical data, discriminatory targeting, retaliation against observers, and deaths tied to immigration enforcement operations, pointing to a values page is not enough; it has to reckon with the results.

    Voluntary corporate human rights policies often function as weak accountability mechanisms: companies can tout principles, publish policies, and answer criticism with polished statements while changing very little on the ground. Palantir’s response fits that pattern all too well. EFF will continue to challenge its role in abusive immigration enforcement and demanding more accountability for technology vendors whose tools enable human rights violations. We are also happy to continue a dialogue with Palantir to that end. For now, this much is clear: Palantir needs to reconsider its contract with ICE and with all agencies whose work predictably violate human rights.

  • The Banal Horror of Jimmy Fallon

    The Banal Horror of Jimmy Fallon

    There is a distinctive, deeply uncanny horror to the way Jimmy Fallon laughs. Look it up—there are literally hundreds of videos showing him breaking out into laughter at the slightest provocation. It is not a reaction (he sometimes won’t even wait for his guest to get to their carefully scripted punchline). Rather, it is a performance, a sudden, corporeal convulsion.

  • The Internet Still Works: Reddit Empowers Community Moderation

    Section 230 helps make it possible for online communities to host user speech: from restaurant reviews, to fan fiction, to collaborative encyclopedias. But recent debates about the law often overlook how it works in practice. To mark its 30th anniversary, EFF is interviewing leaders of online platforms about how they handle complaints, moderate content, and protect their users’ ability to speak and share information. 

    Reddit is one of the largest user-generated content platforms on the internet, built around thousands of independent communities known as subreddits. Some subreddits cover everyday interests, while others host discussions about specialized or controversial topics. These communities are created and moderated by volunteers, and the site’s decentralized model means that Reddit hosts a vast range of user speech without relying on centralized editorial control. 

    Ben Lee is Chief Legal Officer at Reddit, where he oversees the company’s legal strategy and policy work on issues including content moderation and intermediary liability. Before joining Reddit, Lee held senior legal roles at other tech companies including Plaid, Twitter, and Google. At Reddit, he has been closely involved in litigation and policy debates surrounding Section 230, including cases addressing the legal risks faced by platforms and their users and moderators. He was interviewed by Joe Mullin, a policy analyst on EFF’s Activism Team.

    Joe Mullin: When we talk about user rights and Section 230, what rights are most at stake on a platform like Reddit? 

    Ben Lee: Reddit, we often say, is the most human place on the internet. What’s often missing from the debate is that section 230 protects people—not platforms. 

    It protects millions of everyday humans and volunteer moderators who participate in online communities. Without it, people could face lawsuits for voting down a post, enforcing community rules, or moderating a discussion. These are foundational activities on Reddit, and frankly, the whole internet.

    If you had to describe section 230 to a regular Reddit user without naming the law, what would you say it does for them?

    Section 230 protects your ability to participate in community moderation.

    Even if all you are doing is up-voting or down-voting content, that’s participation. On Reddit, everyone is a content moderator, through voting. Up-voting determines the visibility of content. 

    We believe, strongly, this is one of the only models to allow Reddit to scale. You make the community part of the moderation process. They’re invested in the community, making it better. 

    How would user speech be affected if Section 230 were eliminated or weakened? 

    We would undermine community self governance—the notion that humans can do content moderation, and take that responsibility for themselves. Whether you’re a small blog or big forum. I like to think of Reddit as composed of this federation of communities that range from the tiny to the humongous. That’s what the internet is! 

    The legal risk would discourage people from moderating, or even speaking at all. The kind of speech we’re trying to protect is often critical of powerful people or entities. If a moderation decision leads to litigation from those powerful entities, that’s an expensive proposition to fight. 

    Reddit relies on user-run communities and volunteer moderators. Can you walk me through how content moderation and legal complaints actually work in practice, and where section 230 comes into that? 

    We have a tiered structure, like our federal system. Each community is like a state: it has its own rules, and enforces them. The vast majority of content moderation decisions are made by the communities, not by Reddit itself. 

    Reddit is built on self-governing communities that are moderated by volunteers, supported by automated tools. Section 230 gives Reddit the freedom to experiment, and lets users shape healthy, interest-based spaces.

    Section 230 is fundamental to protecting the moderators from a frivolous lawsuit. A screenwriting community might want to protect their community from scammy competitions—and then they get sued by that competition. 

    Or a community wants to keep their conversation civil. And, for example, may not allow Star Trek characters to be called “soy boys,” and they enforce that. Then a person sues. 

    I wish these were hypotheticals. But they were actual lawsuits. And we have them, routinely. 

    What are policymakers missing about Section 230? 

    The [moderation] decisions being criticized in court, are decisions to try to make the internet safer. In none of the cases that I mentioned is there a moderator saying, “I want to increase harmful content!” These are good-faith decisions about what makes the internet better. 

    Section 230 is, at its core, protecting the ability for people to make those choices for their own communities. 

    There’s a price to be paid for not having a Section 230. And it will be paid by internet users—not the biggest platforms.

    Some see 230 as a way to punish Big Tech. But removing it doesn’t punish Big Tech—it makes them more powerful. It’s startups, community driven platforms, and individual moderators who rely on Section 230 to compete and innovate. Weakening Section 230 will harm the open internet, and reduce the choice, diversity, and resilience of the internet. 

    The big guys, they have armies of lawyers. They have the budget to withstand a flood of lawsuits. Weakening Section 230 just entrenches them. 

    In Reddit’s amicus brief in the Gonzalez v. Google Supreme Court case, you point out that without Section 230, many moderation decisions wouldn’t be protected. The brief states: “A plaintiff might claim emotional distress from a truthful but hurtful post that gained prominence when a moderator highlighted it as a trending topic. Or, a plaintiff might claim interference with economic relations arising from an honest but very critical two-star restaurant review.” 

    When you have situations where moderators get threats or litigation, what can you do? 

    We have had cases where our own moderators got sued, along with us. In the “soy boy” case, we worked to help find pro bono counsel for the moderators. 

    Someone posted “Wesley Crusher is a soy boy,” and it got removed. I’m enough of a Star Trek fan that I understand both the reference, and why the moderator decided—“hey, it’s gone. I don’t want this here.”

    This would not violate our Reddit rules. But the community took it down under its own rules about being civil. It was just not a kind-hearted action, and the community had a right to decide. 

    But the moderator got sued. We got sued, actually, because the poster disagreed with that moderation choice. Section 230 is what allowed us to win that case. 

    These are just average people, implicated only because they moderated their own community. They are trying to do the right thing by their community. 

    In cases where litigation happens, when does Section 230 come into play? 

    Section 230 is usually one of the first things that’s talked about in the case. It’s usually the most effective way of saying: if you believe someone who defamed you—please go to the person who has defamed you. If you’re looking to the moderator, or to Reddit itself, this is not a great way of getting the justice that you seek. 

    Is there a different workflow internationally? 

    There’s a very different workflow. We had a prominent case in France where a company was trying to sue moderators, and of course, we didn’t have section 230 to protect them. So we had to do all sorts of other things to protect them. It got much more complicated. 

    The breadth of content that’s considered illegal in certain jurisdictions can be somewhat breathtaking. 

    Our goal is always to preserve as much freedom of expression as possible for our community. In the U.S., we look at it through the lens of the First Amendment, and other aspects. Outside the U.S., we rely more on the lens of international human rights. 

    How would you characterize legal demands around user content, the ones you see most often? 

    They tend to be: somebody said something mean about me—take this down. Or someone says: you didn’t allow me to say something mean about someone or some entity. It completely runs the spectrum. 

    One law that has already passed that weakens Section 230 is SESTA/FOSTA. From Reddit’s perspective, what changed after that? 

    There’s some communities we had to shut down, in particular, support communities. There was a cost. Every time Section 230 is narrowed, there’s a cost—some types of speech and communities have a harder time staying online. 

    The cost may not seem high to some people, because those communities are not for them. But if they visited them, they’d see that these are actual people, interacting in a positive way. If it wasn’t positive, we have rules for that—but that’s a different question. 

  • Sri Lankan Energy Minister Resigns Amid Probe Into Substandard Coal Deal

    Sri Lanka’s energy minister has resigned amid an investigation into a multimillion-dollar contract that led to the importation of tonnes of substandard coal, worsening the country’s national energy crisis.

    Kumara Jayakody stepped down on Friday after President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced a special commission of inquiry. The probe will investigate a supply deal with an Indian company for the Chinese-built Lakvijaya coal power plant—Sri Lanka’s only facility of its kind. Following Jayakody’s departure, the Energy Ministry’s secretary, Udayanga Hemapala, also resigned.

    Sri Lanka’s national utilities regulator, government auditors, and a parliamentary committee previously found that the coal imported under the agreement failed to meet the quality parameters—including the necessary calorific value—required to generate sufficient electricity at the Lakvijaya plant.

    The president’s office stated that the newly announced inquiry will determine “whether any irregularities or illegal activities occurred in the importation of coal and the generation of electricity.” Led by a Supreme Court judge, the commission has six months to deliver its findings.

    In a statement, Jayakody said he was stepping aside to allow the inquiry to proceed unhindered and would accept its conclusions.

    A longtime friend and political ally of President Dissanayake, Jayakody survived an opposition no-confidence motion in parliament earlier this month. The motion accused him of failing to discharge his “primary duty” to ensure the purchase of high-quality coal for the facility. Additionally, he was indicted in late March for alleged bribery in a separate case related to his former role as procurement manager for Ceylon Fertiliser Company Ltd.

    The coal procurement controversy has dented the outsider image of Dissanayake’s leftist government, which swept to power in a 2024 landslide fueled by public disgust with the corruption of the country’s traditional political elite.

  • Pluralistic: Comrade Trump (20 Apr 2026)

    Today’s links

    • Comrade Trump: Burning down the American empire to save it.
    • Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
    • Object permanence: MPAA’s threat-based ‘education’; Cuehack; Heinlein on GWB; AT&T v the internet; British tax-havens v HMG; What is neoliberalism?; Newspaper landlords; Watch-part motorcycle; Tax havens bad; Buscemi’s eyes; Sesame Street on lead poisoning.
    • Upcoming appearances: San Francisco, London, Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC.
    • Recent appearances: Where I’ve been.
    • Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.
    • Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.
    • Colophon: All the rest.


    A Soviet propaganda poster featuring Lenin pointing angrily into the distance. It has been altered. Lenin now has Trump's hair and his skin in orange. The hammer/sickle logo behind him has been replaced with a cross.

    Comrade Trump (permalink)

    There aren’t a lot of things I agree with Mark Carney about, but there’s one area where he and I are in total accord: the old, US-dominated, “rules-based international order” was total bullshit:

    https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/

    Unlike Carney, I never pretended to like that old order, and indeed, I spent my entire life fighting against it – literally, all the way back to childhood, organizing other children to march against Canada’s participation in America’s nuclear weapons programs:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53616011737/in/photolist-2pFS5kt

    All of which means that my experience of the Trump years is decidedly weird. On the one hand, I exist in a near-perpetual state of anxious misery, as Trump and his chud army of Christian nationalists and degenerate gamblers pursue a program of gleeful genocide. But at the very same time, I’m living in a world in which Trump is (inadvertently) dismantling many of the worst aspects of the old order in favor of something decidedly better.

    Take Trump’s tariff policy. Back during Trump I, he decided that Americans couldn’t buy Chinese solar anymore, which had the double benefit of allowing him to pursue the twin goals of throwing red meat to Sinophobic Cold War 2.0 freaks and delivering a giant gift to the planet-wrecking oil companies that had helped him buy his way into office.

    This was really bad for America, of course, but those solar panels had to go somewhere. Mostly, they ended up in Pakistan, dumped there at such a massive discount that the country solarized virtually overnight. Pakistani solar installers learned their trade from Tiktok videos set to Tamil film soundtracks, and unwired the country so thoroughly that today, the national power company is in danger of going bust because no one buys their electricity from the grid anymore. Pakistani bridal dowries now routinely include four panels, an inverter and a battery:

    https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-countries

    This is an inversion of the normal order of things, in which rich countries get all the good stuff first, and poor countries like Pakistan get scraps after we’ve gorged ourselves. Think of vaccine apartheid, in which monsters like Howard Dean insisted that we had to prevent countries in the global south from making their own covid vaccines, because poor brown people are too stupid and primitive to run a pharma manufacturing operation:

    https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#the-scream

    But, thanks to Comrade Trump, Pakistan was first in line to become the world’s solar capital. The country’s LNG terminal – built with Chinese Belt-and-Road money – is now a stranded asset, because no one there needs gas.

    That’s gas whose supply has been choked off in the Strait of Epstein…which brings me to Trump’s foreign policy and its impact on the global energy shift. Transitive energy shortages have small effects: when your energy bill goes up for a while (because of extreme weather, say), it makes you angry and sad and might result in an electoral loss for whatever politician presided over the price hike. But when you get genuine, prolonged shortages – the sort that are accompanied by rationing – you make permanent changes.

    Rationing is so psychologically scarring that it induces people to make long-delayed investments that result in permanent changes to their consumption habits. Maybe you’ve known for a long time that an induction top would be better for your indoor air quality and your cooking than the gas range you have now, but you don’t want to buy a whole new appliance and pay for an electrician to run a high-wattage line in expensive conduit from your breaker panel to your kitchen.

    But if you’re an Indian restaurateur who can no longer get any cooking gas – because it’s being rationed for household use – then you are going out to buy whatever induction top you can lay hands on. Maybe it’s a cheap, low-powered single burner one that plugs into your existing electrics, or maybe you’re splashing out and swapping out your whole gas appliance. Whichever it is, you are no longer interested in your chef’s insistence that real cooking gets done over gas. If your chef can’t cook on an induction top, your chef will need to find employment elsewhere.

    This is going on all over the world right now, as people buy EVs (and pay to have chargers installed at home – maybe getting a twofer on their conduit runs with two high power lines run through the same conduit infrastructure). In Australia – where the last shipment of gas for the foreseeable came into port last week – people are calling their local EV dealers and offering to buy whatever car is on the lot, sight unseen.

    Meanwhile, in Ethiopia, a series of dollar-related crises caused the country to ban imports of internal combustion engines altogether (oil and gas are denominated in dollars, which means you can only get oil if you first sell stuff to Americans or others who’ll pay in dollars). The country’s fleet of noisy, dirty motorbikes is being swiftly replaced by ebikes that get eight miles to the penny:

    https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-industry/0810-49366-ethiopia-expands-vehicle-import-ban-to-trucks-pushing-electric-transport

    Ebikes are insanely great technology. Cheap, rugged and reliable, they’re basically bicycles that abolish hills. Once you’ve gotten accustomed to an ebike – maybe you’ve invested in a folding helmet and a raincoat – you’ll never go back. The advantages of an ebike commute over a car commute are legion, but my favorite little pleasure is the ability to easily make a stop at a nice coffee shop halfway between home and work, rather than being stuck buying shitty chain coffee near the office.

    Four years ago, another mad emperor, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine – and in so doing, catapulted Europe’s energy transition into the Gretacene, with unimaginable defeats for the fossil fuel lobby. Not just subsidies for the clean energy transition, but also policy shifts in areas that had been deadlocked for a decade, like approvals for balcony solar, which is transforming the continent. Even the UK, one of the oil industry’s most reliable vassal states, is now greenlighting balcony solar:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-make-plug-in-solar-available-within-months

    This may not sound like much, but the UK is a country whose politics is composed 50% hatred of migrants and trans people, and 50% incredibly stupid planning battles. Great Britain is a magical land where your neighbors can ask the government to prevent you from installing double-glazing on the grounds that it will change the “historic character” of their neighborhood of terraced Victorian homes.

    I once lost a fight to get permission to put a little glass greenhouse on my balcony on the grounds that it would “alter the facade” of the undistinguished low-rise 1960s industrial building I live on top of. The fact that HMG is going to tell your facade-obsessed neighbors to fuck off all the way into the sun so that you can hang solar panels off your balcony is nothing short of a miracle.

    Comrade Putin’s contribution to oil-soaked Britain’s energy transition can’t be overstated. Thanks to “free market” policies that sent energy prices soaring after the Ukraine invasion, Brits installed so much solar (despite the existing impediments to solarization) that now the government is begging us to use more energy this summer, because the grid can’t absorb all those lovely free electrons:

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/14/uk-households-power-renewables-soar

    The UK is on a glide-path to adopting the Australian plan. Australia also benefited from Trump I’s solar embargo, receiving a ton of cheap solar that would otherwise have ended up in America. Now Australia has so much solar that they’re giving away electricity, with three free hours of unlimited energy every day. Stick your dishwasher, clothes-dryer and EV charger on a timer, invest in a battery or two, and fill your boots:

    https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/free-electricity-like-at-no-cost

    (Maybe at this point you’re thinking dark thoughts about critical minerals and such. That’s not the problem you think it is and it’s getting better every day. To take just one example, lithium batteries are about to be replaced with sodium batteries. Sodium is the world’s sixth-most abundant element:)

    https://www.livescience.com/technology/electric-vehicles/china-puts-a-sodium-ion-battery-into-an-ev-for-the-first-time-it-can-drive-248-miles-on-a-single-charge

    The Strait of Epstein crisis is going to do more to accelerate permanent, unidirectional migration away from fossil fuels to cleantech than decades of environmental activism. Cleantech is so much better than fossil fuels – cheaper, more reliable, cleaner – that anyone who tries it becomes an instant convert. That’s why the fossil fuel industry has been so insistent that no one get to try it!

    To take just one example here: Texas ranchers have been solarizing, thanks to the state’s bizarre “free market” energy system that sees energy prices spiking so high during cold snaps that you literally have to choose between freezing to death and going bankrupt. Solar is great for agriculture, especially in climate-ravaged Texas, where it provides crucial shade for crops and livestock, while substantially reducing soil evaporation, resulting in substantial irrigation savings.

    When the oil-captured Texas legislature introduced a bill to force electric companies to add one watt of fossil power for every watt of solar that their customers installed, furious ranchers from blood red Republican rural districts flooded their town hall meetings, decrying the plan as “DEI for fossil fuels.” The bill died:

    https://austinfreepress.org/renewables-are-now-the-costco-of-energy-production-bill-mckibben-says/

    This is the template for the long-foreseeable future. Thanks to Trump’s stupid, bloody, unforgivable war of choice in the Gulf, the world is going to install unimaginable amounts of cleantech. They are going to throw away their water heaters, motorbikes, furnaces and cars and replace them with all-electric versions. They’re going to cover their roofs and balconies with panels. The battery industry will experience a sustained boom. The fortunes that fossil fuel companies are reaping from the current shortage is their last windfall.

    The writing is on the wall. Trump opened Alaska for drilling and the oil companies noped out because they couldn’t find a bank that would loan them the money needed to get started. Then it happened again in Venezuela. This de-fossilizing was already the direction of travel, the only question was the pace at which the transition would proceed – and Comrade Trump has just stomped all over the (liquid natural) gas pedal.

    Energy is just one realm where Trump is doing praxis. One of the most exciting developments that Trumpismo’s incontinent belligerence has induced is the global technology transition.

    For decades, the only people pointing out the dangers of using America’s cash-grabbing, privacy invading defective tech exports were digital rights hippies like me, and our victories were modest and far between. Despite the Snowden revelations, despite the tech industry’s prolific snood-cocking at EU privacy regulators and Canadian lawmakers, we all just carried on using these incredibly dangerous, steadily enshittifying Big Tech products. We even run our governments and structurally important companies off Big Tech. We let US tech companies update (that is, downgrade) the software on our cars and tractors, our pacemakers and ventilators, our power plants and telephone switches.

    There’s lots of reasons for this. For one thing, ripping out and replacing all that software and firmware is a prodigious challenge, as is building the data-centers to host it for every “digitally sovereign” country. Add to that the complexity of successfully migrating data, edit histories, archives and identities and you’re looking at a very big lift. So long as the American tech bosses kept their enshittificatory gambits to a measured, slow flow, they could keep the pain beneath the threshold where it was worth us boiling frogs leaping out of their pot.

    But the most important force defending American internet hegemony was free trade: specifically, the US forced all of its trading partners to adopt “anticircumvention” laws that make it illegal to modify US tech exports. That means that you can’t go into business selling your neighbors the tools to use generic ink or an independent app store, much less make a fortune exporting those tools to the rest of the world:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/16/whittle-a-webserver/#mere-ornaments

    Enter Comrade Trump. When Trump started weaponizing US tech platforms to take away the working files, email accounts and cloud calendars of judges who pissed him off (by sentencing Bolsonaro to prison and swearing out a genocide warrant for Netanyahu), he put the whole world on notice that he could shut down their governments, judiciaries or companies at the click of a mouse:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/16/pascals-wager/#doomer-challenge

    And of course, he’s whacked the whole world with tariffs that violate the trade agreements that imposed those anticircumvention obligations that protect America’s defective tech exports. Now there’s no longer any reason to keep those laws on the books. Happy Liberation Day, everyone! The post-American internet is at hand:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition

    But Trump has even more praxis up his spraytan-stained sleeves. Trump is succeeding where Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC failed: he’s making the case for Democrats to defenestrate their useless, sellout, Epstein-poisoned leaders. All across the country, radical Dems and avowed socialists are sweeping primaries and elections, as voters realize that Blue No Matter Who will doom them to eternal torment in the Manchin-Synematic Universe:

    https://prospect.org/2026/02/11/progressive-win-new-jersey-anti-ice-organizing-mejia/

    Fury over Trumpismo is pushing even the most useless Democratic leaders to sign up for billionaire taxes:

    https://jacobin.com/2026/04/zohran-tax-rich-hochul-nyc

    Thanks to Comrade Trump, the median Democratic voter will no longer be satisfied with Kente cloth photo-ops and little ping-pong paddles stenciled with “down with this sort of thing”:

    https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ping-pong-paddles-to-a-gun-fight/

    Thanks to Trump, we might see criminal prosecutions – and a primary challenge for any Dem that gets in the way of a serious, Nuremberg-style reckoning with Trumpismo and its gangsters:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification

    Look, all things being equal, I would have preferred that Trump had keeled over from a mid-burger stroke on the campaign trail in 2016. But when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla. This is a deeply shitty timeline, but Comrade Trump keeps tripping over his red tie. Let’s take the wins.

    Hey look at this (permalink)


    A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

    Object permanence (permalink)

    #25yrsago The MPAA ‘educates the public’ with threatening letters https://web.archive.org/web/20120318060108/http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-255961.html&tag=tp_pr

    #25yrsago Cuehack for the :CueCat https://web.archive.org/web/20010803172853/http://www.rtmark.com/cuejack/

    #25yrsago Microsoft Technical Support vs The Psychic Friends Network https://web.archive.org/web/20010410171616/http://www.bmug.org/news/articles/MSvsPF.html

    #20yrsago The novel Heinlein would have written about GW Bush’s America https://memex.craphound.com/2006/04/17/the-novel-heinlein-would-have-written-about-gw-bushs-america/

    #20yrsago Hilarious hijinx with security guards who hate building-photographers https://thomashawk.com/2006/04/photographing-architecture-is-not.html

    #20yrsago Hundreds ask Smithsonian not to sell out to Showtime https://web.archive.org/web/20060420031124/https://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1554385

    #20yrsago How AT&T wants to turn the Internet into mere TV https://web.archive.org/web/20060620095643/http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/04/17/toll/index_np.html

    #20yrsago NOLA mayoral candidate doctors Disneyland photo – again https://web.archive.org/web/20060422010054/https://www.wonkette.com/politics/new-orleans/kimberly-williamson-butler-continues-to-astound-us-167923.php

    #20yrsago Where He-Man came from https://web.archive.org/web/20060423061651/https://thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000500.php

    #20yrsago FBI demand chance to censor muckracking journo’s papers https://web.archive.org/web/20060421045340/https://www.chronicle.com/free/2006/04/2006041801n.htm

    #15yrsago Ethiopia’s “newspaper landlords” rent the want-ads by the minute https://www.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/04/19/newspaper.rental.ethiopia/index.html

    #15yrsago It’s people like us what makes trouble: the pernicious influence of immigrants in the UK. https://web.archive.org/web/20080314013819/http://feorag.newsvine.com/_news/2008/03/10/1356131-the-pernicious-influence-of-immigrants-in-the-uk

    #15yrsago China’s “Jasmine Revolution”: anonymous out-of-country bloggers troll the politburo https://web.archive.org/web/20110412063347/http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/04/the-jasmine-revolution.html

    #15yrsago Motorcycles made from watch parts https://www.deviantart.com/dkart71/art/Motorcycles-out-of-watch-parts-18a-204941090

    #15yrsago Steve Buscemi’s Eyes: the printable mask https://eyesuckink.blogspot.com/2011/04/free-home-version-of-steve-buscemis.html

    #15yrsago Privacy, Facebook, politics and kids https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2011/apr/18/cory-doctorow-networking-technologies-video?CMP=twt_fd

    #15yrsago NZ MP votes for anti-piracy law hours after tweeting about her love of pirated music https://torrentfreak.com/kiwi-mp-called-out-as-pirate-after-passing-anti-piracy-law-110415/

    #15yrsago Righthaven copyright trolls never had the right to sue, have their asses handed to them by the EFF https://web.archive.org/web/20110418001051/http://paidcontent.org/article/419-righthavens-secret-contract-is-revealedwill-its-strategy-collapse/

    #15yrsago TSA considers being upset at screening procedures to be an indicator of terrorist intentions https://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15/tsa.screeners.complain/

    #10yrsago The saga of Ian Bogost’s pressure-washer https://bogostpressurewasherstatus.tumblr.com/

    #10yrsago Heads of UK’s tax havens to Her Majesty’s Government: go fuck yourself https://web.archive.org/web/20160411112631/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tax-haven-corporate-tax-avoidance-uk-ministers-humiliated-after-cayman-bvi-british-virgin-islands-a6974956.html

    #10yrsago George Clooney’s neighbor threw a $27/plate Sanders fundraiser to counter Clooney’s $33K/head Hillary event https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/sanders-supporters-shower-clinton-motorcade-1-bills-n557191

    #10yrsago What is neoliberalism? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks

    #10yrsago No, tax-havens aren’t good for society (duh) https://web.archive.org/web/20160602053124/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-tax-havens/2016/04/15/76d001d2-0255-11e6-b823-707c79ce3504_story.html

    #10yrsago John Oliver and the cast of Sesame Street on lead poisoning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUizvEjR-0U

    #10yrsago Supreme Court sends Authors Guild packing, won’t hear Google Books case https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/fair-use-prevails-as-supreme-court-rejects-google-books-copyright-case/

    #10yrsago Four years later, Popehat’s favorite con-artist is indicted https://web.archive.org/web/20160419031946/https://popehat.com/2016/04/18/anatomy-of-a-scam-investigation-chapter-14-the-indictment/

    #10yrsago Hacking Team supplied cyber-weapons to corrupt Latin American governments for human rights abuses https://www.derechosdigitales.org/wp-content/uploads/malware-para-la-vigilancia.pdf

    #10yrsago High profits mean capitalism is cooked https://www.promarket.org/2016/04/16/are-we-all-rent-seeking-investors/

    #10yrsago A look back at the D&D moral panic https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/when-dungeons-dragons-set-off-a-moral-panic.html

    #10yrsago Petition to reassign head of Canada Post to deliver letters at $500k/year https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/help-canada-post-ceo-deepak-chopra-keep-his-job

    #1yrago Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/#is-you-taking-notes-on-a-criminal-fucking-conspiracy

    #20yrsago NOLA mayoral candidate doctors Disneyland photo – again https://web.archive.org/web/20060422010054/https://www.wonkette.com/politics/new-orleans/kimberly-williamson-butler-continues-to-astound-us-167923.php

    #20yrsago Where He-Man came from https://web.archive.org/web/20060423061651/https://thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000500.php

    #20yrsago FBI demand chance to censor muckracking journo’s papers https://web.archive.org/web/20060421045340/https://www.chronicle.com/free/2006/04/2006041801n.htm

    #15yrsago Ethiopia’s “newspaper landlords” rent the want-ads by the minute https://www.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/04/19/newspaper.rental.ethiopia/index.html

    #15yrsago It’s people like us what makes trouble: the pernicious influence of immigrants in the UK. https://web.archive.org/web/20080314013819/http://feorag.newsvine.com/_news/2008/03/10/1356131-the-pernicious-influence-of-immigrants-in-the-uk

    #15yrsago China’s “Jasmine Revolution”: anonymous out-of-country bloggers troll the politburo https://web.archive.org/web/20110412063347/http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/04/the-jasmine-revolution.html

    #15yrsago Motorcycles made from watch parts https://www.deviantart.com/dkart71/art/Motorcycles-out-of-watch-parts-18a-204941090

    #15yrsago Steve Buscemi’s Eyes: the printable mask https://eyesuckink.blogspot.com/2011/04/free-home-version-of-steve-buscemis.html

    #10yrsago No, tax-havens aren’t good for society (duh) https://web.archive.org/web/20160602053124/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-tax-havens/2016/04/15/76d001d2-0255-11e6-b823-707c79ce3504_story.html

    #10yrsago John Oliver and the cast of Sesame Street on lead poisoning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUizvEjR-0U

    #10yrsago Supreme Court sends Authors Guild packing, won’t hear Google Books case https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/fair-use-prevails-as-supreme-court-rejects-google-books-copyright-case/

    #10yrsago Four years later, Popehat’s favorite con-artist is indicted https://web.archive.org/web/20160419031946/https://popehat.com/2016/04/18/anatomy-of-a-scam-investigation-chapter-14-the-indictment/

    #10yrsago Hacking Team supplied cyber-weapons to corrupt Latin American governments for human rights abuses https://www.derechosdigitales.org/wp-content/uploads/malware-para-la-vigilancia.pdf

    #10yrsago High profits mean capitalism is cooked https://www.promarket.org/2016/04/16/are-we-all-rent-seeking-investors/

    #10yrsago A look back at the D&D moral panic https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/when-dungeons-dragons-set-off-a-moral-panic.html

    #10yrsago Petition to reassign head of Canada Post to deliver letters at $500k/year https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/help-canada-post-ceo-deepak-chopra-keep-his-job

    #1yrago Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/#is-you-taking-notes-on-a-criminal-fucking-conspiracy

    Upcoming appearances (permalink)

    A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


    A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

    Recent appearances (permalink)


    A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

    Latest books (permalink)


    A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

    Upcoming books (permalink)

    • “The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

    • “Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It” (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

    • “Unauthorized Bread”: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027

    • “The Memex Method,” Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027


    Colophon (permalink)

    Today’s top sources:

    Currently writing: “The Post-American Internet,” a sequel to “Enshittification,” about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

    • “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

    • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

    This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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    Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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    “When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla” -Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla

    READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies (“BOGUS AGREEMENTS”) that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

    ISSN: 3066-764X

  • Surgeon’s mesh surgery cost £20m in compensation

    The NHS confirms it has paid millions to patients injured in operations involving Tony Dixon.

  • Fiji Police Open Murder Inquiry After Drug Suspect Dies in Military Custody

    Police in Fiji have launched a murder investigation into the death of a drug suspect who died while in military custody, authorities said on Monday, unraveling the defence forces initial claim that the man had succumbed to a sudden illness.

    The death of the suspect, Jone Vakarisi, 36, comes as the country grapples with a severe drug trafficking crisis and a troubled history of extrajudicial violence.

    Vakarisi was detained by members of the military last Thursday and taken to an army base near the capital, Suva. He was held for questioning in connection with an attempted break-in at a military ammunition armory on April 9.

    Last week, the military issued a statement claiming that Vakarisi had suffered a “sudden and severe medical emergency” that resulted in his death. But that official narrative quickly began to collapse over the weekend after a leaked copy of his death certificate pointed to a violent end.

    The document, which was independently verified by OCCRP and reported by local Fijian media, indicated that Vakarisi died from asphyxia due to the “aspiration of gastric contents,” meaning he choked on his own vomit. The certificate also documented “traumatic” head and chest injuries that caused “severe” internal bleeding.

    Faced with the mounting evidence, the army issued a formal retraction on Monday, acknowledging that its initial classification of the death “does not fully reflect the medical findings now available.” A military spokesperson added that the armed forces would not issue further comments “given that the matter is now under active investigation by the Fiji Police Force.”

    Ana Naisoro, a spokesperson for the Fiji Police Force, confirmed the shifting nature of the case on Monday. “The investigation into the death of Jone Vakarisi has been classified as murder,” she said. “Investigators are in the process of gathering information to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the victim’s death.”

    Medical experts and family members have also dismissed the military’s original claims. The mother of Vakarisi’s children told local media that he had no pre-existing illnesses. Dr. Ronal Kumar, president of the Fiji Medical Association, told OCCRP that the postmortem findings likely pointed to violence.

    “Did he die of natural causes? No,” Dr. Kumar said. “Was injuries or death inflicted on him? Very likely, based on what is on the postmortem report.”

    The circumstances of Vakarisi’s arrest are also under intense scrutiny. He was detained alongside three other men just days after the military publicly warned that any “challenges to security, including threats to military infrastructure,” would be met with “firm, lawful, and proportionate action.”

    While the military claimed the four men “voluntarily presented themselves” at the barracks, an eyewitness who spoke to OCCRP on the condition of anonymity offered a drastically different account. The witness described unmarked vehicles swerving into a Suva neighborhood on Thursday night, where uniformed soldiers armed with rifles forcefully abducted the men. The three other detainees were released on Saturday.

    Both the military and the police have confirmed that formal investigations are underway.

    The murder inquiry casts a renewed spotlight on the documented history of custodial violence by Fijian security forces. A 2016 report by Amnesty International found that beatings in state custody had resulted in at least five deaths in the country.

    Over the past two years, the military has assumed an increasingly prominent role in supporting domestic police who are struggling to curb a massive influx of narcotics destined for Australia and New Zealand. Recent seizures of tons of methamphetamine and cocaine, compounded by allegations of law enforcement corruption and the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic, have pushed the Pacific nation into a state of crisis.

  • U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs: The Arguments That Shaped America, Now Freely Available

    U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs: The Arguments That Shaped America, Now Freely Available

    Thanks to a generous gift of materials from the Wolf Law Library at the William & Mary Law School, and the Internet Archive’s mission to digitize and provide universal access to knowledge, we are pleased to share more than 125,000 U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs. These materials which span nearly two centuries of American law are now freely accessible online. 

    Why This Matters

    Most people are familiar with the U.S. Supreme Court opinions as public documents. But the opinions are only part of the story. Behind every landmark ruling lies a vast archive of briefs, petitions, appendices, and supporting records; these are the the arguments, evidence, and voices that shaped each decision. The Supreme Court may receive 7,000-8,000 petitions each year, but only grants a writ of certiorari to hear the case for about 80 cases. This collection includes records and briefs received by the court, both those granted certiorari and those denied certiorari; the latter category is much more voluminous than the former. Until now, these important public documents have only been available in limited ways — in print form in a limited number of law libraries, and in other formats in other libraries but not generally available for all people to freely access. 

    That has now changed. As part of Democracy’s Library, the Internet Archive’s large-scale effort to preserve and open government information, this collection includes records and briefs spanning cases from 1830 through 2019, making it one of the most comprehensive archives of freely available Supreme Court materials ever assembled in one place.

    What’s Now Available

    The collection covers three kinds of materials:

    • The first is the official records from the lower court(s): the trial transcripts, evidence, and procedural documents that travel with each case up through the federal judiciary. 
    • The second is the briefs: the petitions, responses, amicus filings, and supporting appendices submitted by the litigants themselves and by interested third parties. These briefs are the raw material of American constitutional argument. They capture the perspectives of individuals, corporations, civil society organizations, and government agencies pressing their cases before the nation’s highest court. 
    • The third category is the opinions (for cases that are heard by the Supreme Court): the ultimate decisions reached by the highest court in the United States, demonstrating the logic and reasoning of the court.

    Taken together, they form a detailed documentary record of how legal arguments, social concerns, and political priorities have evolved over nearly two hundred years of American life.

    Three Cases, Three Windows Into History

    To understand what this collection makes possible, consider three landmark cases — one celebrated, one lesser-known, and one that provides a relevant window into the importance of public access — that together show why access to the full record matters.

    Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

    Linda Brown Smith, Ethel Louise Belton Brown, Harry Briggs, Jr., and Spottswood Bolling, Jr. — all plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education during a 1964 press conference. Image from the Library of Congress.

    The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional is one of the most studied decisions in American history. But the briefs filed in Brown reveal dimensions that the opinion itself does not capture. Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund assembled social-science evidence, testimony from psychologists, and firsthand accounts from families to argue that separation was inherently unequal — not just legally, but psychologically. The record shows the Kansas district court’s own finding that segregation harmed Black children psychologically and that the practice was widely understood as a statement of racial inferiority. Testimony provided by sociologist Dr. Wilbur Bookover framed this issue: 

    In American society we consistently present to the child a model of democratic equality of opportunity… At the same time, in a segregated school situation he is presented a contradictory or inharmonious model. He is presented a school situation in which it is obvious that he is a subordinate, inferior kind of a citizen… the segregated schools perpetuate this conflict in expectancies, condemns the negro child to an ineffective role as a citizen and member of society.

    — Dr. Wilbur Brookover, expert witness, trial testimony (1951).

    The U.S. government filed an amicus brief urging desegregation — a striking signal of the federal government’s position at a pivotal moment in the civil rights era. 

    Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)

    Less well-known than Brown, but no less significant, Loving v. Virginia is the case that struck down laws banning interracial marriage. Mildred and Richard Loving — a Black woman and a white man from rural Virginia — married in Washington, D.C. in June 1958 and returned to live as husband and wife in Caroline County, Virginia. Warrants were issued for their arrest the following month, and they were charged with the felony of having married across racial lines and returned to the state. A judge suspended their one-year prison sentences on the condition that they leave Virginia for twenty-five years.

    The briefs make clear what was at stake beyond the criminal charge: the voiding of their marriage under Virginia law, the potential illegitimacy of their children, and the loss of inheritance rights, Social Security benefits, and other protections contingent on a legally recognized union. Language from the briefs illustrates the pain of separation and disruption that these laws caused for couples like the Lovings who were “prohibited from establishing a family abode and raising their children in places where they and their family have often been long established and where many blood relatives still reside.” Brief for Appellants, Loving v. Virginia (1967). To understand the legal and social world those briefs were arguing against, it helps to read the 1965 written opinion of Judge Leon Bazile from the Circuit Court of Caroline County, Virginia denying the Lovings’ earlier appeal — a document accessible in this collection. In it, he explained his reasoning:

    “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” These views were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court two years later.

    The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Lovings’ conviction in 1967, holding that “the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” The briefs that built that argument — and the lower-court records that documented what the Lovings were up against — are now open to all.

    Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555 (1980)

    In September 1978, a judge in Hanover County, Virginia cleared a courtroom during a murder trial, expelling reporters from Richmond Newspapers along with all other members of the public — the first time in the courthouse’s 243-year history that such a closure had occurred. A Richmond newspaper challenged the closure, and the case produced the U.S. Supreme Court’s first explicit ruling that the First Amendment guarantees the public and press a right to attend criminal trials. An excerpt from the documents make it clear why access to trials is so important:

    “Imagine an America in which secret trials had been held in the prosecutions of Aaron Burr, John Peter Zenger, or John Thomas Scopes; of John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray, or Sirhan Sirhan; of the Chicago Eight, the Watergate Seven, or the Wilmington Ten.”  — Brief for Appellants, Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia (1979).

    The briefs filed by the newspaper’s attorneys make an open access argument that extends naturally to legal records of every kind:

    “The right of the individual to attend and observe any criminal trial… is of constitutional dimension because its derogation would undermine the logic of the constitutional scheme — a logic that relies crucially upon the publicity and openness of the state’s ultimate confrontations with its citizens.” — Brief for Appellants, Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia (1979).

    If the public has a constitutional stake in observing civil and criminal proceedings, it has an equal stake in reading the arguments that shaped those proceedings. This collection makes that possible for the first time at scale — not just for scholars with institutional access, but for anyone.

    Who Benefits

    Opening this collection to all matters. Legal scholars and historians can now trace the evolution of constitutional doctrine without traveling to law libraries or paying for access to expensive databases. Journalists investigating civil rights, criminal justice, or government power can dig into the primary record. Law students can study cases that never made it before the court, and can discover not just how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, but how the best advocates in the country made their cases. And curious citizens — anyone who wants to understand how the American judicial system works through the highest court in the land — can read these documents for themselves.

    A basic democratic principle is also at stake. Public confidence in legal institutions depends on free public access to legal records. When significant portions of the constitutional archive exist only behind paywalls or in specialized collections, the historical record becomes available only to the few. Records and briefs are not peripheral materials — they are essential ingredients in the judicial decisions comprising our nation’s law. Making them freely available is a matter of civic accountability, not just scholarly convenience.

    What’s Next

    The collection is available now through the Internet Archive, fully searchable and freely downloadable. Whether you’re tracing the history of a constitutional doctrine, researching a case that affected your community, or simply curious about the arguments behind a ruling you’ve heard about, we invite you to explore. This archive of American constitutional argument is now truly open to everyone. This collection falls under the auspices of Democracy’s Library which is built on a straightforward but urgent premise: governments have created an abundance of information and put it in the public domain, but the public can’t easily access it.

    Thank you to Leslie Street, Director, Wolf Law Library, William & Mary Law School for helping make this possible. Special thanks to the Free Law Project and CourtListener for providing metadata to enrich records in this collection.

  • Mining China’s ‘Little Red Book’ for Open Source Gold

    Mining China’s ‘Little Red Book’ for Open Source Gold

    The challenges of conducting open-source research in China are well-documented. Consistently named one of the most digitally oppressive countries in the world, China blocks some of the world’s largest social media platforms, such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube. Those that are still accessible are mostly Chinese-owned, strictly regulated and monitored in real time by AI systems as well as tens of thousands of “internet police”. 

    But despite these strict controls, Chinese apps – which boast more than a billion estimated users – remain an information goldmine for investigative journalists covering stories both within and outside China.

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    Since most foreign sites are banned, Chinese platforms are the largest resource available to journalists and researchers interested in what’s going on in the world’s second-most populous country. Even when a topic is being censored, patterns in the censorship can themselves serve as investigative leads: a 2020 BuzzFeed News investigation, for example, mapped out detention camps in Xinjiang by examining areas that had been blanked out on China’s Baidu Maps.

    With millions of Chinese people living overseas, social media activity by members of the diaspora can also turn into global stories.

    Serial rapist Zou Zhenhao, a Chinese PhD student, was jailed in London last year after one of his victims posted a warning on Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book or Rednote, an app popular with young Chinese women living abroad. Another woman Zou had raped reached out to the original poster, who put her in touch with the police – leading to the conviction of a man described by police as possibly one of the worst sexual predators in British history.

    Founded in 2013 as a Hong Kong shopping guide, Xiaohongshu has evolved into a lifestyle and e-commerce platform that has been compared with Instagram, Pinterest and Amazon. Last year, it reported about 300 million monthly active users, rivalling some of China’s largest social media platforms.

    Xiaohongshu saw a surge in international users in January 2025 amid a threatened ban on short video app TikTok. Photo: VCG via Reuters Connect

    The app’s 600 million daily searches by the end of 2024 also accounted for half of market leader Baidu’s search volume, demonstrating that it is emerging as a critical search and discovery engine, not just a social platform.

    Although primarily a Chinese-language app, Xiaohongshu gained attention in the English-speaking world last year, when millions of American TikTok users flocked to the platform in anticipation of a TikTok ban under US President Donald Trump. 

    Responding to the surge of international users – sparked by the #TikTokRefugees trend – Xiaohongshu rolled out an AI-powered translation feature, making the app more accessible to non-Chinese audiences. This also meant that journalists without Chinese language skills can more easily communicate on and navigate the platform.

    Despite its growing popularity both within and outside China, the app is relatively new and underexplored compared to more well-established platforms such as Weibo. 

    This guide aims to provide a starting point for those looking to explore Xiaohongshu for open-source investigations, including an overview of its main user demographics, potential topics to explore and strategic search methods specific to the app. 

    User Demographics and Topics

    According to Xiaohongshu’s official data, the platform’s demographic profile is mainly young, female and urban. As of 2024, 70 percent of its users were women, with half of all users belonging to Gen Z and living in China’s largest cities. 

    As previously mentioned, the app has also gained popularity with the Chinese diaspora. Many Chinese nationals living abroad use it as a search engine for local information, posting and searching for content related to their daily lives, from restaurant recommendations and apartment hunting to navigating foreign bureaucracies and finding community resources. 

    This demographic profile makes Xiaohongshu particularly well-suited for investigating stories about consumer fraud and urban livability issues. For example, Chinese outlets like Jiemian have used Xiaohongshu posts to expose the grey-market ecosystem of paid reviews and fake endorsements tied to the platform’s e-commerce model, while in 2022, International Financial News traced a mother-and-baby store scam that defrauded over 400 parents back to product recommendation posts on the platform.

    Given its predominantly female user base, Xiaohongshu has also evolved into one of China’s most important spaces for feminist discourse and women’s issues. Academic researchers have used content on the platform to analyse local discussions on menstrual shaming, sexual harassment, and the controversial “divorce cooling-off period” introduced in 2021. As Rest of World reported, women have increasingly congregated on Xiaohongshu, where they outnumber male users and have found ways to trick the app’s recommendation algorithm so their posts are shown mostly to other women.

    The Relevance of Censorship

    Political content and current affairs about China are largely absent from the app – a result of both active censorship and platform design. 

    All Chinese social media platforms, including Xiaohongshu, operate under strict content moderation requirements from the Cyberspace Administration of China. A leaked 143-page internal document published by China Digital Times in 2022 revealed how Xiaohongshu censors respond to government directives in “real-time”, blocking content related to politically sensitive topics such as criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, labour strikes and student suicides. Xiaohongshu’s commercial focus also makes it less likely that these topics would be discussed on the platform: as Rest of World reported, the platform functions less like Weibo – a public square for current events – and more like “a giant mall, where shoppers tell each other what to buy”.

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    Coverage of international affairs is also tightly controlled: only state-owned or state-controlled news organisations can obtain licences to publish original news content. However, content about life abroad, particularly stories about the cost of living, healthcare, or social problems in Western countries, circulates more freely on platforms including Xiaohongshu, and provide journalists with insight into how Chinese diaspora communities engage with local political systems. 

    For example, when the 2025 Miss Finland was accused of making anti-Asian gestures, searching for “芬兰小姐” (Miss Finland) and “投诉” (complaint) on Xiaohongshu revealed a trove of collective action: users shared different complaint pathways, posted templates for filing reports, and documented various outcomes from their complaints. 

    For such large-scale public events, Xiaohongshu can be both an organising platform and a rich source for tracking how diaspora communities coordinate responses to discrimination, providing journalists with insight into grassroots activism and transnational advocacy networks.

    Getting Started

    Xiaohongshu is available for download on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play worldwide, or can be accessed via a web browser. In international app stores, the app appears under the name “RedNote,” but this is the same application as Xiaohongshu – content and accounts are shared across both. The key difference is that RedNote users who register with overseas phone numbers are automatically tagged as international users, which affects the content the algorithm surfaces to them.

    For users who download the app outside mainland China, Xiaohongshu automatically detects the device language and location. Upon first login, international users are prompted with an option to automatically translate all content into English (or their device language). If enabled, posts and comments will display with translations by default, and the algorithm will prioritise English-language content and posts created by or for international users, such as expat influencers.

    For researchers and journalists seeking to observe the platform as Chinese users experience it, consider disabling automatic translation. This allows you to see content as it natively appears and helps you distinguish between posts created for international audiences versus those created for domestic users – a distinction that matters when assessing how representative your sample is for the relevant topic.

    The default home feed, or the “Explore” tab, is where the algorithm surfaces content based on your engagement history, location and user profile. The feed uses a grid layout displaying post thumbnails with titles and like counts.

    On the top right corner of the screen, the search bar also allows keyword searches across posts, users and topics. Results can be filtered by content type (e.g. notes, videos, users or products) and sorted by relevance or recency.

    The search bar on the top right and the Explore page are some of the most relevant features for journalists and researchers on Xiaohongshu. Source: Xiaohongshu

    Using the Search Bar

    Xiaohongshu’s search function is relatively basic. You can search by keywords and filter by time and location, but the options are general: time filters include “past day,” “past week,” or “past six months,” while location filters offer “same city” or “nearby”. 

    For example, searching “Canada” returns posts tagged with that keyword, which you can then sort by recency or proximity. 

    Search results for “Canada” in English (left) show mainly travel and tourism-related content, while a search in Chinese (right) shows more content posted in Chinese by Chinese people about living in Canada. Source: Xiaohongshu

    For breaking news events, try searching location names or names of individuals involved in the incident, filtering for the most recent posts to capture real-time reactions and on-the-ground accounts before they’re censored or deleted.

    Xiaohongshu primarily uses algorithms to curate and push content through personalised feeds. For journalists using Xiaohongshu for investigative purposes, it can be useful to actively search for topics of interest to train your algorithm – the more you search and engage with specific content, the more relevant posts the algorithm will surface to you.

    However, if you are researching the platform itself – studying what content Xiaohongshu promotes, how censorship operates, or what narratives dominate – you may want to start from a clean slate. In that case, consider periodically turning off personalised recommendations (Settings → Privacy Settings → Personalisation Options), clearing your browsing history, clearing cached data, or using a fresh account to observe what the platform shows to a “neutral” user.

    Language and Lingo

    During the influx of “TikTok refugees” in January 2025, Xiaohongshu launched a translation feature for users outside mainland China, enabling the automatic translation of comments and posts. 

    However, this does not translate search queries. The platform’s search engine is still optimised for Chinese, though there is a “prioritise English” filter for overseas users, and searching in English will return some results.

    Searching for “Canada” in English, with “EN preferred” selected, will mainly return posts in English. Source: Xiaohongshu

    But the language you search in shapes far more than just your results – it determines which version of the platform you see. When you search in English or use an international account, the algorithm treats you as a foreign user and surfaces content accordingly: influencers explaining why they love living in China, comparisons showing Chinese life favourably against the West. 

    This isn’t a neutral cross-section of the platform – it is a curated bubble. To access what Chinese users actually discuss among themselves, it would be more effective to search in simplified Chinese and, ideally, use a China-registered account if you have access to one. If you don’t read Chinese, you can also consider using a translation tool (Google Translate, DeepL, or an AI assistant) to convert your search terms into simplified Chinese before entering them.

    Despite such tools and the in-app translation feature, it is always useful when researching using Chinese platforms to work with a native speaker familiar with the local context. They can flag when an innocuous-seeming term actually carries hidden meaning, and help identify coded conversations about a censored topic.

    On Xiaohongshu specifically, this coded language extends beyond political topics to include anything the platform’s algorithm might flag as “vulgar” or promotional. For example, users substitute fruits and neutral terms for body parts or sexual content to avoid being flagged as inappropriate – the peach emoji for buttocks, or 炒菜 (“cooking”) for explicit material. They may also use abbreviations and emojis for commercial terms to evade anti-marketing filters, such as “vx” (the abbreviation of how WeChat is pronounced in Chinese) or “➕绿” (“plus green”, apparently referring to WeChat’s green logo) for WeChat, or “米” (rice) or the moneybag emoji for money.

    Advanced Search Strategies

    For more sophisticated searching, consider using third-party marketing analytics tools like Xinhong and Qiangu, which can show trending topics, popular posts and engagement metrics, as well as identify key content creators posting about specific subjects. 

    For example, on Xinhong, when you search for “Canada” in Chinese, it also shows show trending related searches such as “加拿大总理” (Canadian Prime Minister). Clicking through these suggestions leads to recent posts—for example, posts about Mark Carney’s latest statements at Davos, along with user comments and reactions.

    A search on the Xinhong platform for “Canada” in Chinese also suggests related trending topics (in green box) such as “in Canada”, “living in Canada” and “Canadian Prime Minister”. Source: Xinhong, annotation by Bellingcat

    While these tools are designed for marketers, they provide journalists with valuable capabilities: tracking how topics evolve, identifying influential voices in specific communities, and discovering related hashtags or discussions that might not surface through basic platform search. These tools often require paid subscriptions but can significantly enhance research efficiency for long-term investigations.

    Another valuable feature is Xiaohongshu’s group chat function, where users gather around shared keywords and topics—from city-specific communities to niche interests. These groups are often highly active and provide access to candid community discussions that don’t appear in public posts. To find relevant groups, go to Messages → Group Square, where you can browse categories or search by keyword and request to join.

    Monitoring active group chats related to relevant topics, whether that’s a specific city, industry, or issue, can help journalists and researchers stay updated on emerging issues and detect potential story leads before they become widely visible on public feeds.

    Preserving the Evidence

    Chinese social media content can disappear quickly and without warning due to censorship, making immediate preservation critical. 

    Always take two preservation steps immediately upon discovering relevant content:

    First, screenshot the entire post, including the URL, timestamp, username, like/comment counts, and location tags. These metrics establish context and authenticity. Use tools that capture full-page screenshots rather than just visible portions, as posts can be long and comments extensive. Second, archive the web page using services like archive.today or Wayback Machine. Note that these services capture only static content – comments and engagement metrics may not be fully preserved and should be screenshotted separately.

    For Xiaohongshu specifically, always preserve the user’s unique ID found in their profile URL when viewed on a browser, which follows the format “user/profile/[unique ID]”. Users can change their display names, but this unique identifier remains constant, allowing you to track accounts over time even after name changes. This is critical for long-term investigations or when monitoring specific sources.

    The unique ID of a user can be found in the profile URL on a browser. Source: Xiaohongshu

    Xiaohongshu operates under the same legal and censorship constraints as all Chinese social media platforms, and researchers should approach it with appropriate caution. Content moderation is extensive: users who post about sensitive subjects risk having their content removed or their accounts suspended, and the platform is required to comply with government data requests. For researchers, this means the information you find represents only what has survived the censorship process.

    That said, Xiaohongshu remains a remarkably rich resource for open-source research. Its strength lies precisely in its apolitical, lifestyle-oriented identity: while political discussion is suppressed, candid conversations about everyday life flourish. For journalists willing to invest in learning the platform’s rhythms, building Chinese-language search skills, and understanding its coded vocabularies, Xiaohongshu offers a window into how ordinary Chinese people talk among themselves – an area that remains largely untapped by international media.

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    The post Mining China’s ‘Little Red Book’ for Open Source Gold appeared first on bellingcat.

  • LAPD Deployed Drones to Spy on No Kings Protest

    The Los Angeles Police Department deployed drones intended for public safety uses to surveil a No Kings rally and a protest against the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant campaign, flight data reveals.

    Last year, the LAPD launched its “Drone as First Responder” program with a clearly articulated goal: to protect and even save lives. The pilot program authorized the rapid deployment of drones to the scenes of certain emergency calls before human officers even arrive. After receiving a 911 call, authorities can dispatch a drone to get a better picture of what’s happening from the sky, potentially reducing the number of officers dispatched. This means police resources could, theoretically, be more efficiently deployed to other emergencies around the city.

    “This innovative program not only aims to enhance transparency in Department operations but also prioritizes the protection of individual privacy,” the LAPD explained in a webpage about the program. “By deploying drones as an invaluable resource for patrol officers, the DFR Pilot Program provides a cutting-edge tool that can respond swiftly to emergencies, ensuring a safer environment for all.”

    The LAPD turned to Skydio, a California-based drone startup that previously marketed its aircraft to consumers but has pivoted to supplying militarized, weapons-compatible hardware for the U.S. Army, Israeli Defense Forces, and other governments.

    The LAPD insists the DFR program presents no threat to personal privacy or civil liberties. “Unless you are in the commission of a crime or under criminal investigation for the commission of a crime,” assures the website, “the officers utilizing the drone are not interested in recording you.”


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    But according to flight data shared publicly by the LAPD and Skydio, the city has used DFR not only to respond to emergencies, but also to monitor multiple protests across Los Angeles. Software engineer and flight data researcher John Wiseman has tracked DFR aircraft to at least two protests in Los Angeles this year, he told The Intercept, raising questions as to whether the city is operating an aerial surveillance program against nonviolent, constitutionally protected activity.

    Flight records show DFR drones were launched at least 31 times to surveil the January 31 “ICE Out” protest in downtown Los Angeles, which saw thousands peacefully march against the administration’s deportations raids and street violence in Minneapolis. The Los Angeles Times said the “mostly peaceful protest took a turn as day turned to night in downtown Los Angeles and the crowd refused to disperse,” whereupon police began firing tear gas at remaining demonstrators.

    A heat map shows LAPD drone flights concentrated above No Kings protests on March 28, 2026. Graphic: John Wiseman

    At the March 28 “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration, city data shows the LAPD again launched drones 32 times over the area where the demonstration took place. A heat map visualization created by Wiseman based on the city data shows the drones lingered for extended periods over the Metropolitan Detention Center and the intersection of North Central Avenue and East Temple Street in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo neighborhood.

    Following the protest, the city’s local ABC News affiliate reported the event “drew tens of thousands who listened to speakers before marching peacefully through downtown streets.” The LAPD later arrested 75 individuals, 74 of whom were taken in simply for not dispersing when ordered by police.

    The DFR flight data shows the drones began orbiting the protest at 2 p.m., hours before the order to disperse was issued at 5:30 p.m., and continued flying until 9 p.m. that evening. Nine drone flights began before the dispersal order.

    In response to questions about the protest surveillance, LAPD Lt. Matthew Jacobs told The Intercept, “We do not document or record unless there is a crime occurring.”

    “When it comes to a protest or demonstration, we’re responding [with drones] at the request of the Incident Commander,” Jacobs said. “We’re looking for specific people, we’re not taping First Amendment activity.”


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    Jacobs added that “99 percent of the time” drones are sent to a protest “because the commander reports a crime in progress,” and claimed a “wide variety of crimes” are committed at protests, from vandalism to rocks thrown at officers. Jacobs added at times the department simply “wants to see how big a crowd is.”

    Jacobs did not answer when asked why drones were surveilling the No Kings protest hours before the dispersal order.

    The police department did not answer a detailed list of follow-up questions, including how much protest-related data it has captured via drone surveillance to date or who monitors drone feeds over protests.

    The LAPD’s fleet of Skydio X10 drones monitor the ground using with a sophisticated suite of sensors the company says are capable of detecting the presence of person from a distance of more than 8,000 feet and identifying an individual more than 2,500 feet away. The company also touts the drone’s ability to read license plates from a distance of 800 feet. Last year, Skydio CEO Adam Bry demonstrated how two police officers using the company’s DFR Command software could operate eight drones at once between them, tracking license plates and automatically following people of interest.

    The post LAPD Deployed Drones to Spy on No Kings Protest appeared first on The Intercept.