Twitter will expand what types of "non-consensual nudity" (aka "revenge porn") that it takes action against. The company will already act when a victim complains, but Twitter will soon act even in cases where the victims may not be aware images were taken, instances like upskirt photos and hidden webcams.

Twitter will ban hate imagery in profile headers and avatars, and the service will start suspending accounts "for organizations that use violence to advance their cause."

Sci-Hub, which is regularly referred to as the "Pirate Bay of Science," faces one of the strongest anti-piracy injunctions we have seen in the US to date. A magistrate judge in Virginia has recommended a broad order which would require search engines and Internet providers to block the site.

Sci-Hub itself doesn’t seem to be too bothered by the blocking prospect or the millions in damages it faces. The site has a Tor version which can’t be blocked by Internet providers, so determined scientists will still be able to access the site if they want.

A Council of the European Union document leaked by Statewatch on 30 August reveals that during the summer months, that Estonia (current EU Presidency) has been pushing the other Member States to strengthen indiscriminate internet surveillance, and to follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship. Standing firmly behind its belief that filtering the uploads is the way to go, the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission’s original proposal, and pushing it further into the realms of illegality.

"We uphold the ideal of free speech on reddit as much as possible," Reddit said on the official company blog in 2014. But within months, the site started banning communities devoted to racism and misogyny.

Almost everyone can agree that the Daily Stormer is an odious hate site, but critics have warned of a slippery slope. They say that companies are setting a dangerous precedent that could lead to censorship of less offensive speech.

Powered by machine learning, the Documenting Hate News Index will track reported hate crimes across all 50 states, collecting data from February 2017 onward.

The initiative is a data-rich new arm of the Documenting Hate project which collects and verifies hate incidents reported by both individual contributors and by news organizations.

Tor is designed to defend human rights and privacy by preventing anyone from censoring things, even us.

It is our work to provide everyone with the best possible security and privacy tools so human dignity and freedom can be promoted all over the world.

So when Systrom returned from VidCon to Instagram’s headquarters, in Menlo Park, he told his colleagues that they had a new mission. Instagram was going to become a kind of social media utopia: the nicest darn place online.

Systrom’s grand ambition isn’t just to fix Instagram. His first goal is to clean up the platform he runs. But, at a time when our national conversation gets darker by the day, he also wants to show the rest of the internet that toxicity online isn’t ineluctable.

Today, YouTube clarified how it plans to handle videos that don’t violate any of its policies but still contain offensive religious and supremacist content: hide them and make sure they can’t make any money.

Walker also wrote that YouTube would take a “tougher stance” on controversial videos that don’t actually violate any YouTube policies.

“Our worst fears have been realized,” said Christian Mihr, RSF Germany’s executive director. “The German law on online hate speech is now serving as a model for non-democratic states to limit Internet debate.”

A UK parliamentary report in April cited the German example when it recommended making social networks pay large fines for failing to remove hate speech quickly enough.

CNN reported on the source, who uses the Reddit username "HanAssholeSolo," and reserved the right to expose his identity later if he did not change his online behavior.

That implied threat led to a widespread negative response, with some accusing CNN of bullying or blackmail. CNN later issued a statement, saying that the individual's name had been withheld for his safety and no deal was reached.