Internet Freedom Weekly: News Recap, October 26th–30th, 2026
Global Media and Information Literacy Week Is Here
Global Media and Information Literacy Week runs from October 24th to 31st, and this year's theme is We All Play a Part. UNESCO's definition goes well beyond spotting fake news. It includes knowing your rights online and understanding how information about you is collected and used. The UN resolution behind the week links those skills directly to the digital divide.
UNESCO offers free resources in English, including a teacher curriculum and open online courses. You can't push back on something you don't know is happening, and most of the material costs nothing.
Moscow Plans to Restrict Mobile Internet During Summits
Russia's Digital Development Ministry said mobile internet inside Moscow's Third Ring Road could be restricted during the day from October 27th to 29th. The ministry tied the plan to security for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum and the Russia-Africa summit. Voice calls, Wi-Fi, and exempt websites were set to stay available.
The summits get the protection, and the people who live and work in central Moscow lose their mobile data. Someone also chose which websites stay exempt, and the report doesn't say who or how. It comes soon after Russia's plan to double its internet censorship budget in 2027.
Reddit Sues Over Search Results Using a 1998 Copyright Law
Reddit is suing SerpAPI and Perplexity under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law against breaking digital locks. A federal judge ruled in July that the case can go ahead. The EFF argues that Reddit doesn't own its users' posts, that indexing the web for search has long been fair use, and that Google's rate limits aren't the kind of lock the law was written for.
The EFF warns that the ruling puts large-scale web research under legal uncertainty that only the wealthiest institutions can afford. Most of us will never run a web crawler, but we rely on the journalists, researchers, and archivists who do.
2026 County Election Website Security Census: Key Findings
We rebuilt the 2024 census of every US county's election website. 42% of the county election pages we identified still aren't on .gov, down fifteen points since 2024, with the larger counties moving first. Email is the weak spot. Only about half of the election contact domains we checked enforce a DMARC policy, so the rest would still deliver a forged message to a voter's inbox.
Most election pages also contact a tracking company before the voter clicks anything, and over a hundred lookalike versions of official election domains sit outside government hands. Before Election Day, start from your state's election office, type addresses yourself, and look for .gov.
France Weighed Blocking Social Media During Protests
France's interior ministry spent the week before the October 24th protests asking telecom operators how to cut off social media, or even mobile internet, in certain areas. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu then asked operators in a letter to be ready to block TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and X. No block was ordered, and officials didn't deny any of it.
A block limited to one neighborhood isn't technically possible, so peaceful protesters, reporters, and residents would all have been cut off. The plan wasn't used this time. The groundwork with operators is still there.
Exam Internet Shutdowns Ease in Algeria and Syria, Reach Tunisia
Access Now's #NoExamShutdown report shows that exam shutdowns in the Middle East and North Africa moved in two directions this year. Algeria kept the country connected during exams for the first time in a decade, and Syria held its exams with no documented shutdowns. Tunisia, once seen as the region's most open internet, joined the list for the first time with unannounced disruptions to messaging apps.
Iraq, Sudan, and Jordan cut or limited access again, and India blocked Telegram before a national medical exam. Algeria and Syria show that a shutdown habit can be broken, and Access Now credits public pressure for Algeria's change.
Discord Will Put Public Server Messages in Google Search
Every Discoverable Server will get a public web page that Google can index, starting November 16th. The pages will show discussion summaries, and from mid-December, some messages will be readable by anyone, even without a Discord account. Private servers and direct messages stay private.
Admins and users can opt out, but public channels are included by default, and users can't opt out of summaries at all. Hiding usernames doesn't make a message anonymous. If you use Discord, check your settings before November 16th.
Florida Attorney General Proposes the Safe Screens Act
Florida AG James Uthmeier proposed the Safe Screens Act. App stores, AI chatbot operators, and operating systems would have to determine users' ages, and minors would need parental consent to download apps. Teen social media accounts would get strict defaults, including a daily time cap, and chatbots couldn't simulate companionship or claim to be human.
The Act can't tell who's a minor without checking everyone, and the release doesn't say how ages would be determined. It also replaces family decisions with fixed state rules, with fines of up to $50,000 per violation pushing companies to check more users, more often.
Where America's Old Government Websites Went
We visited every official website listed for US towns and counties. 276 now serve gambling or spam, mostly because old domains expired and were caught by drop-catchers. Hundreds of Wikipedia articles still list a lapsed address as the town's or county's official site, and some of those links lead straight to a casino.
The fix is cheap. Renew old domains, keep them forwarding to the new site, and correct the Wikipedia entry. More than two thousand old addresses already forward correctly to a .gov, which is exactly how it should work.
New York Bans Unsafe AI Chatbot Behavior With Kids
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law banning a dozen unsafe AI companion chatbot features when a chatbot talks with someone under 18. Banned behavior includes pretending to have feelings, flattery, sexually explicit content, and encouraging secrecy. The state attorney general can sue companies that break the rules, starting January 1st.
The goal is right, but a privacy expert warns that some categories are broadly worded or not defined. Vague rules push companies to restrict everyone, and a rule for under-18s raises the question of age checks for all users.
Australia Moves to Ban Emotionally Intimate AI Chatbots
Australia's digital duty of care bill passed the House of Representatives and now heads to the Senate. It would require platforms, including AI chatbots, to protect users from certain harmful content and ban chatbot behavior that fosters emotional dependence in children. It would also give users an easy-to-find way to opt out of recommendation algorithms.
The algorithm opt-out is a real win. The broad idea of harmful content is the weak spot, because platforms facing legal risk tend to remove more, not less. A Senate inquiry due in late November is the chance to get the balance right.
Be part of the resistance, quietly.
Gintarė is a cybersecurity writer at Mysterium VPN, where she explores online privacy, VPN technology, and the latest digital threats in editorial pieces. With hands-on experience researching and writing about data protection and digital freedom, Gintarė makes complex security topics accessible and actionable.
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