 Welcome to Effector from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This is the audio edition of EFF's email newsletter geared towards keeping you on the bleeding edge of your digital rights. This is Effector Volume 35, Issue 16, titled, Safe and Private for the Holidays. This issue was published in December 2023, and I'm your host, membership advocate, Christian Romero. Let's start with our top features. First up, think twice before giving surveillance for the holidays. With the holidays upon us, it's easy to default to giving the tech gifts so that retailers tend to push on us this time of year. Smart speakers, video doorbells, Bluetooth trackers, fitness trackers, and other connected gadgets are all very popular gifts. But before you give one, think twice about what you're opting that person into. A number of these gifts raise red flags for us as privacy-conscious digital advocates. Next up, how to secure your kid's Android device. After finding risky software on an Android device marketed for kids, we wanted to put together some tips to help better secure your own kid's Android device. Despite the dangers that exist, there are many things that can be done to at least mitigate harm and assist parents and children. There are also safety tools that your child can use at their own discretion. And now let's roll through some EFF updates. Victory, Montana's unprecedented TikTok ban is unconstitutional. A federal court blocked Montana's effort to ban TikTok from the state, ruling that the law violated users' First Amendment rights to speak and to access information online, and the company's First Amendment rights to select and curate users' content. Montana passed a law in May that prohibited TikTok from operating anywhere within the state and imposed $10,000 penalties on TikTok or any mobile application store that allowed users to access TikTok. The law was scheduled to take effect in January. EFF opposed enactment of this law along with ACLU, CDT, and others. And EFF and the ACLU filed a friend of the court brief in support of the challenge. Next up, EFF urges Supreme Court to strike down Texas and Florida laws that let states dictate what speech social media sites must publish. EFF and five organizations defending free speech urged the Supreme Court to strike down laws in Florida and Texas that let the state dictate certain speech social media sites must carry, violating the site's First Amendment rights to curate content they publish, a protection that benefits users by creating speech forums accommodating their diverse interests, viewpoints, and beliefs. The court's decisions about the constitutionality of Florida and Texas laws, the first laws to inject government mandates into social media content moderation, will have a profound impact on the future of free speech. At stake is whether Americans' speech on social media must adhere to government rules or be free of government interference. Next up, META announces end-to-end encryption by default in Messenger. META announced that they had begun rolling out default end-to-end encryption for one-to-one messages and voice calls on Messenger and Facebook. While there remain some privacy concerns around backups and metadata, we applaud this decision. It will bring strong encryption to over one billion people, protecting them from dragnet surveillance of the contents of their Facebook messages. Next up, EFF reminds the Supreme Court that copyright trolls are still a problem. At EFF, we spend a lot of time calling out the harm caused by copyright trolls and protecting internet users from their abuses. Copyright trolls are serial plaintiffs who use search tools to identify technical, often low-value infringements on the internet, and then seek nuisance settlements from many defendants. These trolls take advantage of some of copyright law's worst features, especially the threat of massive, unpredictable statutory damages, to impose a troublesome tax on many uses of the internet. EFF continues to fight against copyright trolls by filing an amicus brief in Warner Chapel Music v. Neely, a case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. And for our last update, digital rights groups urge Metta to stop silencing Palestine. EFF and 17 other digital and human rights organizations are issuing an updated set of demands to ensure that Metta considers the impact of its policies and content moderation practices on Palestinians, and take serious action to ensure that its content interventions are fair, balanced, and consistent with the Santa Clara principles on transparency and accountability in content moderation. And now, let's go through some announcements. First up, how we fundraise. If you're reading a Fector, you might already be a donor to EFF, or are considering supporting us and want to do your due diligence. In this blog post, we share information about how EFF raises money for digital rights and, perhaps more importantly, how we don't. Next up, our podcast is an Anthem Awards finalist. Help make it a winner! EFF's How to Fix the Internet podcast is a finalist in the Anthem Awards Community Voice competition, and we need your help before the end of Thursday, December 21st to put it over the top. Vote by going to EFF.org slash Anthem today. Next up, we want to shout out ZAMSAR, an organizational member whose support helps us defend digital privacy, free speech, and innovation online. And for our last announcement, speaking freely continues. EFF's series of interviews with free speech thought leaders continues. Cindy Cohen interviewed Alyssa McCrena, founder and executive director of the Library Freedom Project, which won a 2023 EFF award for its work creating a network of values-driven, librarian activists taking action together to build information democracy. And Gillian York interviewed Ron Debert, a Canadian professor of political science and founder of the renowned citizen lab. He is perhaps best known to readers for his research on targeted surveillance, which won the citizen lab a 2015 EFF award. And last up, let's go through some mini-links. This first one comes from Bloomberg Law. TikTok's Good Week in U.S. courts deals a setback to state curbs. A federal judge's order blocking Montana's first in the nation TikTok ban from going into effect is the latest blow to state's efforts to rein in the social media app. The judge called the measure unconstitutional, agreeing with what EFF had argued in its amicus brief. Hopefully decisions like the Montana one today will redirect legislatures to what they should be doing, which is protecting all consumers from surveillance from technology companies, EFF's Adam Schwartz said. Next up, from D-Web Decoded podcast by Filecoin Foundation, defending digital rights with Cindy Cohen. EFF Cindy Cohen joins former EFFer Danny O'Brien to discuss why decentralization is core to EFF's vision for user empowerment online. She also gives advice to decentralized tech builders on thinking through policy obstacles, getting the law on your side, and lifting up positive examples of how tech helps people. Next up, from KTRK ABC 13 Houston, Houston PD's Top Cop wants thousands of cameras to deter crime, but experts worry it'll do more harm. As America's fourth largest city contemplates creating a camera network that would let police see everything and everywhere all the time, EFF's Matthew Garaglia pushes back. Quote, cameras going up everywhere and blanketing a city does not stop people from committing crimes. End quote. And the police chief had no statistics handy to back up his claims. Next up, from KXAN NBC 36 Austin, could your student school devices be violating privacy used against them? Great coverage of EFF's Red Flag Machine project, in which we found widely used student monitoring software is dangerously wrong much of the time. We just got these huge data sets where GoGuardian was flagging, as they call it, students for doing their homework, for looking for jobs online, for doing the things that you'd expect kids to do. EFF's Dave Moss said, This last mini-link comes from KMGH ABC 7 Denver. Are social media companies legally responsible if their algorithms serve harmful content to minors? The Kids Online Safety Act, COSA, will lead to censorship for kids and adults alike. With the bill being a political tool rather than a safety one, EFF's Aaron Mackey warns, a comprehensive consumer data privacy law would do far more to curb social media's harms. And that's it. Thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing, be sure to sign up for the email version of Effector, which includes links to in-depth coverage of these stories and more. See past issues and subscribe at EFF.org slash Effector. Before we end this issue of the newsletter, I want to let you know that EFF is a member supported nonprofit organization and you can help us defend digital privacy, security, and free expression for everyone. Donate to EFF today and even grab a bit of gear by going to EFF.org slash Effect. You can become a member for as little as $25 or even sign up as a monthly or annual donor. Thanks for your support and I hope you'll join us for the next issue of Effector.