Transistors, the building blocks of modern electronics, are typically made of silicon. Because it’s a semiconductor, this material can control the flow of electricity in a circuit. But silicon has fundamental physical limits that restrict how compact and energy-efficient a transistor can be.

MIT researchers have now replaced silicon with a magnetic semiconductor, creating a magnetic transistor that could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient circuits. The material’s magnetism strongly influences its electronic behavior, leading to more efficient control of the flow of electricity. 

The team used a novel magnetic material and an optimization process that reduces the material’s defects, which boosts the transistor’s performance.

The material’s unique magnetic properties also allow for transistors with built-in memory, which would simplify circuit design and unlock new applications for high-performance electronics.

“People have known about magnets for thousands of years, but there are very limited ways to incorporate magnetism into electronics. We have shown a new way to efficiently utilize magnetism that opens up a lot of possibilities for future applications and research,” says Chung-Tao Chou, an MIT graduate student in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Physics, and co-lead author of a paper on this advance.

Chou is joined on the paper by co-lead author Eugene Park, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE); Julian Klein, a DMSE research scientist; Josep Ingla-Aynes, a postdoc in the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center; Jagadeesh S. Moodera, a senior research scientist in the Department of Physics; and senior authors Frances Ross, TDK Professor in DMSE; and Luqiao Liu, an associate professor in EECS, and a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics; as well as others at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. The paper appears today in Physical Review Letters.

Overcoming the limits

In an electronic device, silicon semiconductor transistors act like tiny light switches that turn a circuit on and off, or amplify weak signals in a communication system. They do this using a small input voltage.

But a fundamental physical limit of silicon semiconductors prevents a transistor from operating below a certain voltage, which hinders its energy efficiency.

To make more efficient electronics, researchers have spent decades working toward magnetic transistors that utilize electron spin to control the flow of electricity. Electron spin is a fundamental property that enables electrons to behave like tiny magnets.

So far, scientists have mostly been limited to using certain magnetic materials. These lack the favorable electronic properties of semiconductors, constraining device performance.

“In this work, we combine magnetism and semiconductor physics to realize useful spintronic devices,” Liu says.

The researchers replace the silicon in the surface layer of a transistor with chromium sulfur bromide, a two-dimensional material that acts as a magnetic semiconductor.

Due to the material’s structure, researchers can switch between two magnetic states very cleanly. This makes it ideal for use in a transistor that smoothly switches between “on” and “off.”

“One of the biggest challenges we faced was finding the right material. We tried many other materials that didn’t work,” Chou says.

They discovered that changing these magnetic states modifies the material’s electronic properties, enabling low-energy operation. And unlike many other 2D materials, chromium sulfur bromide remains stable in air.

To make a transistor, the researchers pattern electrodes onto a silicon substrate, then carefully align and transfer the 2D material on top. They use tape to pick up a tiny piece of material, only a few tens of nanometers thick, and place it onto the substrate.

“A lot of researchers will use solvents or glue to do the transfer, but transistors require a very clean surface. We eliminate all those risks by simplifying this step,” Chou says.

Leveraging magnetism

This lack of contamination enables their device to outperform existing magnetic transistors. Most others can only create a weak magnetic effect, changing the flow of current by a few percent or less. Their new transistor can switch or amplify the electric current by a factor of 10.

They use an external magnetic field to change the magnetic state of the material, switching the transistor using significantly less energy than would usually be required.

The material also allows them to control the magnetic states with electric current. This is important because engineers cannot apply magnetic fields to individual transistors in an electronic device. They need to control each one electrically.

The material’s magnetic properties could also enable transistors with built-in memory, simplifying the design of logic or memory circuits.

A typical memory device has a magnetic cell to store information and a transistor to read it out. Their method can combine both into one magnetic transistor.

“Now, not only are transistors turning on and off, they are also remembering information. And because we can switch the transistor with greater magnitude, the signal is much stronger so we can read out the information faster, and in a much more reliable way,” Liu says.

Building on this demonstration, the researchers plan to further study the use of electrical current to control the device. They are also working to make their method scalable so they can fabricate arrays of transistors.

This research was supported, in part, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Research Office, and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. The work was partially carried out at the MIT.nano facilities.

This is the second post in a series on 3D print blocking, for the first entry check out: Print Blocking is Anti-Consumer - Permission to Print Part 1

Legislators across the U.S. are proposing laws to force “blueprint blockers” on 3D printers sold in their states. This mandated censorware is doomed to fail for its intended purpose, but will still manage to hurt the professional and hobbyist communities relying on these tools.

3D printers are commonly used to repair belongings, decorate homes, print figurines, and so much more. It’s not just hobbyists; 3D printers are also used professionally for parts prototyping and fixturing, small-batch manufacturing, and workspace organization. In rare cases, they’ve also been used to print parts needed for firearm assembly.

Many states have already banned manufacturing firearms using computer controlled machine tools, which are called “Computer Numerical Control or CNC machines,” and 3D printers without a license. Recently proposed laws seek to impose technical limitations onto 3D printers (and in some cases, CNC machines) in the hope of enforcing this prohibition.

This is a terrible idea; these mandates will be onerous to implement and will lock printer users into vendor software, impose one-time and ongoing costs on both printer vendors and users, and lay the foundation for a 3D-print censorship platform to be used in other jurisdictions. We dive more into these issues in the first part of this series.

On a pragmatic level, however, these state mandates are just wishful thinking. Below, we dive into how 3D printing works, why these laws won’t deter the printing of firearms, and how regular lawful use will be caught in the proposed dragnet.

How 3D Printers Work

To understand the impact of this proposed legislation, we need to know a bit about how 3D printers work. The most common printers work similarly to a computer-controlled hot glue gun on a motion platform; they follow basic commands to maintain temperature, extrude (push) plastic through a nozzle, and move a platform. These motions together build up layers to make a final “print.” Modern 3D printers often offer more features like Wi-Fi connectivity or camera monitoring, but fundamentally they are very simple machines.

The basic instructions used by most 3D printers are called Geometric Code, or G-Code, which specify very basic motions such as “move from position A to position B while extruding plastic.” The list of commands that will eventually print up a part are transferred to the printer in a text file thousands-to-millions of lines long. The printer dutifully follows these instructions with no overall idea of what it is printing.

While it is possible to write G-Code by hand for either a CNC machine or a 3D printer, the vast majority is generated by computer aided manufacturing (CAM) software, often called a “slicer” in 3D printing since it divides a 3D model into many 2D slices then generates motion instructions. 

This same general process applies to CNC machines which use G-Code instructions to guide a metal removal tool. CNC machines have been included in previous prohibitions on firearm manufacturing and file distribution and are also targeted in some of these bills.

There are other types of 3D printers such as those that print concrete, resin, metal, chocolate and other materials using slightly different methods. All of these would be subject to the proposed requirements regardless of how unlikely doing harm with a gun made out of chocolate would be. 

Simple rectangular 3D model for test fit

Part of a 173490 line long G-Code file produced by slicer for simple rectangular model.

Part of a 173,490 line long G-Code file for a simple rectangular part.

How is Firearm Detection Supposed to Work?

Under these proposed laws, manufacturers of consumer 3D printers must ensure their printers only work with their software, and implement firearm detection algorithms on either the printer itself or in a slicer software. These algorithms must detect firearm files using a maintained database of existing models. Vendors of printers must then verify that printers are on the allow-list maintained by the state before they can offer them for sale.

Owners of printers will be guilty of a crime if they circumvent these intrusive scanning procedures or load alternative software, which they might do because their printer manufacturer ends support. Owners of existing noncompliant 3D printers in regulated states will be unable to resell their printers on the secondary market legally.

What Will Actually Happen?

While the proposed laws allow for scanning to happen on either the printer itself or in the slicer software, the reality is more complicated. 

The computers inside many 3D printers have very limited computational and storage ability; it will be impossible for the printer’s computer to render the G-Code into a 3D model to compare with the database of prohibited files. Thus the only way to achieve this through the machine would be to upload all printer files to a cloud comparison tool, creating new delays, errors, and unacceptable invasions of privacy.

Many vendors will instead choose to permanently link their printers to a specific slicer that implements firearm detection. This requires cryptographic signing of G-Code to ensure only authorized prints are completed, and will lock 3D printer owners into the slicer chosen by their printer vendor.

Regardless of the specifics of their implementation, these algorithms will interfere with 3D printers' ability to print other parts without actually stopping manufacture of guns. It takes very little skill for a user to make slight design tweaks to either a model or G-Code to evade detection. One can also design incomplete or heavily adorned models which can be made functional with some post-print alterations. While this would be pioneered by skilled users—like the ones who designed today’s 3D printed guns—once the design and instructions are out there anyone able to print a gun today will be able to follow suit.  

Firearm part identification features also impose costs onto 3D printer manufacturers, and hence their end consumers. 3D printer manufacturers must develop or license these costly algorithms and continuously maintain and update both the algorithm and the database of firearm models. Older printers that cannot comply will not be able to be resold in states where they are banned, creating additional E-waste.

While those wishing to create guns will still be able to do so, people printing other functional parts will likely be caught up in these algorithms, particularly for things like film props, kids’ toys, or decorative models, which often closely resemble real firearms or firearm components.

What Are The Impacts of These Changes?

Technological restrictions on manufacturing tools’ abilities are harmful for many reasons. EFF is particularly concerned with this regulation locking a 3D printer to proprietary vendor software. Vendors will be able to use this mandate to support only in-house materials, locking users into future purchases. Vendor slicer software is often based on out-of-date, open source software, and forcing users to use that software deprives them of new features or even use of their printer altogether if the vendor goes out of business. At worst, some of these bill will make it a misdemeanor to fix those problems and gain full control of your printer.

File-scanning frameworks required by this regulation will lay the foundation for future privacy and freedom intrusions. This requirement could be co-opted to scan prints for copyright violations and be abused similar to DMCA takedowns, or to suppress models considered obscene by a patchwork of definitions. What if you were unable to print a repair part because the vendor asserted the model was in violation of their trademark? What if your print was considered obscene?

Regardless of your position on current prohibitions on firearms, we should all fight back against this effort to force technological restrictions on 3D printers, and legislators must similarly abandon the idea. These laws impose real costs and potential harms among lawful users, lay the groundwork for future censorship, and simply won’t deter firearm printing. 

This is the first post in a series on 3D print blocking, for the next entry check out Print Blocking Won't Work - Permission to Print Part 2

When legislators give companies an excuse to write untouchable code, it’s a disaster for everyone. This time, 3D printers are in the crosshairs across a growing number of states. Even if you’ve never used one, you’ve benefited from the open commons these devices have created—which is now under threat.

This isn’t the first time we’ve gone to bat for 3D printing. These devices come in many forms and can construct nearly any shape with a variety of materials. This has made them absolutely crucial for anything from life-saving medical equipment, to little Iron Man helmets for cats, to everyday repairs. For decades these devices have been a proven engine for innovation, while democratizing a sliver of manufacturing for hobbyists, artists, and researchers around the world.

For us all to continue benefiting from this grassroots creativity, we need to guard against the type of corporate centralization that has undermined so much of the promise of the digital era.  Unfortunately some state legislators are looking to repeat old mistakes by demanding printer vendors install an enshittification switch.

In the U.S, three states have recently proposed that commercial 3D-printer manufacturers must ensure their printers only work with their software, and are responsible for checking each print for forbidden shapes—for now, any shape vendors consider too gun-like. The 2D equivalent of these “print-blocking” algorithms would be demanding HP prevent you from printing any harmful messages or recipes. Worse still, some bills can introduce criminal penalties for anyone who bypasses this censorware, or for anyone simply reselling their old printer without these restrictions. 

If this sounds like Digital Rights Management (DRM) to you, you’ve been paying attention. This is exactly the sort of regulation that creates a headache and privacy risk for law-abiding users, is a gift for would-be monopolists, and can be totally bypassed by the lawbreakers actually being targeted by the proposals.

Ghosting Innovation

“Print blocking” is currently coming for an unpopular target: ghost guns. These are privately made firearms (PMFs) that are typically harder to trace and can bypass other gun regulations. Contrary to what the proposed regulations suggest, these guns are often not printed at home, but purchased online as mass-produced build-it-yourself kits and accessories.

Scaling production with consumer 3D printers  is expensive, error-prone, and relatively slow.  Successfully making a working firearm with just a printer still requires some technical know-how, even as 3D printers improve beyond some of these limitations. That said, many have concerns about unlicensed firearm production and sales. Which is exactly why these practices are already illegal in many states, including all of the states proposing print blocking. 

Mandating algorithmic print-blocking software on 3D printers and CNC machines is just wishful thinking. People illegally printing ghost guns and accessories today will have no qualms with undetectably breaking another law to bypass censoring algorithms. That’s if they even need to—the cat and mouse game of detecting gun-like prints might be doomed from the start, as we dive into in this companion post.

Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of 3D-printer users do not print guns. Punishing innovators, researchers, and hobbyists because of a handful of outlaws is bad enough, but this proposal does it by also subjecting everyone to the anticompetitive and anticonsumer whims of device manufacturers.

Can’t make the DRM thing work

We’ve been railing against Digital Rights Management (DRM) since the DMCA made it a federal crime to bypass code restricting your use of copyrighted content. The DRM distinction has since been weaponized by manufacturers to gain greater leverage over their customers and enforce anti-competitive practices. 

The same enshittification playbook applies to algorithmic print blockers. 

Restricting devices to manufacturer-provided software is an old tactic from the DRM playbook, and is one that puts you in a precarious spot where you need to bend to the whims of the manufacturer.  Only Windows 11 supported? You need a new PC. Tools are cloud-based? You need a solid connection. The company shutters? You now own an expensive paperweight—which used to make paperweights.

It also means useful open source alternatives which fit your needs better than the main vendor’s tools are off the table. The 3D-printer community got a taste of this recently, as manufacturer Bambu Labs pushed out restrictive firmware updates complicating the use of open source software like OrcaSlicer. The community blowback forced some accommodations for these alternatives to remain viable. Under the worst of these laws, such accommodations, and other workarounds, would be outlawed with criminal penalties.

People are right to be worried about vendor lock-in, beyond needing the right tool for the job. Making you reliant on their service allows companies to gradually sour the deal. Sometimes this happens visibly, with rising subscription fees, new paywalls, or planned obsolescence. It can also be more covert, like collecting and selling more of your data, or cutting costs by neglecting security and bug fixes.

With expensive hardware on the line, they can get away with anything that won’t make you pay through the nose to switch brands.

Indirectly, this sort of print-blocking mandate is a gift to incumbent businesses making these printers. It raises the upfront and ongoing costs associated with smaller companies selling a 3D printer, including those producing new or specialized machines. The result is fewer and more generic options from a shrinking number of major incumbents for any customer not interested in building their own 3D printer.

Reaching the Melting Point

It’s already clear these bills will be bad for anyone who currently uses a 3D printer, and having alternative software criminalized is particularly devastating for open source contributors. These impacts to manufacturers and consumers culminate into a major blow to the entire ecosystem of innovation we have benefited from for decades. 

But this is just the beginning. 

Once the infrastructure for print blocking is in place, it can be broadened. This isn’t a block of a very specific and static design, like how some copiers block reproductions of currency. Banning a category of design based on its function is a moving target, requiring a constantly expanding blacklist. Nothing in this legislation restricts those updates to firearm-related designs. Rather, if we let proposals like this pass, we open the door to the database of forbidden shapes for other powerful interests.

Intellectual property is a clear expansion risk. This could look like Nintendo blocking a Pikachu toy, John Deere blocking a replacement part, or even patent trolls forcing the hand of hardware companies. Repressive regimes, here or abroad, could likewise block the printing of "extreme" and “obscene” symbols, or tools of resistance like popular anti-ICE community whistles. 

Finally, even the most sympathetic targets of algorithmic censorship will result in false positives—blocking 3D-printer users’ lawful expression. This is something proven again and again in online moderation. Whether by mistake or by design, a platform that has you locked in has little incentive to offer remedies to this censorship. And these new incentives for companies to surveil each print can also impose a substantial chilling effect on what the user chooses to create.

While 3D printers aren’t in most households, this form of regulation would set a dangerous precedent. Government mandating on-device censors which are maintained by corporate algorithms is bad. It won’t work. It consolidates corporate power. It criminalizes and blocks the grassroots innovation and empowerment which has defined the 3D-printer community. We need to roundly reject these onerous restraints on creation. 

In late 2024, we urged Google and Amazon to honor their human rights commitments, to be more transparent with the public, and to take meaningful action to address the risks posed by Project Nimbus, their cloud computing contract that includes Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Israeli Security Agency. Since then, a stream of additional reporting has reinforced that our concerns were well-founded. Yet despite mounting evidence of serious risk, both companies have refused to take action. 

Amazon has completely ignored our original and follow-up letters. Google, meanwhile, has repeatedly promised to respond to our questions. Yet more than a year and a half later, we have seen no meaningful action by either company. Neither approach is acceptable given the human rights commitments these companies have made.

Additionally, Microsoft required a public leak before it felt compelled enough to look into and find that its client, the Israeli government, was indeed misusing its services in ways that violated Microsoft’s public commitments to human rights. This should have given both Google and Amazon an additional reason to take a close look and let the public know what they find, but nothing of the sort materialized. 

In such circumstances, waiting for definitive proof is not responsible risk management, it is willful blindness.

Google: Known Risks, No Meaningful Action

Google’s own internal assessments warned of the risks associated with Project Nimbus even before the contract was signed. Major news outlets have reported that Google provides the Israeli government with advanced cloud and AI services under Project Nimbus, including large-scale data storage, image and video analysis, and AI model development tools. These capabilities are exceptionally powerful, highly adaptable, and well suited for surveillance and military applications.

Despite those warnings, and the multiple reports since then about human rights abuses by the very portions of the Israeli government that uses Google’s and Amazon’s services, the companies continue to operate business as usual. It seems that they have taken the position that they do not need to change course or even publicly explain themselves unless the media or other external organizations present definitive proof that their tools have been used in specific violations of international human rights or humanitarian law. While that conclusive public evidence has not yet emerged for all the companies, the risks are obvious, and they are aware of them. Instead of conducting robust, transparent human rights due diligence, Amazon and Google are continually choosing to look the other way.

Google’s own internal assessments undermine its public posture. According to reporting, Google’s lawyers and policy staff warned that Google Cloud services could be linked to the facilitation of human rights abuses. In the same report, Google employees also raised concerns that the company’s cloud and AI tools could be used for surveillance or other militarized purposes, which seems very likely given the Israeli government’s long-standing reliance on advanced data-driven systems to control and monitor Palestinians.

Google has publicly claimed that Project Nimbus is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads” and is governed by its standard Acceptable Use Policies. Yet reporting has revealed conflicting representations about the contract’s terms, including indications that the Israeli government may be permitted to use any services offered in Google’s cloud catalog for any purpose. Google has declined to publicly resolve these contradictions, and its lack of transparency is problematic. The gap between what Google says publicly and what it knows internally should alarm anyone who hopes to take the company’s human rights commitments seriously.

Google’s and Amazon’s AI Principles Require Proactive Action

Even after being revised last year, Google’s AI Principles continue to commit the company to responsible development and deployment of its technologies, including implementing appropriate human oversight, due diligence, and safeguards to mitigate harmful outcomes and align with widely accepted principles of international law and human rights. While the updated principles no longer explicitly commit Google to avoiding entire categories of harmful use, they still require the company to assess foreseeable risks, employ rigorous monitoring and mitigation measures, and act responsibly throughout the full lifecycle of AI development and deployment.

Amazon has similarly committed to responsible AI practices through its Responsible AI framework for AWS services. The company states that it aims to integrate responsible AI considerations across the full lifecycle of AI design, development and operation, emphasizing safeguards such as fairness, explainability, privacy and security, safety, transparency, and governance. Amazon also says its AI services are designed with mechanisms for monitoring, and risk mitigation to help prevent harmful outputs or misuse and to enable responsible deployment across a range of use cases.

Google and Amazon have the knowledge, the leverage, and the responsibility to act now. Choosing not to is still a choice.

Here, the risks are neither speculative nor remote. They are foreseeable, well-documented, and exacerbated by the context in which Project Nimbus operates, which is an ongoing military campaign marked by widespread civilian harm and credible allegations of grave human rights violations including genocide. In such circumstances, waiting for definitive proof is not responsible risk management, it is willful blindness.

Modern cloud and AI systems are designed to be flexible, customizable, and deployable at scale, often beyond the vendor’s direct visibility. That reality is precisely why human rights due diligence must be proactive. Waiting for a leaked document or whistleblower account demonstrating direct misuse, as occurred in Microsoft’s case, means waiting until harm has already been done.

Microsoft’s Experience Should Have Been Warning Enough

As noted above, the recent revelations about Microsoft’s technologies being misused in violation of Microsoft’s commitments by the Israeli military illustrate the dangers of this wait-and-see approach. Google and Amazon should not need a similar incident to recognize what is at stake. The demonstrated misuse of comparable technologies, combined with Google’s and Amazon’s own knowledge of the risks associated with Project Nimbus, should already be sufficient to trigger action.

The appropriate response is to act responsibly and proactively.

Google and Amazon should immediately:

• Conduct and publish an independent human rights impact assessment of Project Nimbus.
• Disclose how they evaluate, monitor, and enforce compliance with their AI Principles in high-risk government contracts, including and especially in Project Nimbus.
• Commit to suspending or restricting services where there is a credible risk of serious human rights harm, even if definitive proof of misuse has not yet emerged.

Waiting Is a Choice, and Not One That Protects Human Rights

Google and Amazon publicly emphasize their commitment to responsible AI and respect for human rights. Those commitments are meaningless if they apply only once harm is undeniable and irreversible. In conflict settings, especially where secrecy and information asymmetry are the norm, companies must act on credible risk, not perfect evidence.

Google and Amazon have the knowledge, the leverage, and the responsibility to act now. Choosing not to is still a choice, and one that carries real consequences for people whose lives are already at risk.

Governments around the world are adopting new laws and policies aimed at addressing online harms, including laws intended to curb cybercrime and disinformation, and ostensibly protect user safety. While these efforts are often framed as necessary responses to legitimate concerns, they are increasingly being used in ways that restrict fundamental rights.

In a recent submission to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, we highlighted how these evolving regulatory approaches are affecting human rights defenders (HRDs) and the broader digital environment in which they operate.

Threats to Human Rights Defenders

Across multiple regions, cybercrime and national security laws are being applied to prosecute lawful expression, restrict access to information, and expand state surveillance. In some cases, these measures are implemented without adequate judicial oversight or clear safeguards, raising concerns about their compatibility with international human rights standards.

Regulatory developments in one jurisdiction are also influencing approaches elsewhere. The UK’s Online Safety Act, for example, has contributed to the global diffusion of “duty of care” frameworks. In other contexts, similar models have been adopted with fewer protections, including provisions that criminalize broadly defined categories of speech or require user identification, increasing risks for those engaged in the defense of human rights.

At the same time, disruptions to internet access—including shutdowns, throttling, and geo-blocking—continue to affect the ability of HRDs to communicate, document abuses, and access support networks. These measures can have significant implications not only for freedom of expression, but also for personal safety, particularly in situations of conflict or political unrest.

The expanded use of digital surveillance technologies further compounds these risks. Spyware and biometric monitoring systems have been deployed against activists and journalists, in some cases across national borders. These practices result in intimidation, detention, and other forms of retaliation.

The practices of social media platforms can also put human rights defenders—and their speech—at risk. Content moderation systems that rely on broadly defined policies, automated enforcement, and limited transparency can result in the removal or suppression of speech, including documentation of human rights violations. Inconsistent enforcement across languages and regions, as well as insufficient avenues for redress, disproportionately affects HRDs and marginalized communities.

Putting Human Rights First

These trends underscore the importance of ensuring that regulatory and corporate responses to online harms are grounded in human rights principles. This includes adopting clear and narrowly tailored legal frameworks, ensuring independent oversight, and providing effective safeguards for privacy, expression, and association.

It also requires meaningful engagement with civil society. Human rights defenders bring essential expertise on the local and contextual impacts of digital policies, and their participation is critical to developing effective and rights-respecting approaches.

As digital technologies continue to shape civic space, protecting the individuals and communities who rely on them to advance human rights remains an urgent priority.

You can read our full submission here.

Solar has shielded Pakistan from the Iranian energy crisis. But other countries looking to go green could struggle to replicate its success.

The agency removed a Biden-era section of its website that explained how the ocean could "alleviate certain impacts of climate change."

The Western utility giant sees a greater future for coal after congressional Republicans scrapped Biden-era incentives for wind and solar.

Some states want oil and gas companies to pay for property insurance rate hikes. Insurers say litigation would be costly and difficult.

Gov. Kathy Hochul plans to propose an interim 2040 target for emissions reductions. The state is already on track to make substantial progress by that year.

The state has just 18 percent of the snow a normal winter would bring to its mountains.

The effects of climate change can add up to more winter days when nitrates are likely to reach unhealthy levels in the ground.

The concession to Europe’s most polluting industries follows lobbying from Italy, Poland and Austria.

Slower sales are likely the new normal for Tesla as it increasingly pivots its focus to AI, autonomy and robotics amid weakening global EV demand.

Wired writes (alternate source):

Security researchers at Google on Tuesday released a report describing what they’re calling “Coruna,” a highly sophisticated iPhone hacking toolkit that includes five complete hacking techniques capable of bypassing all the defenses of an iPhone to silently install malware on a device when it visits a website containing the exploitation code. In total, Coruna takes advantage of 23 distinct vulnerabilities in iOS, a rare collection of hacking components that suggests it was created by a well-resourced, likely state-sponsored group of hackers...

The 2026 US “Cyber Strategy for America” document is mostly the same thing we’ve seen out of the White House for over a decade, but with a more aggressive tone.

But one sentence stood out: “We will unleash the private sector by creating incentives to identify and disrupt adversary networks and scale our national capabilities.” This sounds like a call for hackback: giving private companies permission to conduct offensive cyber operations.

The Economist noticed (alternate link) this, too.

I think this is an incredibly dumb idea:

In warfare, the notion of counterattack is extremely powerful. Going after the enemy­—its positions, its supply lines, its factories, its infrastructure—­is an age-old military tactic. But in peacetime, we call it revenge, and consider it dangerous. Anyone accused of a crime deserves a fair trial. The accused has the right to defend himself, to face his accuser, to an attorney, and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty...

This is the second installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings.

From Russia—where wartime censorship and more stringent platform controls have choked dissenting voices—to Nigeria, with its aggressive takedown orders turning social media into political battlegrounds, and to Turkey, where sweeping “disinformation” laws have made platforms heavily policed spaces, freedom of expression online is under attack. Per Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom on the Net Report, 66% of internet users live where political or social sites are blocked, and 78% are in countries where people have been arrested for online posts. New social media regulations have emerged in dozens of countries in the past year alone.

The online landscape looks markedly different than it did fifteen years ago. Back then, social media was still new and largely free from legal restrictions: platforms moderated content in response to user reports, governments rarely targeted them directly, and blocks (when they happened) were temporary, with censorship mostly focused on whole websites that VPNs or proxies could easily bypass. The internet was far from free, but governments’ crude tactics left space for circumvention.

Those early restrictions, as crude as they were, marked the start of a rapid evolution in online censorship. Governments like Thailand, which blocked thousands of YouTube videos in 2007 over critical content, and Turkey, which demanded takedowns from YouTube before blocking the site entirely, tested legal and technical pressures to mute dissent and force platforms’ compliance. By 2011, governments weren't just reacting—they had learned to pressure platforms into becoming instruments of state censorship, shifting their playbooks from blunt blocks to sophisticated systems of control that simple VPNs could no longer reliably bypass. Governments across the region were watching closely, and by the time the 2011 uprisings began, they were prepared to respond.

Looking Back

After learning that a Facebook page—We Are All Khaled Said, honoring a young man killed by police brutality—sparked Egypt’s street protests, Western media hailed online platforms as engines of democracy. Revolution co-creator Wael Ghonim told a journalist: “This revolution started on Facebook.” That claim was debated and contested for years; critically, Facebook had suspended the page two months earlier over pseudonyms violating its real-name policy, restoring it only after advocates intervened. 

Once the protests moved to the streets, Egypt’s government—alert to social media’s power—quickly blocked Facebook and Twitter, then enacted a near-total shutdown (more on that in part 4 of this series). As history shows, the measures didn’t stop the revolution, and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. For a brief moment, freedom appeared to be on the horizon. Unfortunately, that moment was short-lived.

Egypt’s Digital Dystopia

Just as the Egyptian military government quashed revolution in the streets, they also shut down  online civic space. Today, Egypt’s internet ranks low on markers of internet freedom. The military government that has ruled Egypt since 2013 has imprisoned human rights defenders and enacted laws—including 2015’s Counter-terrorism Law and 2018’s Cybercrime Law—that grant the state broad authority to suppress speech and prosecute offenders.

The 2018 law demonstrates the ease with which cybercrime laws can be abused. Article 7 of the law allows for websites that constitute “a threat to national security” or to the “national economy” to be blocked. The Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) has criticized the loose definition of “national security” contained within the law, as “everything related to the independence, stability, security, unity and territorial integrity of the homeland.” Notably, individuals can also be penalized—and sentenced to up to six months imprisonment—for accessing banned websites.

Articles 25, which prohibits the use of technology to “infringe on any family principles or values in Egyptian society,” and 26, which prohibits the dissemination of material that “violates public morals,” have been used in recent years to prosecute young people who use social media in ways in which the government disapproves. Many of those prosecuted have been young women; for instance, belly dancer Sama Al Masry was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 300,000 Egyptian pounds under Article 26.

Beyond Egypt: Regional Trends

Egypt’s trajectory reflects a wider regional and global pattern. In the years following the uprisings, governments moved quickly to formalize legal authority over digital space, often under the banner of combating cybercrime, terrorism, or “false information.” These laws often contain vaguely worded provisions criminalizing “misuse of social media” or “harming national unity,” giving authorities wide discretion to prosecute speech.

In Qatar and Bahrain, a social media post can result in up to five years in jail. In 2018, prominent Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab was convicted of “spreading false rumours in time of war”, “insulting public authorities”, and “insulting a foreign country” for tweets he posted about the killing of civilians in Yemen and sentenced to five years imprisonment. 

Two years later, Qatar amended its penal code by setting criminal penalties for spreading “fake news.” Article 136 (bis) sets criminal penalties for broadcasting, publishing, or republishing “rumors or statements or false or malicious news or sensational propaganda, inside or outside the state, whenever it is intended to harm national interests or incite public opinion or disturb the social or public order of the state” and sets a punishment of a maximum of five years in prison, and/or 100,000 Qatari riyals. The penalty is doubled if the crime is committed in wartime.

Now, as war has once again reached the region, these laws are being put to the test. Bahraini authorities have arrested at least 100 people in relation to protests or expression related to the war, while Qatar has arrested more than 300 people on charges of spreading “misleading information.”

And in the UAE, at least 35 people—most or all of whom are foreign nationals—have been arrested and “accused of spreading misleading and fabricated content online that could harm national defence efforts and fuel public panic,” according to the Times of India. The arrests fall under the UAE’s 2022 Federal Decree Law No. 34 on Combating Rumours and Cybercrimes which—says Human Rights Watch—is, along with the country’s Penal Code, “used to silence dissidents, journalists, activists, and anyone the authorities perceived to be critical of the government, its policies, or its representatives.”

From Regional Practice to Global Pattern

Today roughly four out of five countries worldwide have enacted cybercrime legislation, a dramatic expansion over the past decade, with many governments adopting or revising such laws in the years following the Arab uprisings. 

Outside the region, other nations have repurposed these laws to police speech. In Nigeria, journalists have been detained under the Cybercrime Act, with dozens of prosecutions documented since 2015. Bangladesh’s Digital Security Act has been used in thousands of cases—including hundreds against journalists—while in Uganda, authorities have prosecuted political critics under computer misuse laws for social media posts. 

Cybercrime laws are only one piece of a broader toolkit that governments now deploy to control digital spaces. Over the past decade, authorities have introduced sweeping “disinformation” laws, platform liability rules, age verification laws, and data localization requirements that force companies to store data domestically or appoint legal representatives within national jurisdictions. These measures give governments leverage over global technology firms, enabling them to demand faster content removals, obtain user data, or threaten steep fines and throttling if platforms fail to comply. Rather than relying solely on blunt instruments like blocking entire websites, states increasingly govern speech through layered regulatory systems that pressure platforms to police users on the state’s behalf.

The platforms too have changed. The same social media companies that were once championed as tools of democratic mobilization now operate in more constrained environments—and often act as willing participants in repressing speech. Facing financial penalties and the prospect of being blocked entirely, many companies expanded compliance with takedown requests after 2011, as can be seen in the companies’ own transparency reports. They later invested heavily in automated technologies that remove vast quantities of content before it is ever publicly available.

Rights groups around the world, including EFF, have warned that these dynamics disproportionately impact historically marginalized and vulnerable groups, as well as journalists and other human rights defenders. Research by the Palestinian digital rights organization 7amleh and reporting by Human Rights Watch have documented how content moderation policies, government pressure, and opaque enforcement mechanisms increasingly converge—leaving activists, journalists, and human rights defenders caught between state censorship and platform governance.

The New Architecture of Repression

Looking back now, it’s clear that, fifteen years ago, governments were caught off guard. They crudely blocked platforms, shut down networks, and scrambled to contain movements they did not fully understand. But in the years since, states have systematically adapted, transforming what were once reactive measures into durable systems of control.

Today’s controls are embedded in law, outsourced to platforms, and justified through the language of security, safety, and order. Cybercrime statutes, disinformation frameworks, and platform regulations form a layered architecture that allows states to shape online expression at scale while maintaining a veneer of legality. In this system, repression is often procedural, bureaucratic, and continuous.

The question is no longer whether the internet can enable dissent, but whether it can still sustain it under these conditions.

This is the second installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Read the rest of the series here.

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