Most of us know that a neon bulb requires a significant voltage to strike, in the region of 100 volts. There are plenty of circuits to make that voltage from a lower supply, should you wish to have that comforting glow of old, but perhaps one of the simplest comes from [meinsamayhun]. The neon is lit from a 9-volt battery, and the only other component is a relay.

What’s going on? It’s a simple mechanical version of a boost converter, with the relay wired as a buzzer. On each “off” cycle, the magnetic field in the coil collapses, and instead of being harvested by a diode as with a boost converter, it lights the neon. Presumably, the neon also saves the relay contacts from too much wear.

We like this project for its simplicity and for managing to do something useful without a semiconductor or vacuum tube in sight. It’s the very spirit of our 2025 Component Abuse Challenge, for which there is barely time to enter yourself if you have something in mind.

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Last weekend was Supercon, and it was, in a word super. So many people sharing so much enthusiasm and hackery, and so many good times. It’s a yearly dose of hacker mojo that we as Hackaday staff absolutely cherish, and we heard the same from many of the participants as well. We always come away with new ideas for projects, or new takes on our current top-of-the-heap obsession.

If you didn’t get a chance to see the talks live, head on over to the Hackaday YouTube stream and get yourself caught up really quickly, because that’s only half of the talks. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be writing up the other track of Design Lab talks and getting them out to you ASAP.

If you didn’t get to join us because you are on an entirely different continent, well, that’s a decent excuse. But if that continent is Europe, you can catch us up in the Spring of 2026, because we’re already at work planning our next event on that side of the Atlantic.

Our conferences always bring out the best of our community, and the people who show up are so amazingly positive, knowledgeable, and helpful. It’s too bad that it can only happen a few times per year, but it surely charges up our hacker batteries. So thanks to all the attendees, presenters, volunteers, and sponsors who make it all possible!

This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on the web version of the newsletter. Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning? You should sign up!

hackaday.com/2025/11/08/thanks…

While it sounds like the start of a joke, Australian shipmaker Incat Tasmania isn’t kidding around about electric ships. Hull 096 has started charging, although it has only 85% of the over 5,000 lithium-ion batteries it will have when complete. The ship has a 40 megawatt-hour storage system with 12 banks of batteries, each consisting of 418 modules for a total of 5,016 cells. [Vannessa Bates Ramierz] breaks it down in a recent post over on IEEE Spectrum. You can get an eyeful of the beast in the official launch video, below. The Incat Tasmania channel also has other videos about the ship.

The batteries use no racks to save weight. Good thing since they already weigh in at 250 tonnes. Of course, cooling is a problem, too. Each module has a fan, and special techniques prevent one hot cell from spreading. Charging in Australia comes from a grid running 100% renewable energy. When the ship enters service as a ferry between Argentina and Uruguay, a 40-minute charge will be different. Currently, Uruguay has about 92% of its power from renewable sources. Argentina still uses mostly natural gas, but 42% of its electricity is sourced from renewable generation.

The ship is 130 meters (426 feet) long, mostly aluminum, and has a reported capacity of 2,100 people and 225 vehicles per trip. Ferry service is perfect for electric ships — the distance is short, and it’s easy to schedule time to charge. Like all electric vehicles, though, the batteries won’t stay at full capacity for long. Typical ship design calls for a 20-year service life, and it’s not uncommon for a vessel to remain in service for 30 or even 40 years. But experts expect the batteries on the ferry will need to be replaced every 5 to 10 years.

While electric ferries may become common, we don’t expect to see electric cargo ships plying the ocean soon. Diesel is hard to beat for compact storage and high energy density. There are a few examples of cargo ships using electric, though. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t build your own electric watercraft.

youtube.com/embed/5GVwLNH_Qus?…

hackaday.com/2025/11/08/what-h…

Le ultime dichiarazioni di Sam Altman, CEO di OpenAI, in merito al progresso dell’intelligenza artificiale (IA) non sono molto incoraggianti, in quanto ha recentemente affermato di essere preoccupato per “l’impatto dell’IA sui posti di lavoro”e ha anche chiarito che non saremo al sicuro nemmeno in un bunker “se l’IA sfugge al controllo” .

Ma non è tutto, perché in una recente intervista l’AD di OpenAI ha dichiarato senza mezzi termini che dovremmo preoccuparci del futuro che l’intelligenza artificiale ci porterà: “Penso che succederà qualcosa di brutto con l’intelligenza artificiale”.

Come riporta un articolo di Investopedia, un mese fa Sam Altman ha partecipato a un’intervista per il videopodcast a16z della società di venture capital Andreessen Horowitz e ha colto l’occasione per dire che si aspetta che accadano cose brutte a causa dell’intelligenza artificiale: “Spero che a causa della tecnologia non accadano cose davvero brutte”.

youtube.com/embed/JfE1Wun9xkk?…

Come potete vedere nell’intervista qui sotto, Altman si riferiva a Sora, uno strumento di generazione video lanciato a fine settembre da OpenAI che è rapidamente diventato l’app più scaricata sull’App Store negli Stati Uniti. Ciò ha portato a un’ondata di deepfake creati da questo modello, che hanno inondato i social media con video con personaggi come Martin Luther King Jr. e altri personaggi pubblici come lo stesso Altman.

In effetti, Altman è apparso in questi video mentre compiva varie attività criminali, come potete vedere in questa Instagram Story. Ma non è tutto, poiché Altman ha anche affermato che strumenti come Sora necessitano di controlli per impedire che questa tecnologia venga utilizzata per scopi dannosi: “Molto presto il mondo dovrà vedersela con incredibili modelli video in grado di fingere chiunque o di mostrare qualsiasi cosa si voglia”.

Allo stesso modo, il creatore di ChatGPT ha affermato che, invece di perfezionare questo tipo di tecnologia a porte chiuse, la società e l’intelligenza artificiale dovrebbero collaborare per “co-evolversi” e “non si può semplicemente lasciare tutto alla fine“.

Secondo Altman, ciò che dovremmo fare è offrire alle persone un’esposizione precoce a questo tipo di tecnologia, in modo che le comunità possano creare norme e barriere prima che questi strumenti diventino ancora più potenti. Afferma inoltre che, se lo faremo, saremo meglio preparati quando arriveranno modelli di generazione video basati sull’intelligenza artificiale ancora più avanzati di quelli attuali.

L’avvertimento di Sam Altman non si riferiva solo ai video falsi, ma anche al fatto che molti di noi tendono a “esternalizzare” le proprie decisioni ad algoritmi che poche persone comprendono: “Penso ancora che ci saranno momenti strani o spaventosi.”

Inoltre, Altman ha anche spiegato che il fatto che l’intelligenza artificiale non abbia ancora causato un evento catastrofico “non significa che non lo farà mai” e che “miliardi di persone che parlano allo stesso cervello” potrebbero finire per creare “strane cose su scala sociale” .

“Credo che come società svilupperemo delle barriere attorno a questo fenomeno” ha detto. Infine, sebbene si tratti di qualcosa che ci riguarda tutti, Altman si oppone a una regolamentazione rigida di questa tecnologia perché afferma che “la maggior parte delle regolamentazioni probabilmente presenta molti svantaggi” e che l’ideale sarebbe condurre “test di sicurezza molto accurati” con questi nuovi modelli che ha definito “estremamente sovrumani” .

L'articolo Sam Altman “Spero che a causa della tecnologia non accadano cose brutte” proviene da Red Hot Cyber.

Il colosso della tecnologia ha annunciato la creazione di un nuovo team di sviluppo per un’intelligenza artificiale “sovrumana” che supererà in accuratezza gli esperti umani nelle diagnosi mediche. Il team sarà guidato da Mustafa Suleiman, responsabile dell’intelligenza artificiale dell’azienda.

Microsoft ha annunciato la creazione di un nuovo team chiamato MAI Superintelligence Team, che mira a sviluppare un’intelligenza artificiale “sovrumana” specializzata nella diagnostica medica. Lo riporta Reuters. Il progetto è guidato da Mustafa Suleiman, ex co-fondatore di DeepMind e Inflection AI.

Secondo Suleiman, il nuovo team non mira a sviluppare un’intelligenza generale (AGI) in grado di svolgere qualsiasi compito umano, ma piuttosto a concentrarsi su “modelli esperti” che raggiungeranno livelli di accuratezza sovrumani in aree specifiche, principalmente la diagnosi medica. Questo, afferma, è un primo passo verso lo sviluppo di capacità di intelligenza artificiale che rileveranno le malattie prima degli esseri umani e potranno prolungare la durata e la qualità della vita dei pazienti.

Ha affermato che Microsoft ha un piano concreto e chiaro per sviluppare entro due o tre anni un sistema di intelligenza artificiale che supererà in accuratezza gli esperti umani nelle diagnosi mediche. Suleiman ha osservato che l’azienda intende investire risorse significative nel processo, aggiungendo che il successo segnerebbe una svolta storica nel campo della salute globale.

Secondo le stime di mercato, Microsoft integrerà i frutti della nuova iniziativa nei suoi servizi cloud Azure Health Data Services e nelle collaborazioni esistenti con istituti medici negli Stati Uniti e in Europa. L’obiettivo immediato è migliorare l’accuratezza delle diagnosi basate su immagini, delle analisi genetiche e della lettura dei riepiloghi delle visite mediche, riducendo al contempo gli errori umani e accelerando le decisioni cliniche.

Oltre all’entusiasmo, la mossa solleva interrogativi normativi ed etici sul grado di fiducia nei sistemi che raggiungono un’accuratezza e una sicurezza “sovrumane” in caso di errore medico.

Suleiman ha sottolineato che Microsoft eviterà sviluppi che rappresentino un rischio esistenziale e si concentrerà su soluzioni sicure per uso medico

L'articolo Il nuovo obiettivo di Microsoft per l’intelligenza artificiale? La medicina! proviene da Red Hot Cyber.

Non so se vi è mai capitato di avere un sogno, sperare di poterlo realizzare, e poi desiderare che si avveri, ogni giorno più intensamente.

A me è capitato tante volte, e altrettante volte i sogni si sono infranti. Alcuni erano anche molto grandi, e la delusione è stata tanta quando è successo. Forse sono una persona che si crea troppe aspettative; chissà.

Ma quando il mio sogno è diventato quello di non provare più dolore e malessere, allora la questione è cambiata: era GIUSTO che io realizzassi quel sogno. Pensavo che ci sarei riuscito facilmente, e non solo mi sembrava che una qualche giustizia divina me lo avrebbe concesso, ma addirittura che sarebbe stato più semplice riuscirci, più che per tutti gli altri sogni che avevo coltivato.

Non è stato così.

Il sogno di vivere a Tenerife si è sbriciolato velocemente dal 2020 in poi, quando ho iniziato a capire che quel posto, l'unico in cui io stia davvero bene, non era più vivibile. Troppe persone ci si sono trasferite, troppi turisti continuano ad andarci, rendendolo di fatto un luogo inospitale.

Riuscite ad immaginare come mi sentivo ritornando a Tenerife, dopo che avevo capito che anche a El Hierro non avrei potuto vivere?

Cercavo di non rovinarmi quei pochi giorni di permanenza amara, in cui tutto ciò che vedevo - e sentivo - somigliava ad una preziosa torta, che i miei occhi di bambino non potevano vedere, ma non toccare.

Eppure, l'isola è riuscita ad insegnarmi qualcosa.

Di nuovo.

Il racconto è in questo episodio del podcast.

Verso Casa

2025-11-09 08:00:45

Tenerife: l'isola perfetta, dove non posso vivere.
Nel quinto episodio del podcast in cui cerco una nuova casa, eccomi di nuovo a Tenerife, l'isola dove mi sarei dovuto trasferire ma che nel frattempo è diventata "inospitale".
Ogni volta che la vedo è una fitta al cuore, ma anche stavolta mi ha insegnato qualcosa di importante.
Buon ascolto.

The drive to protect minors online has been gaining momentum in recent years and is now making its mark in global policy circles. This shift, strongly supported by public sentiment, has also reached the European Union.

In a recent development, Members of the European Parliament, as part of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, approved a report raising serious concerns about the shortcomings of major online platforms in safeguarding minors. With 32 votes in favour, the Committee highlighted growing worries over issues such as online addiction, mental health impacts, and children’s exposure to illegal or harmful digital content.

What Is In The Report

The report discusses the creation of frameworks and systems to support age verification and protect children’s rights and privacy online. This calls for a significant push to incorporate safety measures as an integral part of the system’s design, within a social responsibility framework, to make the internet a safe environment for minors.

MEPs have proposed sixteen years as the minimum age for children to access social media, video-sharing platforms, and AI-based chat companions. Children below sixteen can access the above-mentioned platforms with parental permission. However, a proposal has been put forth demanding that an absolute minimum age of thirteen be set. This indicates that children under 13 cannot access or use social media platforms, even with parental permission.

In Short:

• Under 13 years of age: Not allowed on social media
• 13-15 years of age: Allowed with parents’ approval
• 16 years and above: Can use freely, no consent required

MEPs recommended stricter actions against non-compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA). Stricter actions range from holding the senior executives of the platforms responsible for breaches of security affecting minors to imposing huge fines.

The recommendations include banning addictive design features and engagement-driven algorithms, removing gambling-style elements in games, and ending the monetisation of minors as influencers. They also call for tighter control over AI tools that create fake or explicit content and stronger rules against manipulative chatbots.

What Do Reports And Research Say?

The operative smoothness and convenience introduced by the digital and technological advancements over the last two decades have changed how the world works and communicates. The internet provides a level field for everyone to connect, learn, and make an impact. However, the privacy of internet users and the access to and control over data are points of contention and a constant topic of debate. With an increasing percentage of minor users globally, the magnitude of risks has been multiplied. Lack or limited awareness of understanding of digital boundaries and the deceptive nature of the online environment make minors more susceptible to the dangers. Exposure to inappropriate content, cyberbullying, financial scams, identity theft, and manipulation through social media or gaming platforms are a few risks to begin with. Their curiosity to explore beyond boundaries often makes minors easy targets for online predators.

Recent studies have made the following observations (the studies are EU-relevant):

• According to the Internet Watch Foundation Annual Data & Insights / 2024 (reported 2025 releases), Record levels of child sexual abuse imagery were discovered in 2024; IWF actioned 291,273 reports and found 62% of identified child sexual abuse webpages were hosted in EU countries.
• WeProtect Global Alliance Global Threat Assessment 2023 (relevant to the EU) reported an 87% increase in child sexual abuse material since 2019. Rapid grooming on social gaming platforms and emerging threats from AI-generated sexual abuse material are the new patterns of online exploitation.
• According to WHO/Europe HBSC Volume on Bullying & Peer Violence (2024), one in six school-aged children (around 15-16%) experienced cyberbullying in 2022, a rise from previous survey rounds.

These reports indicate the alarming situation regarding minors’ safety and reflect the urgency with which the Committee is advancing its recommendations. Voting is due on the 23rd-24th of November, 2025.

While these reports underline the scale of the threat, they also raise an important question: are current solutions, like age verification, truly effective?

How Foolproof Is Age Verification As A Measure?

The primary concern in promoting age verification as a defence mechanism against cybercrime is the authenticity of those verification processes and whether they are robust enough to eliminate unethical practices targeting users. For instance, if the respondent (user) provides inaccurate information during the age verification process, are there any mechanisms in place to verify its accuracy?

Additionally, implementing age verification for children is next to impossible without violating the rights to privacy and free speech of adults, raising the question of who shall have access to and control over users’ data – Government bodies or big tech companies. Has “maintenance of anonymity” while providing data been given enough thought in drafting these policies? This is a matter of concern.

According to EDRI, a leading European Digital Rights NGO, deploying age verification as a measure to tackle multiple forms of cybercrime against minors is not a new policy. Reportedly, social media platforms were made to adopt similar measures in 2009. However, the problem still exists. Age verification as a countermeasure to cybercrime against minors is a superficial fix. Do the Commission’s safety guidelines address the root cause of the problem – a toxic online environment – is an important question to answer.

EDRI’s Key arguments:

• Age verification is not a solution to problems of toxic platform design, such as addictive features and manipulative algorithms.
• It restricts children’s rights to access information and express themselves, rather than empowering them.
• It can exclude or discriminate against users without digital IDs or access to verification tools.
• Lawmakers are focusing on exclusion instead of systemic reform — creating safer, fairer online spaces for everyone.
• True protection lies in platform accountability and ethical design, not mass surveillance or one-size-fits-all age gates.

Read the complete article here:
https://edri.org/our-work/age-verification-gains-traction-eu-risks-failing-to-address-the-root-causes-of-online-harm/ | https://archive.ph/wip/LIMUI: Protecting Minors Online: Can Age Verification Truly Make the Internet Safer?
Before floating any policy into the periphery of execution, weighing the positive and negative user experiences is pivotal, because a blanket policy based on age brackets might make it ineffective at mitigating the risks of an unsafe online space. Here, educating and empowering both parents and children with digital literacy can have a more profound and meaningful impact rather than simply regulating age brackets. Change always comes with informed choices.

Possibile è presente alla Controconferenza nazionale “Sulle droghe abbiamo un piano” con Giulia Marro, Consigliera Regionale del Piemonte, e Domenico Sperone, assessore del Comune di Canale.

La controconferenza si svolge a Roma in parallelo alla conferenza governativa che si è aperta all’Eur.

È stata promossa dalla Rete nazionale per la riforma delle politiche sulle droghe, dopo che il governo ha rifiutato ogni confronto con la società civile e gli enti locali. L’impostazione della conferenza ufficiale rimane ancorata a un modello repressivo e datato, ancora legato allo slogan “un mondo senza droghe”, lontano dalle conoscenze scientifiche e dalle esperienze sviluppate a livello internazionale.

L’iniziativa propone un piano alternativo per le politiche sulle droghe, basato su salute pubblica, diritti umani e riduzione del danno, in linea con le raccomandazioni ONU e con le pratiche già adottate in diversi Paesi.

Nella prima giornata, il 6 novembre, si sono alternati interventi di esperti e rappresentanti di reti internazionali, tra cui Susanna Ronconi (Forum Droghe), Saner Mahmood (Alto Commissariato ONU per i Diritti Umani), Marie Nougier (International Drug Policy Consortium), Adria Cots Fernández (Apertura Politiche Droghe) ed Eligia Parodi (rete EuroPUD, persone che usano droghe).

È emerso un messaggio chiaro: le politiche punitive non riducono i consumi né migliorano la salute pubblica, ma producono esclusione e stigma. Sempre più paesi — tra cui Portogallo, Spagna e Svizzera — stanno invece seguendo la via della depenalizzazione e dell’investimento in servizi di riduzione del danno.

I lavori si sono articolati in tre panel:
1. Politiche e diritti umani, con un’analisi dei cambiamenti globali e delle nuove risoluzioni ONU;
2. Riduzione del danno come politica complessiva, con esperienze europee e latinoamericane che integrano salute, inclusione e giustizia sociale;
3. Psichedelici per uso medico, dedicato alla libertà di ricerca e ai trattamenti innovativi.

La controconferenza ha sottolineato anche il ruolo delle città e delle amministrazioni locali, che in molti casi sono il primo livello istituzionale capace di attuare politiche concrete e basate sui diritti.

Per Possibile, questo appuntamento rappresenta uno spazio politico necessario per costruire politiche sulle droghe efficaci e umane, fondate su salute, evidenze scientifiche e rispetto della dignità delle persone, superando definitivamente l’approccio repressivo e ideologico che continua a dominare il dibattito nazionale.

L'articolo Sulle droghe abbiamo un piano: Possibile alla contro-conferenza nazionale sulle droghe proviene da Possibile.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Rümeysa Öztürk has been facing deportation for 227 days for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like, and the government hasn’t stopped targeting journalists for deportation. Read on for news from Illinois, our latest public records lawsuit, and how you can take action to protect journalism.

Enforce ICE restraining orders now

A federal judge in Chicago yesterday entered an order to stop federal immigration officers from targeting journalists and peaceful protesters, affirming journalists’ right to cover protests and their aftermath without being assaulted or arrested.

Judge Sara Ellis entered her ruling — which extended a similar prior order against Immigration and Customs Enforcement — in dramatic fashion, quoting everyone from Chicago journalist and poet Carl Sandburg to the Founding Fathers. But the real question is whether she’ll enforce the order when the feds violate it, as they surely will. After all, they violated the prior order repeatedly and egregiously.

Federal judges can fine and jail people who violate their orders. But they rarely use those powers, especially against the government. That needs to change when state thugs are tearing up the First Amendment on Chicago’s streets. We suspect Sandburg would agree.

Journalist Raven Geary of Unraveled Press summed it up at a press conference after the hearing: “If people think a reporter can’t be this opinionated, let them think that. I know what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t feel an ounce of shame saying that this is wrong.”

Congratulations to Geary and the rest of the journalists and press organizations in Chicago and Los Angeles that are standing against those wrongs by taking the government to court and winning. Listen to Geary’s remarks here.

Journalists speak out about abductions from Gaza aid flotillas

We partnered with Defending Rights & Dissent to platform three U.S. journalists who were abducted from humanitarian flotillas bound for Gaza and detained by Israel.

They discussed the inaction from their own government in the aftermath of their abduction, shared their experiences while detained, and reflected on what drove them to take this risk while so many reporters are self-censoring.

We’ll have a write-up of the event soon, but it deserves to be seen in full. Watch it here.

FPF takes ICE to court over dangerous secrecy

We filed yet another Freedom of Information Act lawsuit this week — this time to uncover records on ICE’s efforts to curtail congressional access to immigration facilities.

“ICE loves to demand our papers but it seems they don’t like it as much when we demand theirs,” attorney Ginger Quintero-McCall of Free Information Group said.

If you are a FOIA lawyer who is interested in working with us pro bono or for a reduced fee on FOIA litigation, please email lauren@freedom.press.

Read more about our latest lawsuit here.

If Big Tech can’t withstand jawboning, how can individual journalists?

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz convened yet another congressional hearing on Biden-era “jawboning” of Big Tech companies. The message: Government officials leaning on these multibillion-dollar conglomerates to influence the views they platform was akin to censorship.

Sure, the Biden administration’s conduct is worth scrutinizing and learning from. But if you accept the premise that gigantic tech companies are susceptible to soft pressure from a censorial government, doesn’t it go without saying that so are individual journalists who lack anything close to those resources?

We wrote about the numerous instances of “jawboning” of individual reporters during the current administration that Senate Republicans failed to address at their hearing. Read more here.

Tell lawmakers from both parties to oppose Tim Burke prosecution

Conservatives are outraged at Tucker Carlson for throwing softballs to neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. But the Trump administration is continuing its predecessor’s prosecution of journalist Tim Burke for exposing Tucker Carlson whitewashing another antisemite — Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

Lawmakers shouldn’t stand for this hypocrisy, regardless of political party. Tell them to speak up with our action center.

What we’re reading

FBI investigating recent incident involving feds in Evanston, tries to block city from releasing records (Evanston RoundTable). Apparently obstructing transparency at the federal level is no longer enough and the government now wants to meddle with municipal police departments’ responses to public records requests.

To preserve records, Homeland Security now relies on officials to take screenshots (The New York Times). The new policy “drastically increases the likelihood the agency isn’t complying with the Federal Records Act,” FPF’s Lauren Harper told the Times.

When your local reporter needs the same protection as a war correspondent (Poynter). Foreign war correspondents get “hostile environment training, security consultants, trauma counselors and legal teams. … Local newsrooms covering militarized federal operations in their own communities? Sometimes all we have is Google, group chats and each other.”

YouTube quietly erased more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations (The Intercept). “It is outrageous that YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view,” said Katherine Gallagher of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Plea to televise Charlie Kirk trial renews Senate talk of cameras in courtrooms (Courthouse News Service). It’s past time for cameras in courtrooms nationwide. None of the studies have ever substantiated whatever harms critics have claimed transparency would cause. Hopefully, the Kirk trial will make this a bipartisan issue.

When storytelling is called ‘terrorism’: How my friend and fellow journalist was targeted by ICE (The Barbed Wire). “The government is attempting to lay a foundation for dissenting political beliefs as grounds for terrorism. And people like Ya’akub — non-white [or] non-Christian — have been made its primary examples. Both journalists; like Mario Guevara … and civilians.”

freedom.press/issues/time-to-e…

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz convened yet another congressional hearing on Biden-era “jawboning” of Big Tech companies. The message: Government officials leaning on these multibillion-dollar conglomerates to influence the views they platform was akin to censorship. Officials may not have formally ordered the companies to self-censor, but they didn’t have to – businesspeople know it’s in their economic interests to stay on the administration’s good side.

They’re not entirely wrong. Public officials are entitled to express their opinions about private speech, but it’s a different story when they lead speakers to believe they have no choice but to appease the government. At the same time the Biden administration was making asks of social platforms, the former president and other Democrats (and Republicans) pushed for repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that allows social media to exist.

It’s unlikely that the Biden administration intended its rhetoric around Section 230 to intimidate social media platforms into censorship. That said, it’s certainly possible companies made content decisions they otherwise wouldn’t have when requested by a government looking to legislate them out of existence. It’s something worth exploring and learning from.

But if you accept the premise — as I do — that gigantic tech companies with billions in the bank and armies of lawyers are susceptible to soft pressure from a censorial government, doesn’t it go without saying that so are individual journalists who lack anything close to those resources?

If it’s jawboning when Biden officials suggest Facebook take down anti-vaccine posts, isn’t it “jawboning” when a North Carolina GOP official tells ProPublica to kill a story, touting connections to the Trump administration? When the president calls for reporters to be fired for doing basic journalism, like reporting on leaks? When the White House and Pentagon condition access on helping them further official narratives? A good-faith conversation about jawboning can’t just ignore all of that.

Here are some more incidents Cruz and his colleagues have not held hearings about:

• A Department of Homeland Security official publicly accused a Chicago Tribune reporter of “interference” for the act of reporting where immigration enforcement was occurring. Journalism, in the government’s telling, constituted obstruction of justice. That certainly could lead others to tread cautiously when exercising their constitutional right to document law enforcement actions.
• Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attacked Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima by name, suggesting her reporting methods — which is to say, calling government officials — were improper and reflected a media establishment “desperate to sabotage POTUS’s successful agenda.” Might that dissuade reporters from seeking comment from sources, or sources from providing such comment to reporters?
• When a journalist suggested people contact her on the encrypted messaging app Signal, an adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said she should be banned from Pentagon coverage. The Pentagon then attempted to exclude her from Hegseth’s trip to Singapore. Putting aside the irony of Hegseth’s team taking issue with Signal usage, it’s fair to assume journalists are less likely to suggest sources lawfully contact them via secure technologies if doing so leads to government threats and retaliation.
• Bill Essayli, a U.S. attorney in California, publicly called a reporter “a joke, not a journalist” for commenting on law enforcement policies for shooting at moving vehicles. Obviously, remarks from prosecutors carry unique weight and have significant potential to chill speech, particularly when prosecutors make clear that they don’t view a journalist as worthy of the First Amendment’s protections for their profession.

Sources wanting to expose wrongdoing ... will think twice about talking to journalists who are known targets of an out-of-control administration.

There are plenty more examples — and that doesn’t even get into all the targeting of news outlets, from major broadcast networks to community radio stations. They may have more resources than individual reporters, but they’re nowhere near as well positioned to withstand a major spike in legal bills and insurance premiums as big social media firms (who this administration also jawbones to censor constitutionally protected content).

And hovering over all of this is President Donald Trump himself, whose social media feed doubles as an intimidation campaign against reporters. Our Trump Anti-Press Social Media Tracker documents hundreds of posts targeting not only news outlets but individual journalists. It’s documented over 3,500 posts. Unlike Biden-era “jawboning,” threats like these come from the very top — people in a position to actually carry them out. And unlike Biden’s administration, Trump’s track record makes the threat of government retribution real, not hypothetical.

Trump views excessive criticism of him as “probably illegal.” He has made very clear his desire for journalists to be imprisoned, sued for billions, and assaulted for reasons completely untethered to the Constitution, and has surrounded himself with bootlicking stooges eager to carry out his whims. “Chilling” is an understatement for the effect when a sitting president — particularly an authoritarian one — threatens journalists for doing their job.

It’s not only that these journalists don’t have the resources of Meta, Alphabet, and the like. They also have much more to lose. Tech companies might get some bad PR based on how they handle government takedown requests, but it’s unlikely to significantly impact their bottom line, particularly when news content comprises a small fraction of their business.

But journalists don’t just host news content, they create it. Their whole careers depend on their reputations and the willingness of sources to trust them. Sources wanting to expose wrongdoing, who often talk to journalists at great personal risk and try to keep a low profile, will think twice about talking to journalists who are known targets of an out-of-control administration.

Other news outlets might be reluctant to hire someone who has been singled out by the world’s most powerful person and his lackeys. Editors and publishers — already spooked about publishing articles that might draw a SLAPP suit or worse from Trump — will be doubly hesitant when the article is written by someone already on the administration’s public blacklist.

Unlike Biden’s antics, the Trump administration has cut out the middleman by directly targeting the speech and speakers it doesn’t like. And it wields this power against people with a fraction of the resources to fight back. If that’s not jawboning, what is?

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