Compiled by Sarah Willrich.
Articles
The “GEC Files” Don’t Show a Censorship Operation
Renée DiResta examined the State Department’s claim that its former Global Engagement Center (GEC) colluded with a Stanford research consortium to suppress online speech supportive of then-candidate Trump during the 2020 election. DiResta found that the latest document release doesn’t support that claim, was already public, and drastically overstates the scale at which the consortium flagged content as problematic.
The documents Jordan released offer hard evidence that EIP independently assessed all tips and frequently declined to escalate them. Several tickets were marked as out-of-scope—not relevant to the project. Others received a form response: “Thank you very much for your submission. We will be monitoring this situation for further updates.“ If this was a censorship cutout, it was strikingly undisciplined about executing the Deep State’s plan.
Dig a bit further and the numbers get more damning—for Rogers.
The First Amendment Problems With Meta’s $17 Billion Deal
Jeff Kosseff argued that Meta’s settlement with 47 states is a form of jawboning: restricting First Amendment rights indirectly by pressuring a third party to do what the government could not do directly. Kosseff identified three ways the settlement could limit those rights: preventing children from seeing certain content, mandating what features Meta can offer and to whom, and limiting anonymity for adult users through age verification requirements.
Meta had warned that the litigation could lead to liability of up to $1.4 trillion. Even if Meta has “voluntarily” entered into the settlement, it is difficult to argue that the threat of losing an existential lawsuit did not factor into its decision. And even though Meta is free to enter into this agreement, it should not be able to waive the First Amendment interests of millions of speakers and users. The settlement is particularly concerning for the broader internet because Meta would pay more if TikTok and YouTube adopt similar restrictions.
Understanding Al-Shabaab’s Recruitment Pipeline
In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Ismail Abukar explained that Al-Shabaab’s recruitment relies primarily on family ties, not ideology—creating a self-replicating pipeline where younger initiates are recruited by family members already in the group. Abukar argued that rather than counter-messaging, interventions should focus on providing alternative social structures and meaningful political inclusion for those vulnerable to recruitment.
The children of that initial generation are joining for a different reason: family membership. His father was Al-Shabaab and there was no other world to grow up in. While the motivation to join Al-Shabaab has changed across generations, Al-Shabaab’s pipeline of recruits did not. The communities are the same, but the mechanism has shifted—reinforced by subclan identity and familial legacy of membership that is now being passed to a new generation. This distinction matters because it changes what intervention is required. Economic development would address the first generation’s pathway, but it does not address a boy who joins because his father was already a member.
Podcasts
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, August 28: Benjamin Wittes sat down with Anna Bower, Molly Roberts, Kate Klonick, and Eric Columbus to discuss a judge’s ruling finding the Pentagon’s supply chain risk designation of Anthropic unlawful, developments in the litigation challenging President Trump’s mail in ballot executive order, the prosecution of Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), a filing from Trump suggesting that the Kennedy Center may be torn down, a district judge’s denial of Minnesota’s motion to extradite an indicted ICE agent, and more.
Documents
Sarah Willrich shared Trump’s executive order declaring a national emergency related to national security risks to the U.S. electrical grid, which authorizes the secretary of energy to prohibit transactions deemed to threaten U.S. national security.
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