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Newsletter #15— June/July 2026
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Help Shape the Future of COSL
Nominations Open for Our New Leadership Committee
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Over the past year, the Center for Online Safety and Liberty has continued to grow. We've launched major research projects, contributed to public policy debates around the world, expanded our technical initiatives, and built a growing community of supporters who share our commitment to protecting both safety and fundamental rights online.
As the organisation grows, so too must the way we operate.
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To help guide COSL through its next stage of development, the Board intends to establish a new Leadership Committee to coordinate the organisation's day-to-day activities and help turn our strategic goals into action.
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The Leadership Committee will complement—not replace—the Board of Directors. While the Board will continue to provide governance, oversight, and long-term strategic direction, the Leadership Committee will focus on operational leadership: coordinating projects, supporting volunteers and staff, identifying new opportunities, and ensuring that our work continues to move forward between Board meetings.
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The Committee will include one or more members of the Board together with other trusted members of the COSL community who are willing to take an active leadership role.
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Rather than expecting every member to do everything, we expect Committee members to take responsibility for ensuring that key areas of COSL's work are well supported. Depending on members' interests and experience, this might include areas such as:
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- Advocacy and research
- Technology and infrastructure
- Communications and publications
- Membership and community engagement
- Fundraising and organisational development
- Administration and governance
Committee members will work collaboratively, meeting regularly online and participating in ongoing discussions between meetings. They will also help recruit, mentor, and coordinate volunteers and contractors as our projects evolve.
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This is an opportunity to do more than simply volunteer for individual tasks. We are looking for people who want to help shape COSL's future, take ownership of an area of our work, and build an organisation that can continue to make an impact for years to come.
If you believe in COSL's mission and would like to contribute at this level, we would love to hear from you.
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If you are interested in joining the Leadership Committee—or would like to nominate someone you believe would be an excellent fit—please contact us with a short introduction, a summary of your background, and the area(s) of COSL's work that most interest you.
Building a resilient organisation means building a resilient leadership team. We hope you'll consider being part of it.
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The Latest from Our Blog
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Beyond the Filter: Cyber Harassment Support
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In this episode of Beyond the Filter, Brandy and Jeremy host Varsha Vaishali, founder of Cyber Harassment Support, to explore the multifaceted issue of cyber harassment. They delve into practical support strategies, the evolving landscape of online abuse, and innovative solutions to make digital spaces safer for all. Key Topics: The core mission and scope of Cyber Harassment Support (CHS) in …
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Did we just lose the open Internet?
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Imagine being seventeen years old in 2032. You want to send a flirtatious message to your boyfriend. Before it can even leave your phone, it is scanned, classified, and judged by software that reports suspicious activity to authorities. You have never experienced a different Internet, so this seems normal. The strange thing, from your perspective, is that there was ever …
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Drawing the Line Principles Launch
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Where should lawmakers, platforms, and civil society draw the line between harmful sexual content that involves real victims, and personal expression such as fiction, artwork, roleplay, and LGBTQ+ self-expression? This question has become increasingly urgent as governments and platforms respond to concerns about online sexual harms, child safety, deepfakes, and AI-generated content. Too often, these debates collapse very different categories …
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We Have a New Instagram Account
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We have created a brand-new Instagram account dedicated to different forms of content, announcements, and bulletins for our cause. We aim to reach more corners of the Internet with our ever-growing nonprofit, and we are excited to start engaging with you on Instagram. To check out what we've been posting, click the button below.
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The Elephant in the Lobby:
The Paradox of Censorship Tolerance
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How much censorship is tolerable to the average person? And how much should society ideally tolerate? I am not an expert in social science so I cannot answer that question with certainty. What I am sure of is that censorship seems to be a tolerable evil depending on what gets censored and who is doing the censoring. It creates a hypocrisy that I have pointed to many, many times during the course of this newsletter's creation, and frustratingly enough, it doesn't seem to be heeded in the least bit by people claiming to be anti-censorship. Look no further than Bluesky's numerous threads for instances of this hypocrisy. In anti-censorship threads I keep seeing statements like 'this shouldn't exist' or 'this is about morality, there has to be a line drawn somewhere'. The mediums being called for to be censored range from fictional taboo erotica to adult cartoons, to cartoon erotica, and even forms of expression in video games or the games themselves. All of these are purely fictional expressions, and yet there's very little outcry, very little care for the rights of creators of these kinds of expression. If I'm repeating this ad-nauseam, I apologize. However, this is something that needs to be confronted urgently if progress is to ever be made against censorious interests hiding in financial and legal positions.
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Tolerance doesn't mean liking a form of media or taking an interest in it. It simply means that one allows it to exist, in favor of pursuing more favorable forms of media to enjoy. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that these 'critics' proceed to act like dogs in the manger and forbid others from enjoying their favored form of expression. This attitude has crept into game creation, fandoms, LGBTQ+ circles, book clubs, hobby circles, art sites, television, movies and more creative outlets and hobbies that didn't have this level of harmful scrupulosity before. Note that in this article, I did not make a defense for obviously harmful materials such as CSAM and NCII, which are proven to be exploitative and unlawful by means of having a tangible victim—or multiple, in more tragic cases.
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Censorship appears to be well-tolerated even among anti-censorship organizations, which is a discouraging attitude that sometimes puts me off of wanting to actually defend the aforementioned circles that they frequent. Admittedly, I find myself disenchanted by this paradox. Maybe others also feel a similar way but are fearful of bringing this up to their fellow advocates. If speech and expression are worth defending at all, it's probably best to come to terms with the fact that censorship is the tool of the authoritarian and dictator, no matter how well-intended it is. If people truly are to be kept safe, it cannot start with censorship as the basis and it cannot end with censorship being used as the scepter to ward off danger.
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The Elephant in the Lobby:
Yes, I Do Take Offense...To Being Infantilized
There's nothing more insulting than being treated as though I do not have a will or a mind of my own to process taboo and explicit subjects. It's especially infuriating when others speak over me and pretend that censorship is for my own good. And yet this paternalism proliferates in radfem and conservative circles with no difference between the two that I can discern. What would be for my own good is if they simply asked, 'how do you feel about this subject and how it's handled?' or 'what do you think about this?' Asking a question is never a bad idea, yet the two groups seem very keen on avoiding anyone if they truly want censorship of scenes in games, in comics, in manga, anime, books and films, or if they actually want to block R-18 or M-rated adult games with sexual content.
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I am being spoken over and I do not appreciate the condescending tones that groups like Collective Shout take up, nor do I appreciate platforms telling me, an adult woman, that I can't possibly be old enough to view a post or watch a video unless I give them my personal information and sensitive data.
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If it's not infantilization that's a tactic that gets used, it's also demonization. As if the very existence of media meant to entice or titillate is horrendous by itself, that it corrupts the mind that consumes it. To blame the behaviors of people who don't understand what the word 'no' means on media is negligent and dismissive, and it demonstrates a lack of interest into how individual of multiple cases of extreme behavior develop. Someone who purposefully ignores the concepts of boundaries and consent in a relationship is the problem, not what they consume.
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Speaking of consent, it's troubling to see that anti-pornography groups (and antis in general) shrug off the concept of consent when it comes to the victims they advocate for. I do not consent to giving platforms and AV providers my personal information, and yet they ignore this in favor of pushing highly-invasive and censorious laws. Developers and creators don't give their consent to have their works censored, banned or blocked and yet that is not taken into effect. Sex workers never get consent from censors—at all—when laws prohibiting them from working in safe, regulated environments are passed, when their payments are cut off from them, when they are arrested along with the traffickers that kidnapped them. LGBTQ+ creators who oppose censorship are rarely if ever given consent to speak to their peers about why censorship is a terrible idea in general, gamers never were asked consent to have their games censored or changed, artists, fans, the list goes on, but consent always comes dead last when censors want to crusade. And yet they argue that their actions are based on giving victims a voice. When the voice says inconvenient things or creates the taboo, they are suddenly no longer deserving of it, needing to be protected from themselves, from doing the thing that brings them more agency and stability in their own lives than the other options they tried that failed them.
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I do not consent to this treatment. I never asked for this kind of 'defense'. What I want is dignity, to be treated like an adult, not a child, not a pet. And I'm sure many others, if they speak out, will say this too. It's definitely time to tell the antis, “No. I do not consent. Yes, I do take offense to your infantilization.”
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Support our work!
Pledging your monthly support for our work is the best way that you can support us, because it gives us the stability to plan ahead. You can pledge your support at three levels.
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