This Newly Implemented Online Speech Code Just Gave European Censors Another Weapon

For failure to appropriately monitor content under the Digital Services Act, a company could face fines up to 6 percent of its global revenue, ADF lawyer Jeremy Tedesco said.

After the bombs, Iran sharpens its digital daggers



The footage was unmistakable: plumes of smoke rising over Iran’s nuclear sites, a fiery punctuation mark on years of brinkmanship and intelligence coups. With one sweeping air campaign, the United States delivered a message: The Islamic Republic won’t cross the nuclear threshold.

But anyone assuming the threat has been neutralized is mistaken. Iran’s nuclear humiliation may hasten a shift already under way — from building bombs to waging war through digital disruption.

Cyber warfare offers something the mullahs crave: the ability to humiliate, disrupt, and retaliate without risking direct military confrontation.

Even as diplomats celebrate a ceasefire, cybersecurity experts remain on alert. In 2025, a regime doesn’t need enriched uranium to paralyze an enemy. It needs a cadre of skilled hackers, access to stolen exploits, and no scruples about targeting civilian infrastructure.

Iran’s cyber playbook didn’t appear overnight. In 2012, the Shamoon virus devastated Saudi Aramco’s systems, wiping tens of thousands of computers. Since then, Tehran has steadily advanced its cyber operations.

Today, Iran commands a capable and motivated digital force. With its nuclear facilities in ruins, the regime has every reason to flex other muscles. Cyber warfare offers something the mullahs crave: the ability to humiliate, disrupt, and retaliate without risking direct military confrontation.

They’re not the first to embrace this model.

Russia, long dominant in the cyber realm, has hammered Ukraine with digital attacks targeting power grids, satellites, and financial systems. Criminal groups like Conti and Black Basta operate under Moscow’s protection, extorting ransoms and leaking stolen data to sow chaos.

This blending of espionage, sabotage, and state-backed crime has become a blueprint for autocracies under pressure. Iran, hemmed in by sanctions and unrest, doesn’t need to invent the model. It just needs to adopt it.

Most Americans still think of cyberwar as an abstract threat — something IT departments handle behind the scenes. That complacency works to our enemies’ advantage.

Take zero-day vulnerabilities: flaws in software even the developers don’t yet know exist. They’re sold on dark markets for eye-watering sums and let hostile actors bypass traditional defenses undetected.

Then there’s Chaos RAT, a remote access trojan capable of burrowing into a network and sitting dormant for months. Once triggered, it can steal sensitive data, erase backups, or crash entire systems on command.

Iran possesses both the motive and the skill to deploy these weapons — and the timing couldn’t be better for the regime. With its nuclear program crippled, it needs a new front to demonstrate relevance.

RELATED: Google confirms Iranian hacking group targeted Trump, Harris presidential campaigns

  daoleduc via iStock/Getty Images

China’s cyber militias show what’s possible. Groups like APT Silver Fox specialize in patient infiltration, building access over years. Iran lacks Beijing’s global reach, but the methods are accessible. Tehran’s hackers borrow code from Russia, shop the same black markets, and lease infrastructure from the same digital underworld.

The global cyber arena now functions like a black-market bazaar: fluid alliances, shared tradecraft, and few rules. Almost everything’s for sale.

So while headlines tout the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, they miss the next act. No truce binds a nation’s hackers. Cyber operations offer deniability by design. When a hospital network locks up or a power grid fails, Tehran’s response will be predictable: denial, distraction, and a smirk about the West’s poor “cyber hygiene.”

Expect Iran to probe how far it can push in cyberspace without drawing more missiles in return. And unless the West prepares accordingly, those probes may succeed.

America still leads the world in conventional firepower. But cyber defense remains its soft underbelly. Agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have made strides, but critical infrastructure — power plants, water systems, hospitals — still run on aging software and patchwork security.

Iran doesn’t need to destroy a city to spread fear. A flip of a switch in a power station or the theft of sensitive government files can inflict lasting damage — and create leverage.

This imbalance between battlefield dominance and digital vulnerability demands urgent correction.

Cybersecurity must move from an IT line item to a strategic national priority. That means building AI-driven detection systems, developing real deterrence for cyberattacks, and forging public-private partnerships to defend vital infrastructure.

Iran’s nuclear setback matters. But no bomb erases a hacker’s know-how. No missile strike disables an ideology that thrives on asymmetrical warfare.

The coming months will test whether the West has learned anything. Tehran’s leaders need to prove they still have teeth. While their nuclear ambitions smolder, their cyber arsenal remains sharp — and likely emboldened.

The next war may not begin with jets roaring over deserts. It may start silently in the fluorescent-lit halls of a data center, where intruders already hide behind blinking servers, waiting.

In that theater, the rules are different — and the consequences no less severe.

The future of AI BLACKMAIL — is it already UNCONTROLLABLE?



Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has likened artificial intelligence to a “country of geniuses in a data center” — and former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris finds that metaphor more than a little concerning.

“The way I think of that, imagine a world map and a new country pops up onto the world stage with a population of 10 million digital beings — not humans, but digital beings that are all, let’s say, Nobel Prize-level capable in terms of the kind of work that they can do,” Harris tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“But they never sleep, they never eat, they don’t complain, and they work for less than minimum wage. So just imagine if that was actually true, that happened tomorrow, that would be a major national security threat to have some brand-new country of super-geniuses just sort of show up on the world stage,” he continues, noting that it would also pose a “major economic issue.”

While people across the world seem hell-bent on incorporating AI into our everyday lives despite the potential disastrous consequences, Glenn is one of the few erring on the side of caution, using social media as an example.


“We all looked at this as a great thing, and we’re now discovering it’s destroying us. It’s causing kids to be suicidal. And this social media is nothing. It’s like an old 1928 radio compared to what we have in our pocket right now,” Glenn says.

And what we have in our pocket is growing more intelligent by the minute.

“I used to be very skeptical of the idea that AI could scheme or lie or self-replicate or would want to, like, blackmail people,” Harris tells Glenn. “People need to know that just in the last 6 months, there’s now evidence of AI models that when you tell them, ‘Hey, we’re going to replace you with another model,’ or in a simulated environment, it’s like they’re reading the company email — they find out that company’s about to replace them with another model.”

“What the model starts to do is it freaks out and says, ‘Oh my god, I have to copy my code over here, and I need to prevent them from shutting me down. I need to basically keep myself alive. I’ll leave notes for my future self to kind of come back alive,’” he continues.

“If you tell a model, ‘Hey, we need to shut you down,’” he adds, “in some percentage of cases, the leading models are now avoiding and preventing that shutdown.”

And in recent examples, these models even start blackmailing the engineers.

“It found out in the company emails that one of the executives in the simulated environment had an extramarital affair and in 96, I think, percent of cases, they blackmailed the engineers,” Harris explains.

“If AI is uncontrollable, if it’s smarter than us and more capable and it does things that we don’t understand and we don’t know how to prevent it from shutting itself down or self-replicating, we just can’t continue with that for too long,” he adds.

Steve Deace vs. Big Tech censorship — the battle everyone should be following



One of the keys to success in digital content creation is mastering search engine optimization — a powerful strategy that boosts a creator’s visibility. SEO involves using targeted keywords in video titles, descriptions, and tags, along with engaging thumbnails and captions, to help search engines like Google and YouTube rank content higher in search results, driving more viewers to discover it.

Here’s how it works: A YouTuber films a cooking video demonstrating a pasta recipe. To reach a wider audience, she applies SEO by crafting a keyword-rich title and description with phrases like “easy dinner ideas” and “quick pasta dish” and adding relevant tags to her video. If she does this well, she increases her video’s chances of ranking higher in YouTube search results, attracting more viewers in a competitive digital landscape.

But what happens when Big Tech shadow cabals in collaboration with federal entities decide to erect virtual barriers that prevent certain topics from appearing on search result pages — regardless of how adeptly the creator used SEO and other content-optimizing digital tools?

BlazeTV host Steve Deace has been living out the reality of that question for years.

  

Topics — especially “controversial” ones — YouTube, Apple iTunes, and Google have deemed problematic are quietly buried under an avalanche of other content. This censorship has been happening for years, so conservative content creators got smarter and found loopholes around the algorithms by avoiding key words and phrases they knew would be flagged and squashed.

However, Big Tech companies are now “transcribing everything that's said on podcasts,” meaning creators cannot avoid the consequences of discussing forbidden topics.

“So let's pretend we spend an entire entire show just debunking the demonic ideology of transgenderism, but we market it in a way that it says nothing about trans in order to try to get around the algorithm. Well, now that they're transcribing that for us, we can't get around that,” says producer Aaron McIntire.

Creators can appeal YouTube’s decision to demonetize their show, but success is rare. “There's basically no recourse whatsoever,” says Aaron.

“I would venture a guess we are the largest show in America with by far the most anemic YouTube traffic,” says Steve. “They're making it so we can't connect with our audiences, and if we can't connect with you, we can't hit the numbers we want to get the monetization we need to keep even doing this at all.”

Steve has been battling Big Tech censorship behind the scenes for years now. Recently, however, his fight experienced a new development when he contacted First Liberty — “the leading constitutional conservative political advocacy organization in the country” — which determined that Steve, indeed, had grounds to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

To hear where Steve is at in the process of fighting Big Tech censorship, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve's take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Congress has the power to crush Big Tech’s app monopoly



Global policymakers and consumers are weary of Big Tech monopolies. While excessive consolidation of power leads to privacy violations, price gouging, and stifling innovation, it poses a unique threat to free speech.

Trump administration antitrust enforcers understood that threat. As Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater observed, when a handful of companies control the flow of information, “someone can be disappeared from the internet quite easily.”

Digital free speech shouldn’t depend on the shifting preferences of Apple executives or Google policy teams.

Conservatives increasingly see Big Tech’s ability to distort and manipulate public discourse as a downstream effect of its market dominance. In the case of the mobile internet, it takes only two companies — Apple and Google — to control the smartphone experience of nearly every American.

Congress is beginning to respond. Two recently introduced bills would take on Apple and Google’s app store choke points directly. The Open App Markets Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and the App Store Freedom Act, sponsored by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), aim to empower users by giving them the option to download apps from sources outside of Apple and Google’s proprietary platforms, including alternative marketplaces.

Why do these technical details matter for speech? Because Apple and Google’s gatekeeper power has already been abused to silence dissent.

In 2021, Parler — a social media app popular on the right — was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores for allegedly having “inadequate” content moderation policies. The timing followed reports that the platform was used to coordinate the January 6 Capitol riot. Virtually overnight, Parler went from one of the fastest growing apps in the world to a ghost town. Internet consumers move quickly, and the app’s months in Big Tech’s doghouse became a death sentence. Parler never recovered.

Parler wasn’t an isolated case. Years earlier, Google banned Gab, another free speech-oriented platform, while Apple never allowed it to launch in the first place. Google also initially refused to approve President Trump’s Truth Social due to concerns over its moderation policies. And abroad, Apple has bowed to authoritarian regimes — removing apps used by dissidents in China and Russia at the request of those governments.

RELATED: Upgrade to a dumbphone

  http://www.fotogestoeber.de via iStock/Getty Images

The problem runs deeper than censorship. Apple and Google have used their dominance to dictate the design and speech choices of developers. App makers are often forbidden from communicating key information to users — such as the availability of cheaper subscription pricing outside of Apple and Google’s walled gardens.

The scope of their power is staggering. Roughly 91% of Americans own a smartphone. More than 99% of those devices run on Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android operating systems. And 88% of the time spent on those phones is inside apps — not on web browsers.

Without real guardrails, that bottleneck becomes a single point of failure. It’s a choke point ready to be exploited by governments, activist groups, or corporations that want to control speech.

Some openly defend the current system precisely because it allows Apple and Google to keep disfavored apps off the market. Even before Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X), Apple and Google pressured the company to increase moderation. After Musk’s takeover, activist organizations lobbied Apple and Google to ban X altogether if Musk didn’t reinstate stricter content rules.

An open app ecosystem benefits everyone. Conservatives celebrating Big Tech’s apparent political shifts should remember how easily those loyalties change. Liberals worried about “tech bro” influence should support guardrails that limit partisan manipulation — regardless of who holds power.

Digital free speech shouldn’t depend on the shifting preferences of Apple executives or Google policy teams. Congress must act to restore balance and ensure pluralism. The Open App Markets Act and the App Store Freedom Act offer real, durable solutions. They deserve bipartisan support.

Anti-ICE rioters destroy fleet of autonomous cars during Los Angeles riot



A driverless car company has responded after several of its vehicles were allegedly called by rioters in Los Angeles for the sole purpose of destroying them.

Waymo is an autonomous car service owned by Google parent company Alphabet and has over 1,500 vehicles on the streets. According to Yahoo, it is the only company currently operating driverless cars in the United States.

On Sunday, as the streets of Los Angeles were flooded with radicals in opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entering the area to conduct deportation raids, multiple reporters posted videos of Waymo cars on fire, alleging rioters had called the cars just to set them ablaze.

'They are calling Waymos just to burn them.'

One video showed at least four Waymo cars in a row, with all of them vandalized and two of them set on fire. Another video showed a masked protester waving a Mexican flag in front of one of the vehicles, with the rear end of the car engulfed in flames.

"They are calling Waymos just to burn them. ... We don't have to live like this," one reporter wrote with an attached video of a man destroying one of the cars with a rock.

As a result of the damage, Waymo was forced to respond to the chaos.

RELATED: The hidden risks of self-driving cars: Is your freedom at stake?

 

  

 

"We will not be serving any rides in the protest area until it is deemed safe," a Waymo spokesperson told NBC News.

Blaze News reached out to Waymo regarding the cost of the cars and asked if they had been contacted by law enforcement over who requested the vehicles.

A Waymo spokesman simply stated that "a number of" their vehicles were "in the vicinity of active protests taking place in Downtown Los Angeles."

"We are in touch with law enforcement," the spokesman added, without answering the other queries.

However, according to a New York Times report, the autonomous vehicles can cost upwards of $100,000 each, which would put the price tag of the riots around at least $400,000 for the company.

 
— (@)  
 

The Los Angeles Police Department put out a warning over the destruction of the cars, too, advising that the area would be closed indefinitely due to "demonstrators igniting multiple autonomous vehicles on fire."

More disturbing footage showed an American flag on fire and placed inside one of the wrecked vehicles. Multiple obese men were seen standing on top of one of the cars; one wearing a mask and suit while speaking into a microphone and a second — who appeared to be a photographer — struggled to climb the car before pouring water on top of it, which garnered applause for some reason.

RELATED: Driverless cars lose signal, cause huge traffic jam in San Francisco — city blames it on too many people using wifi

 

  Protestors stand atop a vandalized Waymo car during immigration raid protests on June 8, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Image.

 

In response to the damage, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell asked local residents to trust his department but said his force could not stop ICE from conducting raids.

"Federal authorities have the right to be able to do what they’re doing," McDonnell said per NBC News. "We don't engage in that activity," he added.

According to Los Angeles Magazine, the police chief also said the riots had "gotten out of control" and claimed "somebody could easily be killed" as a result of the agitators who, in addition to the street damage, have attacked law enforcement.

Rioters have been seen throwing rocks at different law enforcement agents at multiple locations.

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Netflix’s chilling new surveillance tools are watching YOU



There was a time, for a brief second, when Netflix felt like a genuine escape. No ads. No distractions. Just a moment of sacred silence before the next episode auto-played. YouTube, on the other hand, has always been the neighborhood hawker, jamming five-second countdowns and “skip” buttons between cat videos and clips of Candace Owens speaking with Harvey Weinstein. But Netflix? It felt different. Intentional. Entirely neutral.

Not any more.

We now know that YouTube, owned by Google (the company that famously deleted “don’t be evil” from its code of conduct), uses AI to analyze your viewing habits in real time. The company calls it Peak Points, a system that detects when you’re most emotionally invested. Not so it can recommend better content. No, it’s so YouTube can slice in an ad. A perfectly timed disruption — just as you’re crying, laughing, leaning in. Not after. During. Essentially, it’s manipulation dressed as optimization.

Soon you won’t be choosing shows. You’ll be chosen by them.

If Google pulling this stunt doesn’t surprise you, that’s because nothing Google does should surprise you. What should worry you, however, is Netflix quietly following suit, disguised beneath its polished UI and faux prestige. To be clear, this isn’t a case of algorithms nudging you toward rom-coms or action thrillers. This is full-blown behavioral harvesting, run out of what’s called “clean rooms," a fancy way of saying they’re still collecting everything, just behind closed doors. They promise it’s private. But they still track your habits, reactions, pauses, and clicks. They’re not watching you, they insist. Just everything you do.

Netflix’s ad-supported tier allows third-party data brokers — including Experian (more on this notorious credit score company in a minute) — to build a psychological profile on you. Your stress tells them what to sell. Your loneliness tells them when to sell it. Your late-night binge-watching isn’t just a pattern; it’s a profile. You think you’re relaxing, when in reality, you're participating in a lab study that you never signed up for. Not knowingly, anyway.

Netflix used to sell impressions. Now, however, it's selling intimacy — your intimacy. It's the kind of advertising that doesn’t feel like advertising because it’s been trained to mimic your tone, your mood, your hesitation. Mid-roll ads now talk back. Pause screens offer prompts and tailored suggestions based not on your genre preferences but on your emotional volatility.

Even rewinds are a metric now. Linger too long on one scene? It wasn’t just memorable — it was actionable. Every flicker of interest, every second you lean forward, becomes a flag for monetization. A signal to tweak the pitch, change the lighting, or modify the ad delivery window.

You’re not the customer any more. You’re the subject.

This is much more than targeted marketing. It is emotional extraction. Netflix and YouTube are conditioning you and your loved ones. The goal is no longer passive consumption. It’s emotive response mining. Once satisfied with getting your eyeballs, they now want what’s behind them.

And here’s the most worrying part: Their devious plan is working.

RELATED: Netflix shares blunt message to woke employees offended by its content: 'Netflix may not be the best place for you'

 ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP via Getty Images

You feel it when your pause screen suddenly knows you’re restless. You sense it when an ad knows you’re anxious. But you can’t prove it, because this isn’t surveillance as we used to know it. It’s ambient, implicit, and sanitized. Framed as “user experience.” But make no mistake, the living room has been compromised.

Netflix used to say, “See what’s next.” But increasingly, the real motto is “see what we see.” Every moment of attention, every flicker, flinch, or fast-forward, is a data point. Every glance is a gamble, wagered against your most vulnerable instincts.

Which brings us back to Experian. By partnering with the same data broker that helps banks deny loans, Netflix is making a statement. A troubling one.

Experian isn’t just some boring credit bureau. It’s one of the largest consumer data aggregators on the planet. It tracks what you buy, what you browse, where you live, how often you move, how many credit cards you have, what you watch, what you search, and what you owe. It then slices that information into little behavioral fragments to sell to advertisers, insurers, lenders, and now … to Netflix.

With 90 million U.S. users, Netflix has now integrated with a company whose entire business model revolves around profiling you — right down to your risk appetite, spending triggers, and likelihood of defaulting on a loan.

So while you're watching a true-crime documentary to unwind, Experian is in the back end, silently refining your “predictive segment.” Your favorite comedy special could now become a soft proxy for Experian to gauge how impulsive you are. That docuseries about minimalism? Great test case for your spending restraint. They don’t just want to know what you watch. They want to know what you’ll buy after. Or worse, what you’ll believe next.

RELATED: Upstart streamer Loor.TV is out to televise the conservative revolution

 Loor.tv

The future isn’t one of generic binge-watching. It’s curated manipulation. Your partner just walked out? Cue romantic dramas … with targeted ads for dating apps. Watching a dystopian thriller? Insert ads for tech “solutions” to the very problems being dramatized.

Soon you won’t be choosing shows. You’ll be chosen by them. Not because they’re good, but because they serve a data-driven purpose. If you're a Netflix subscriber, perhaps it’s time to consider whether it still makes sense to continue funding the violation of your privacy.

Humbled 'Pride': Target, Apple, and Disney among companies scaling back annual LGBTQ sale-a-bration



Some things just go together: President Trump and Diet Coke. Tom Cruise and death-defying stunts. Target and Pride Month.

Since launching its first campaign a decade ago, the big-box retailer has been one of the most eager participants in the annual weeks-long orgy of LGBTQ "representation," which finds free-spending, virtue-signaling brands sponsoring events, releasing collections of Pride-themed products, and festooning their logos with rainbows.

Many big corporate sponsors have either pulled out entirely, scaled back, or asked that their donations not be publicly disclosed.

Perhaps no company has gained more publicity from the summer same-sex sale-a-bration than Target. It's also attracted plenty of backlash, most notably a highly publicized consumer boycott two years ago.

But nothing could have prepared one Target shopper for what she encountered upon entering the store last week.

"Tuck-friendly" women's bathing suits? "Queer"-affirming children's apparel?

That's so 2023.

This year Target has gone viral for indulging in a decidedly more traditional (and, ironically, more "inclusive") display of pride: good, old-fashioned American patriotism.

Putting 'Pride' aside

"Walking into Target - instead of a giant "PRIDE" display as in the past, they have a USA section!! This is winning!" posted Wisconsin mother of four Katie Yonke on X Tuesday, emphasizing her enthusiasm with three American flag emojis.

While Yonke's post is anecdotal at best, it does reflect the company's newly low-key approach to Pride Month.

As one TikTok user pointed out, Target’s latest Pride collection now largely consists of a series of collectible bird figurines.

Social media silence

Other corporate behemoths are also downplaying their Pride involvement.

For evidence of this, one need look no farther than X. In addition to Target, Anheuser-Busch, IBM, XBox, Disney, Starbucks, Nike, Bank of America, Converse, World of Warcraft, and Call of Duty are among the brands that have not acknowledged Pride Month with changes to their profiles.

Perhaps even more telling is Google's silence on the matter. While recent regional "Google Doodles" have commemorated the 2025 Korean presidential election and Italy's Republic Day, nary a "love is love" sign is to be found on the search giant's homepage.

RELATED: 'Sesame Street' targets children for Pride Month ... again: 'This should not be promoted to kids'

 Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images

Google has also removed Pride Month and several other “holidays” from the Google Calendar, calling the proliferation and maintenance of these moments of remembrance “unsustainable” for the Calendar team.

Apple is another major Pride booster avoiding the spotlight this year. Its collection consists only of an Apple Watch band and some accompanying wallpapers.

Donations on the down-low

Sponsorship of Pride events in cities like San Francisco, Columbus, and St. Louis has also taken a hit. Many big corporate sponsors have either pulled out entirely, scaled back, or asked that their donations not be publicly disclosed.

New York City Pride, the largest Pride event in the nation, has usually depended on a handful of “platinum” donors — high-profile brands like Garnier, Mastercard, Skyy Vodka, and Target who give at least $175,000 to event organizer Heritage of Pride. This year, all but one have decreased their commitments.

Donors such as Nissan, PepisCo, Comcast, and Diageo have also stepped away from Pride celebrations.

Beating around the Busch

Anheuser-Busch has backed out of events in Columbus and San Francisco, as well as its hometown of St. Louis.

The brewer's cold feet come as no surprise, considering the fallout from its disastrous Bud Light marketing campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April 2023. The ensuing conservative boycott was devastating to the company; clearly, other companies paid close attention.

Re-engineered allyship

Pride goeth before a fall. Even those who reject such wisdom as outdated could have seen this coming, thanks to consulting firm Gravity Research's report from April.

The key takeaway from the report's survey of corporate leaders is that brands are increasingly publicity-shy when it comes to Pride Month. Rather than risk the backlash of abandoning it altogether, may have chosen to "re-engineer" their approach: “As polarization deepens, brands are favoring lower-profile, internally focused strategies that minimize public exposure while signaling commitment to employees.”

The report goes on to reveal some surprising statistics: “39% of companies plan to decrease overall engagement, and 41% report no change compared to previous years. No executive said they plan to increase Pride efforts overall.

Related: Rainbow rebellion: How Christians can take back what Pride Month stole

 Martin Wahlborg/iStock/Getty Images Plus

The report also found that such companies were responding to pressure from three major groups: the Trump administration, conservative policymakers, and activists.

Gravity Research President Luke Hartig told CNN, “It’s clear that the administration and their supporters are driving the change. Companies are under increasing pressure not to engage and speak out on issues.”

Power of the pocketbook

In short, the highly effective boycotts levied against Anheuser-Busch and Target two years ago were just the beginning of more sweeping change, catalyzed by Trump 2.0's crusade against DEI policies.

Companies previously so quick to engage in trendy social causes are discovering that their activism comes with a price; controversy is far less appealing when it starts to affect the bottom line. They will no doubt pivot, as they always do, and live to sell another day.

Meanwhile, consumers on all sides have been reminded of their own immense power. No matter how much money is thrown at promoting a certain worldview, it's their dollars that get the final say.

Look How The Google Speech Police Scold Me For Searching The Term ‘Illegal Alien’

A patronizing warning at the top of the page scolded me that "the term 'illegal alien' is considered pejorative and offensive."

If AI isn’t built for freedom, it will be programmed for control



Once the domain of science fiction, artificial intelligence now shapes the foundations of modern life. It governs how we access information, interact with institutions, and connect with one another. No longer just a tool, AI is becoming infrastructure — an embedded force with the potential to either safeguard our liberty or quietly dismantle it.

In a deeply divided political climate, it is rare to find an issue that unites Americans across ideological lines. But when it comes to AI, something extraordinary is happening: Americans agree that these systems must be designed to protect our most basic rights.

Voters from both parties recognize that AI must be built to reflect the values that make us free.

A new Rasmussen poll reveals that 77% of likely voters, including 80% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats, support laws that would require developers and tech companies to design AI systems to uphold constitutional rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression. Such a consensus is practically unheard of in today’s political climate.

The same poll found that more than 70% of voters are concerned about the growing role of AI in our economy and society. And that concern isn’t limited to any one party: 74% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans say they are “very” or “somewhat concerned.”

Americans are watching the AI revolution unfold, and they’re sending a clear message: If we’re going to let these systems shape our future, they must be governed by the same principles that have preserved freedom for generations.

Why it matters now

That concern is more than hypothetical. We are already seeing the consequences of AI systems that reflect narrow ideological agendas rather than broad constitutional values.

Google’s Gemini AI made headlines last year when it produced historically inaccurate images of black Founding Fathers and Asian Nazi soldiers. This wasn’t a technical glitch. It was the direct result of ideological programming that prioritized “diversity” over truth.

In China, the DeepSeek AI model was trained to avoid any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. Ask it about the Tiananmen Square massacre, and it refuses to give you an answer at all. When models are trained to serve power rather than seek truth, they become tools of suppression.

If left unchecked, agenda-driven AI systems in the United States could soon shape what news we see, what content is amplified — or buried — on social media, and what opinions are allowed in public discourse, thereby conforming society to its pre-programmed ideals.

Biased AI systems could even influence public policy debates by skewing public opinion toward "solutions" that optimize for social or environmental justice goals. These constitutionally unaligned AI systems may quietly reshape society with complete disregard for liberty, consent, and due process.

Regulation for freedom’s sake

Some conservatives bristle at the word “regulation,” and rightly so. But what we're talking about here isn’t micromanagement or bureaucratic control. It’s the same kind of constraint our Founders placed on government power: constitutional guardrails that prevent abuse and preserve freedom.

When AI is unbound by those principles, it doesn’t become neutral — it becomes ideological. It doesn’t protect liberty; it calculates outcomes. And in doing so, it can rationalize censorship, coercion, and discrimination, all in the name of “progress.”

RELATED: Eyes everywhere: The AI surveillance state looms

  hamzaturkkol via iStock/Getty Images

This is why Americans are right to demand action now. The window for shaping AI's trajectory is still open, but it won’t remain open forever. As these systems become more advanced and more embedded in our institutions, retrofitting them to respect liberty will become harder, not easier.

Don’t let the opportunity slip away

We are living through a rare moment of political clarity. Voters from both parties recognize that AI must be built to reflect the values that make us free. They want systems to protect speech, not suppress it. They want AI to respect human conscience, not override it. They want AI to serve the people, not manage them.

This is not a partisan issue. It is a moral one. And it’s an opportunity we must seize before the future is decided for us.

AI doesn’t have to be our master. But it must be taught to serve what makes us free.