Elizabeth Nolan Brown
@enbrown.bsky.social
sex, speech, tech, justice, parenting, politics, & panic ✨ senior editor @reason.com, adjunct journalism professor at University of Cincinnati, Midwestern mom
Remember in 2024, when were were told constantly that political divides were to blame for the sex recession, falling marriage rates, the birth dearth, etc? 2 years later… women still libbed out more than men. But men also drifted heavily Democrat reasonmagazine.substack.com/p/the-electi...
The Election’s Biggest Loser? Gender Slop Politics.
Call off the romance apocalypse
reasonmagazine.substack.com
Got a weird 'well, actually...': the UK did not explicitly ban 'BBW face sitting' videos or other highly specific sex acts, as I've seen a lot of people saying. There was, alas, no Parliamentary debate over the the merits of 'foot smother' vs 'breast smother' content... reason.com/2026/11/02/u...
U.K. bans possession of porn depicting choking, suffocation, or pretend incest
Violators could face years in prison.
reason.com
In this week’s Unregulated: horrifying Halloween decorations, aura farm-to-table politics, peptide realism, 17th Century shotgun marriages, mid-aughts mommy wars, and more… reasonmagazine.substack.com/p/it-might-b...
Asking the important questions in this week's "Unregulated" reasonmagazine.substack.com/p/why-is-tru...
"The ex-husband of an Arizona woman who voluntarily took abortion pills in 2018 has won a civil lawsuit against the clinic that prescribed them," writes @enbrown.bsky.social. buff.ly/Pms6e0P
Arizona man awarded $67,500 on behalf of aborted embryo
The ex-husband of an woman who voluntarily took abortion pills has won a wrongful death lawsuit against the clinic that prescribed them.
buff.ly
Those features - disappearing messages, anonymity protection - are keeping kids in France safe while they organize political protests. But there are a lot of policy proposals and laws that would restrict kids' access to these *exact* features to keep them "safe."
"[Snap] offers students a way to organize without putting everything on public display: Unsaved messages disappear, while bitmojis and generic usernames blur identities more than on Instagram, for instance." www.teenvogue.com/story/france...
France's Gen Alpha Revolution Was Built Over Snapchat
As students across France took to the streets over underfunded schools and missing teachers, Snapchat became their go-to way to organize protests and gather evidence of violence.
teenvogue.com
I hate that “trafficking” is now what people say when it’s really just prostitution (which imho should be decriminalized). We have lost that battle of words And for the record i also hate Matt Gaetz
Elizabeth Nolan Brown@enbrown.bsky.social · 4w agoThe new sex trafficking suit against Matt Gaetz seems very weak. No claims of assault, forced prostitution, threats, fraud, or the alleged victims being underage... You don't have to like Gaetz to think we shouldn't call this "sex trafficking" reason.com/2026/10/19/m...
The new sex trafficking suit against Matt Gaetz seems very weak. No claims of assault, forced prostitution, threats, fraud, or the alleged victims being underage... You don't have to like Gaetz to think we shouldn't call this "sex trafficking" reason.com/2026/10/19/m...
Matt Gaetz lawsuit shows how twisted the term 'sex trafficking' has become
Two women are suing Gaetz in federal court for alleged sex trafficking. But they claim no force, fraud, or underage victims, just an "exploitative power imbalance."
reason.com
et tu, 🇨🇦? 'The Great White North is the latest country to contemplate legislation that could essentially mandate backdoors and increase data retention in encrypted services' - @mattburgess1.bsky.social & @lhn.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/kernel... @gate15.bsky.social @enbrown.bsky.social
Encryption Is Getting Squeezed From All Sides
Canada’s planned surveillance law is the latest grim step in a series of threats to encryption that are spreading around the world.
wired.com
From India's Supreme Court, something that makes sense! 'The safety of our children and their freedom are not at odds with each other. Our children are entitled to both' - via @enbrown.bsky.social reason.com/2026/10/19/m...
Matt Gaetz lawsuit shows how twisted the term 'sex trafficking' has become
Two women are suing Gaetz in federal court for alleged sex trafficking. But they claim no force, fraud, or underage victims, just an "exploitative power imbalance."
reason.com
icymi last week — I've got a new newsletter on Substack, for @reason.com. First post here: reasonmagazine.substack.com/p/kelly-clar... Please subscribe — I don't want to have to go back to working in the short-form video mines! (And, it's free)
Kelly Clarkson and Cancel Culture's Hangover
Bird snubs, bad gym shorts, and big tech villainy.
reasonmagazine.substack.com
Not to pick on Sam here, but this is a useful point to highlight some of the impossibility of trust & safety work. Meta actually used to have a program *exactly* like this, BUT it became a central feature of Frances Haugen's Facebook Files as an example of Meta being evil. I'll explain...
Sam G@samthegeek.net · 4w agoIMO the big platforms should have people who keep an eye on all the big political accounts (regardless of alignment) because having them trip automated blocks is… bad.
Cambridge's city council says "the arrest of adult persons for consensual sex work should continue to be amongst the lowest law enforcement priorities" & the DA "should cease prosecution of persons for consensual adult sex work" reason.com/2026/10/12/c...
Cambridge decriminalizes sex work—sort of
Harvard's hometown just adopted a new policy against arresting or prosecuting sex workers. But what the policy means in practice—including for sex 'buyers'—is debatable.
reason.com
You know what they say, the couple that Lifetime movie podcasts together…
It's Christmastown@itschristmastown.bsky.social · last mo.We were honored to have @swin24.bsky.social & @enbrown.bsky.social walk us through Sydney Sweeney's Lifetime movie, The Wrong/Psycho Daughter. We kill the guitarist, visit the Yellow King Café and get the kitchen granite sealed. Obviously, Mellie goes full Buckcherry. (Now with more Mike Lindell!)
We were honored to have @swin24.bsky.social & @enbrown.bsky.social walk us through Sydney Sweeney's Lifetime movie, The Wrong/Psycho Daughter. We kill the guitarist, visit the Yellow King Café and get the kitchen granite sealed. Obviously, Mellie goes full Buckcherry. (Now with more Mike Lindell!)
CAD 009: The Fox/Lifetime Foucault's Pendulum Scenario | This Week In Atrocity
CAD 009: The Fox/Lifetime Foucault's Pendulum Scenario by This Week In Atrocity on Patreon. Join This Week In Atrocity's community for exclusive content and updates.
patreon.com
Hey just a reminder that I had a piece in NYT Opinion yesterday about the question of "post-shame" society
Opinion | The Sex Scandal That Wasn’t (Gift Article)
It’s hard to work up outrage when someone else’s adult exploits wind up in the tabloids.
nytimes.com
I hate the term consensual sex work so much. Despite trafficking existing in other industries, You don't say consensual nanny. You don't say consensual construction worker. You don't say consensual fruit picker. Consensual garment worker. Consensual nail tech. See how goofy it sounds?
'The court's scathing and beautiful takedown of warrantless Flock searches is something to behold,' writes @enbrown.bsky.social. '"...we do not expect people we know...to randomly approach us to say: 'here is a detailed log of every place your vehicle has been...'"' reason.com/2026/10/07/j...
Judge says warrantless Flock search violated driver's Fourth Amendment rights
This is the second federal court decision in a little over a week to suggest that driver surveillance systems can go too far.
reason.com
Flock = "indiscriminate mass surveillance" says a federal court reason.com/2026/10/07/j...
Judge says warrantless Flock search violated driver's Fourth Amendment rights
This is the second federal court decision in a little over a week to suggest that driver surveillance systems can go too far.
reason.com
"when governments can force platforms to search their systems for evidence of wrongdoing, like through the threat of liability, then the evidence the platforms discover, warrantlessly, will be inadmissible against those users who put it there" www.techdirt.com/2026/10/05/s...
States Prosecuting Platforms For Being Platforms? Section 230 Is Supposed To Avoid This Mess, We Reminded A Court
The other day the Copia Institute filed an amicus brief at the Fourth Circuit in a case involving West Virginia attempting to punish Apple for not filtering CSAM the way it thinks it should. The issue raised in the appeal was in some respects a narrow one: could Apple cause the case West Virginia brought...
techdirt.com
Just discovered that Utah has a tax on escort agencies. In other words, the state demands its cut of the profits for sex work. If only there was a word for that.
Anyone else out there have a kid with night terrors? Really makes you understand how people once believed in witches' curses and demonic possession
Here's my companion piece to this post, from @reason.com's print edition, on how the millennial internet is dead and (shocker, coming from a libertarian publication, I know 😏) it's largely the government's fault reason.com/2026/10/04/w...
The millennial internet is dead, and politicians killed it.
Social media use is declining, and what's left has shifted from conversation to passive scrolling.
reason.com
Elizabeth Nolan Brown@enbrown.bsky.social · last mo.There's been a fair amount of commentary on how social media has become less fun, less interesting, etc. And there's a ton on how it's become more passive—"everything is TV". But I haven't seen much on these things tie together? And I think they clearly do. reason.com/2026/10/05/t...
There's been a fair amount of commentary on how social media has become less fun, less interesting, etc. And there's a ton on how it's become more passive—"everything is TV". But I haven't seen much on these things tie together? And I think they clearly do. reason.com/2026/10/05/t...
The end of social media
Algorithms and short-form video drove engagement. They also made it easier to quit.
reason.com
An innocent Tennessee grandma spent six months in jail after being identified by facial recognition technology as a potential lead in a bank fraud case. But technology didn’t put this woman in jail, writes Autumn Billings @reason.com “Bad policing did.” reason.com/2026/09/29/a...
AI facial recognition didn't put this Tennessee grandma in jail for 6 months. Bad policing did.
Angela Lipps spent five and a half months in jail after a detective allegedly relied on a false AI match despite evidence she was innocent.
reason.com
In absolutely (not) shocking news, @washingtonpost.com reports, 'officers are among at least 100...employees accused of abusing their access to license-plate readers...' www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... @enbrown.bsky.social @maggiemcneill.bsky.social @timcushing.bsky.social #Flock #FuckFlock
Five Indianapolis officers charged following The Post’s reporting on Flock misuse
The officers are among at least 100 police department employees accused of abusing their access to license-plate readers, prompting calls for greater oversight.
washingtonpost.com
