FSNN | Decentralized News Aggregation for Free Speech

Bitcoin and the broader digital asset market got a taste of “not-QE” this week — and liked it.The price of Bitcoin (BTC) jumped more than 23% toward $79,000 and Ether’s price crossed $2,400 after the US Treasury moved to double certain long-dated bond buybacks, adding fuel to an increasingly important question for digital asset markets. If Washington keeps finding new ways to support liquidity without technically embarking on quantitative easing, could Bitcoin and other risk assets become some of the biggest beneficiaries?That question is already shaping business decisions across crypto. Standard Chartered sees Bitcoin heading toward $100,000, Metaplanet is taking…

Washington Goes All-In on Crypto: Trump Pushes Clarity, SEC Rules, and CFTC Warnings

2 hours ago

Bitcoin Rally Lifts Crypto Stocks as Canaan Jumps 25%

3 hours ago3 Views

CBP Officers And Contractors Abused Government Databases To Stalk Their Exes

4 hours ago5 Views

Hoover Institution (@HooverInst) Videos, Podcasts, and More, Now at Hoover+

4 hours ago3 Views

2 French journalists, Togolese fixer detained 26 days following arrest while documentary filming in northern Togo

4 hours ago4 Views

Ethena's ENA token surges 48%, but altcoin season will have to wait

4 hours ago6 Views

Paul Ryan’s American Idea Foundation, Digital Asset Plan Canton Benefits Pilot

4 hours ago5 Views

Bitcoin ETFs Just Had Their Biggest Day Since May—BlackRock Took 83% of It

4 hours ago5 Views

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance

Laser Digital Secures Japan Crypto Registration

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy. Read the full article here

Utah Needs More Housing. The Army Corps Shut Down 265 New Homes Because of a Small Ditch.

Ripple backs an RLUSD credit fund amid XRP's best week in months

Prof. Musa Al-Gharbi’s “Jason Arday and Me”

AI & Crypto

Politics

Tony Is an Anthony Bourdain Origin Story

Media & Culture 6 hours ago

If you’ve followed the battle lines of the gender wars recently, one of the most heated fronts is over publishing. Men, the story goes, don’t read anymore, especially not fiction, because women in publishing have kept younger white male authors…

Colonizing the Moon

7 hours ago

“Denaturalization’s Missing Limit” out in Northwestern University Law Review Online

8 hours ago

Media & Culture

Today in Supreme Court History: August 21, 1798

Media & Culture

Review: A Novel Capturing the Cruelty of Mass Incarceration

Media & Culture

Brickbat: Paying More for Less

A Wealth Tax Built on Billionaires Who Aren’t Really Billionaires

Tenn. S. Ct. Lets Stand Decision That Copyright Law Doesn’t Bar Release of Covenant Shooter Manifesto

Justice Department Finds ‘Unbroken Pattern’ of Sexual Abuse in Two California Women’s Prisons

Trump Is Taking Credit for D.C.’s Crime Drop. Here’s What the Data Say.

Suit Alleging Medical Establishment’s Desire to Compel Doctors “to Toe the Line in All Matters Related to COVID …” Can Go Forward

"And Then … Nothing Happened, in the Most Brutal Way Possible"

Bad Reasons and Worse Reasons to Hate Data Centers

Don't Miss!

Binance says employees questioned in UAE cleared and released

Bitcoin Climbs Higher as $1.2 Billion in Shorts Liquidated

Bitcoin faces $80,000 test as thinner weekend liquidity looms

Solana Cuts Blockchain Slot Time to 350 Milliseconds

Trump FCC Weakens U.S. Broadband Speed Goals To The Benefit Of Elon Musk And Comcast

8 hours ago5 Views

Coldcard ships firmware after $114 million bitcoin theft; says AI helped catch more bugs

8 hours ago4 Views

Standard Chartered wavers on $100K Bitcoin year-end call, says it may be ‘too low’

9 hours ago3 Views

Most Americans Say Trump’s Crypto Profits Cross the Line: Poll

9 hours ago5 Views

Analysts split on whether Bitcoin's surge past key levels signals a new bull run

10 hours ago3 Views

Bitcoin tops $77,000 as best week since 2023 pulls altcoins along for the ride

11 hours ago4 Views

Coldcard Security Upgrade Strengthens Seed Phrase Generation

11 hours ago5 Views

Binance Opens the Door to AI Agents That Can Trade Crypto for You

11 hours ago5 Views

Editor's Picks

Nomura-backed Laser Digital wins Japan's first crypto approval in four years

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance 5 hours ago

Morning Minute: CFTC Will Give Crypto Clarity If Congress Won’t

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance 6 hours ago

Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, co-leaders of the now disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (HKA) were found guilty today (21 August 2026) of incitement to subversion, because they organised vigils attended by tens of thousands in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The vigils were banned in 2020 and both have been detained since 2021. Below is a translation of Chow Hang-tung’s message to the world, published yesterday I’m curious about tomorrow’s verdict. Justice resides in the hearts of the people; there’s no need to look up to such top-down judgments. One verdict is nothing. Thank you all for walking alongside me in different ways. I have received all your support and blessings. ************ Because I don’t want everyone to worry too much, and I don’t want the focus to be lost, I’m sharing these feelings that have been weighing on my mind since the trial: Several years ago, I made a documentary with friends, trying to visualise the issue of torture by inviting Hong Kong friends to experience the various forms of torture suffered by protesters in China, so that it wouldn’t just remain a “tragedy” on paper. The “torture” depicted in the film was designed and researched by me. I thought I had some understanding of the subject, but only in the last couple of days have I realised I was a completely incompetent “torture officer” back then. I knew absolutely nothing about inflicting physical pain. It’s true that some things are impossible to comprehend no matter how much you read about them; you have to experience them firsthand. I say this because since the trial began, the Correctional Services Department [Hong Kong’s prison authority] has changed its method of transport. It’s no longer just simple handcuffs; now they use a full set of handcuffs, leg irons, waist chains, and ankle chains, and then lead the prisoners like dogs on a chain. From the written description alone, it seems like it’s just more inconvenient and somewhat humiliating, nothing like torture. But it’s only when you actually put on those shackles that you realise the devil is in the details. Ordinary handcuffs have buckles on both sides that connect with slipknots, allowing for limited movement between the hands. However, this set of specially made handcuffs has an outer layer of hard plastic covering the outer layer, locking the hands tightly together. This alone wouldn’t be so bad, but the “rings” on the handcuffs aren’t the round kind you usually see in adult stores (uh, I’ve been there, but only to buy props for filming!). Instead, there’s an additional hard material inside, shrinking into a flat, crescent shape that fits snugly at the thickest part of the wrist. So, when the wrist is inside, there’s absolutely no possibility of rotation; you can only constantly twist your arm to accommodate the angle designed by the handcuffs. That already restricts movement to two dimensions. Then comes the small buckle on the waist chain, which locks the handcuffs above the abdomen. If you dare to relax and let your hands hang down, the buckle will move up and lock into the thicker part of the wrist. Moreover, the locking angle is an extremely unnatural twisted pretzel, forcing one to constantly hunch their shoulders, hunch their back, bend their wrists, and twist their arms to try and avoid the handcuffs getting stuck in their wrist bones. However, complete avoidance is impossible; after all, constantly hunching one’s shoulders for the entire journey from Tai Lam [the prison where Hang-tung is incarcerated] to West Kowloon [the courthouse where the trial is taking place] would likely lead to muscle cramps. So, one can only “choose” which part of the body shall suffer in turn—when the shoulders are too tired, let the bones ache; when the hands are numb with pain, tighten the shoulders further. Then, throughout the entire journey, although most of the time is spent “still,” one is already exhausted from the unseen “muscle battle.” Not to mention, no matter how you are locked, you have to carry your belongings; for me, that means court documents. With that added weight, it is inevitable that the handcuffs will cut into the flesh. The deep marks carved into the wrists don’t fade even after a whole day in court. It turns out that locking a person’s joints in certain relative positions can create a kind of “interlocking” effect between body parts. But to the untrained eye, it’s invisible—”It’s just putting your hands in front of your stomach, child’s play.” Sigh, just looking at that statement, I feel I have no reason to complain; but I never imagined the combined effect of locking all the joints would be so powerful. Thinking back to when I was researching for the documentary, I only focused on finding the most exaggerated physical movements, the torture methods most easily identifiable by the naked eye. I was indeed viewing the victims’ experiences through the eyes of a layman. When I “tortured” my friend, the handcuffs were loosely fastened. I was completely unaware that locking the joints was the key—it really was just a childish experiment. Sophisticated torture, much like mature totalitarianism, avoids the visible, “violent” acts of violence. Its power lies in exploiting and creating internal conflicts among the people, fostering constant mutual surveillance, control, and reporting. This diffuses the perpetrators, making it impossible to identify or apprehend any single “evildoer.” People appear to have “choices,” but they are ultimately forced to choose between harming one party and abandoning another. Power, however, seems detached, never directly intervening. Visible, publicly observable conflicts vanish, leaving only unseen internal strife. The damage to society can be far more lasting and profound than occasional violence. On a more personal level, I find my resistance to physical torture is quite low. When my body aches, my mind becomes blank, overwhelmed by aches and pains, making it impossible to enjoy the scenery as usual. If I were subjected to some of the Ten Great Tortures of the Qing Dynasty, I might confess quickly. The ability to endure torture truly requires dedicated training. So, on the bright side, these 75 days of transport can be seen as initial training in physical endurance—as long as my hands aren’t ruined? To say that this correctional system is intentionally designed to torture prisoners wouldn’t be accurate; it’s just that the prisoners’ comfort or pain isn’t a consideration in its design. So, frankly, what I have endured is far from real torture; at best, it was just a preliminary glimpse. The designers’ primary consideration was probably “safety first,” ensuring prisoners have no possibility of movement. Ultimately, prisoners are at the bottom of the food chain—voiceless, powerless. Our opinions, even after suffering, are meaningless in the face of “safety.” Not to mention asking what security needs there were – frankly, even without handcuffs, a weak scholar like me couldn’t escape. Using so many tricks is overkill, but where can I reason with that? In cases where national security is invoked, even if a lawsuit is filed, it will have to be dropped and legal fees paid. But it’s precisely because I don’t want to never have anywhere to voice my grievances, and I don’t want people to remain silent and at the mercy of others, that I must persist in fighting for democracy and human rights, and for systemic change. In this sense, this new experience offered by Correctional Services is actually helping to strengthen my resolve to fight. Well then, thank you for this generous gift. I will certainly not let you down and will fight this ongoing battle well. I also hope that everyone can gain something from this long trial, perhaps just a little bit of strength, a little bit of encouragement, and that would be enough to fulfill my wish! This message was first posted on Chow Hang-tung’s Patreon account yesterday. We are publishing this with the permission of Brian Kern who translated her message on his Substack account READ MORE

Global Free Speech 7 hours ago

The hard truth is that the Clarity Act is an anti-crypto bill

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance 7 hours ago

CPJ joins call to extend UN fact-finding mission on Sudan

Global Free Speech 11 hours ago

Reporting in Somalia is becoming a much more dangerous proposition. Photo: UNSomalia/Ilyas Ahmed “Do you know that we can kill you? To us, your life is worth less than a cigarette.” These are the words with which operatives from Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) threatened freelance journalist Mohamed Bulbul, days after he co-authored a news report for UK news outlet The Guardian about the prosecution of activist Sadia Moalim Ali. Two days after the article ran in June 2026, Bulbul was having dinner with two fellow journalists at a restaurant in Mogadishu’s Zoobe area when armed men wearing black masks entered the establishment. “They walked straight towards our table [shouting] ‘Stand up! Stand up!’” Bulbul told Index. The masked men beat all three journalists before they dragged him outside, placed a bag over his head and forced him into a vehicle. After being moved between two police stations and the offices of the regional police commissioner, Bulbul was interrogated by NISA officers about the article. “They asked me why I had published it.” He was then, he said, given three choices: “Work with us and take money, leave the country, or if you refuse both, we will kill you.” Bulbul fled Somalia and is now in an undisclosed safe location. “Saving my own life become my priority,” he said. “I can no longer spend time with my parents or my children.” Bulbul’s experience is not unique. Across Somalia, journalists and press freedom advocates say that intelligence and security agencies are intimidating, detaining and otherwise silencing reporters. Recent cases in Mogadishu and Puntland state indicate the state’s growing reliance on intelligence agencies and extra-legal actions, rather than the police and the courts, to deal with critical journalism. On 2 July, journalist Suways Jama Mohamed was arrested outside her home in Garowe, Puntland. Suways, founder of Suways Media, a Facebook-based news platform covering social issues, was detained after the platform published a 15-second video showing armed militia operating in her neighbourhood. She was held in Puntland’s Garowe Central Prison for 13 days before being released on bail on 15 July. Mohamed has been charged with spreading false information, defamation, insulting public officials and disturbing public order. If convicted, she could face up to three years in prison. Qareen Abdiweli, Suways’ lawyer, has challenged both the legal basis of the charges and the court’s jurisdiction. “A journalist cannot be prosecuted under the Penal Code for acts related to the exercise of their profession,” Abdiweli told RSF. Suways’ defence team have filed a motion asking for the case be referred to the Puntland Media Council, the media regulatory body. The case is pending. Less than two weeks after Suways’ arrest, Mohamed Jama Mohamad, an independent journalist who had previously worked for private television channel SBC TV, was also detained in Puntland state. Mohamed had been reporting on business closures in the city of Bosaso, following an increase in port taxes. Mohamed was taking photographs of the closed market when he noticed several men following him. “They looked suspicious and kept talking on their phones while following me everywhere I went.” Moments later, a vehicle pulled to a halt beside him. “[The people in the vehicle] weren’t police officers,” Mohamed told Source. “Their uniform [sic] looked more like military uniforms.” Mohamed was forced into the vehicle without explanation, blindfolded and then taken to a detention facility run by the Puntland Intelligence Service (PISA). Mohamed said that he was held for four days without seeing a lawyer or being arraigned before a court. “I had simply been taken from the marketplace. No warrant. No judge. No lawyer.” According to the Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS), these arrests are indicative of the government’s wish to suppress free expression. In June, SJS reported the abduction by NISA agents of journalist Mascuud Warsame, founder of Xogbile TV, in Mogadishu. Warsame was released, without charge, after 39 days in detention. For media organisations, these incidents are becoming increasingly familiar. “Compared with previous years, the overall pattern of violations remains consistent,” Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, Secretary General of the Somali Journalists Syndicate, told Index. “But this year has seen a sharp increase in arbitrary arrests [and] politically motivated detentions, particularly during the ongoing political and constitutional crisis in Somalia.” Somalia’s federal government is currently advancing amendments to the country’s constitution despite objections from two federal states. This may have implications for the balance of power between the federal states, and critics fear that it will allow incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to extend his current term of office. Mumin said that while journalists in Somalia have long been obliged to deal with intimidation and violence, the first seven months of 2026 have seen a spike in the use of prolonged detention without charge, alongside more overt interventions by Somalia’s intelligence agencies. Security analyst Samira Gaid told Index that Somalia’s security institutions are increasingly being used as a tool to suppress journalism, activists and anyone courageous enough to challenge the government. “The role of the media is to hold those in public office accountable,” she said. “Yet journalists are being targeted simply because they reported information that the government did not want the public to know.” International partners, according to Gaid, invested heavily in building Somalia’s security institutions – a key priority following the end of the country’s destructive civil war. “Those institutions are now being used in ways that go beyond the law.” Gaid said, noting that NISA was created to protect national security rather than investigate journalists or detain civilians engaged in legitimate reporting. The journalists interviewed for this article all described strikingly similar experiences – arrests without warrants, detention by intelligence agencies, questioning over their reporting. For Somalia’s independent media, the message is becoming increasingly clear; reporting on anything deemed sensitive by the authorities may carry consequences extending far beyond the newsroom. READ MORE

Global Free Speech 11 hours ago

Treasury's latest measure isn't QE or YCC. Still, bitcoin is skyrocketing. Here's why.

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance 12 hours ago

Bitcoin Passing $75,400 Puts Strategy BTC Treasury Back In Profit

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance 12 hours ago

Opinions & Debates

Debates

The Truth About the Gender Pay Gap with David Maywald | Quillette Cetera Episode 70

News Room

The Truth About the Gender Pay Gap with David Maywald | Quillette Cetera Episode 70 Read the full article here

Debates

L’Affaire Shirer Revisited The rise, fall, and rise again of one of the 20th century’s most important journalists.

Debates

Dua Lipa’s Banned Books Aren’t Really Banned

Debates

No, the Media Isn’t Responsible for Jason Arday’s Suicide

Debates

‘Economic Vandalism’: Geoff Wilson on Labor’s War on Australian Aspiration

Debates

Canada, the 51st State? Why Trump Has It Backwards

Debates

Xenophon’s March of the Ten Thousand: The Real Odyssey

Latest News

Global Free Speech

The University of Cambridge. Photo: llee_wu / ICC BY-ND 2.0 Last month Index ran a story about a filmmaker and activist from Pakistan. His name was Roshaan Khattak and he was exploring human rights violations in Balochistan. Cambridge University had accepted him on a research pathway, with the understanding that completing this successfully would lead to him being accepted on the PhD programme. But then Khattak received a death threat and there was an unidentified explosion outside his college which scared him. He expected Cambridge to protect him but instead, as Khattak told Index, he was first locked out of his college then, despite achieving a distinction for his work, was told that he could not progress to doing a PhD and his enrolment was terminated. He saw this, and his supervisors agreed with him, as the university caving in to transnational repression. There has been little national newspaper coverage of his case. On the contrary, there was excessive and sometimes unjustifiable coverage of the allegations of plagiarism made against Professor Jason Arday. He was once hailed by Cambridge as their newest Black recruit and at 37, the youngest professor at the university. As Stephen Bush in the FT observes the question of race then became the focus of the media’s coverage, rather than Arday’s academic integrity. As the university came under increasing pressure, it announced an investigation into Arday. Since Arday’s death, there have been calls to impose curbs on the media. As you might expect, Index strongly opposes any regulation as an impingement of the right – indeed the duty – of the press to report on matters of genuine public interest. What purpose would regulation have served here? It might have shut down legitimate questions about Cambridge and its reputation for academic excellence; about the appointment of academics at the university; and about plagiarism, itself a growing issue across academia. Indeed, public focus on the role of the media in the events of the last few weeks has allowed Cambridge, arguably a more powerful institution than the press today, to evade scrutiny of its role in elevating Arday. Cambridge is supposed to be a world leader in research and teaching, yet when Arday was appointed three years ago, according to the BBC, there were only five other Black professors at Cambridge out of a total of more than 970. The numbers nationally are appalling too: 270 Black university professors in the whole of the country. There are so few Black professors today in British academia that they fear that they too will become the targets of impossible levels of public scrutiny – into their research, into their lives, into their very right to occupy a place in the public sphere on the basis of what they do for a living: in short that their freedom of expression will be curtailed. Also, research at Cambridge seems to be concentrated around subjects that are politically and financially advantageous to the institution – as opposed to research that has clear merit, but is less relevant with respect to commercial interests and priorities. Research income from China topped £23 million in 2024/25. The Judge Business School has formed a partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry. I started with Khattak, a scholar from Pakistan whom Cambridge first welcomed and then cast aside. I end with the tragedy of Arday, who became the focus of arguments that extended far beyond the question of the rigour of his academic practice. The link between the two is that Cambridge adopted both as instruments that served its own purposes; then abandoned them when that purpose no longer suited them. Both cases have implications, direct and indirect, for the right to free expression in universities. READ MORE

Last month Index ran a story about a filmmaker and activist from Pakistan. His name was Roshaan Khattak and he was exploring human rights…

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance

Strategy sits on $1.4 billion profit on bitcoin holdings as price surges

Strategy’s common stock rose 10% in Friday pre-market trading to $120, the highest level in two months. Read the full article here

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance

Bitcoin ETFs draw $608M as Ether ETFs see largest inflow since October

Bitcoin ETF inflows pushed August’s total to a 2026 high of $2.07 billion as Bitcoin traded above $75,000 and Ether climbed to $2,357. Read…

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance

Live updates: Bitcoin, ether ETFs pull in $800 million as inflows surge for a second day

Spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in $606 million on Aug. 20 and ether funds $221 million, both bigger than the prior day, confirming the institutional…

MANTRA token plunges 18% to record low as blockchain halts after exploit

15 hours ago

South Korea Bill Targets Unregistered Crypto Firms

15 hours ago

Bitcoin, ether and solana climb as another $1 billion shorts get wiped out

16 hours ago

MANTRA Token Plunges to All-Time Low During Chain Outage

16 hours ago

Capital.com Affiliate Gains UAE Crypto Dealing, Custody License

17 hours ago

DOGE’s Screwworm Legacy May Be Tons Of Euthanized Cats And Dogs

17 hours ago

A $2 million bet on XRP volatility crosses the tape as prices surge

19 hours ago

If everything’s a conspiracy, nothing’s a conspiracy

19 hours ago

Crypto Generated Over 1% of Webull’s Record $198M Q2 Revenue

21 hours ago

Iranian Hackers Tied to $6 Million Bitcoin Extortion Charged in Massive Cyber Campaign

21 hours ago

Jason Arday’s Downfall, Lindsay Clancy Case, and the Surveillance State

21 hours ago

Binance Launches Agent OS for AI-Powered Crypto Trading

22 hours ago

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance

Tensions Flare as CME, Kalshi Execs Clash Over Prediction Markets in DC

In brief CME Group Chairman Terry Duffy and Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara clashed during a CFTC roundtable in Washington, D.C. Duffy singled out…

Media & Culture

Bumbling Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav Sees $197 Million Stock Sale Bonanza On Top Of Looming $550 Million Golden Parachute

from the the-rich-get-richer dept Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav oversaw years of dysfunction during the last wave of pointless Warner Brothers AT&T and Discovery…

Media & Culture

Trending

Popular

BROWSE OUR EDITOR'S HAND PICKED NEWS!

The News Roundup

AI & Crypto

Politics

Don't Miss!

Editor's Picks

Subscribe to Updates

Opinions & Debates

Latest News

Subscribe to Updates

Cookies

Manage Cookies

Your permission applies to the following domains: