The UK government has announced a further crackdown on social media firms and AI amid concerns about harmful content targeted at children.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

The High Court has held ruled that the Police Federation of England and Wales acted unlawfully in suspending two elected Federation Chairs, and barring one from re-election, over comments they made on GB News and social media about racism in policing.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

A substantial majority of the British public believe that newspapers and news websites should be regulated by an independent body, according to new public polling.

In December 2025, President Donald Trump filed a US$10 billion lawsuit against the BBC in a federal court in Florida. It was only the latest in a long series of high-dollar legal challenges Trump has brought against prominent media organizations, including ABC, CBS, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

On Tuesday 27 January 2026, the trial of a preliminary issue on limitation in the Mirror Newspapers Hacking Litigation began before Fancourt J. The Mirror Group told the High Court it accepts phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering occurred but argues dozens of new claims should be dismissed because they were brought too late.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

The highly anticipated trial of Lawrence and ors v Associated News Ltd (ANL) KB-2022-003316 began on Monday 19 January 2026. The claimants are Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Prince Harry and Sadie Frost Law. The trial is listed for 10 weeks.

On Tuesday, in response to the Bondi terrorist attack and mounting pressure to take strong action, the Albanese government released draft legislation to counter hate crime and strengthen firearm controls.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

The UK government has launched a consultation on introducing an Australian-style ban on social media for under-16s. The proposal is framed as a bold response to rising concerns about young people’s mental health, online abuse and exposure to harmful content.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that makes a victim’s data, system or device inaccessible. It locks the target or encrypts it (converting text into an unreadable form) until the victim pays a ransom to the attacker.

The highly anticipated trial of Lawrence and ors v Associated News Ltd (ANL) KB-2022-003316 will begin on Monday 19 January 2026. The claimants are Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Prince Harry and Sadie Frost Law. The trial is listed for 10 weeks.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

In 2020 Lisa Nandy argued for mutualisation of the BBC, saying that it had a duty to “be accountable to those who fund it”: “Instead of tokenistic consultation with the people who pay for it, and backroom negotiations with the government, the BBC should move to a model of being owned and directed by licence fee holders – who can help decide the trade-offs that the BBC must make to secure its future.

Back in December, DCMS officially launched the process of renewing the BBC’s Royal Charter, with the publication of a Green Paper detailing the Government’s areas of focus for BBC reform – along with a public consultation inviting the public’s responses to these proposals.

Happy New Year to all readers. The Hilary Term begins on Monday 12 January 2026 and runs to Wednesday 16 April 2026. This Round Up covers news items since our last edition on 15 December 2025.

Inforrm covered a wide range of data protection and privacy cases in 2025. Following  our posts in 2018, 2019,  2020, 2021 , 2022 and 2023 here is our selection of notable privacy and data protection cases from England and Wales, the ECtHR, the CJEU, Australia and Canada in 2025.

Over the course of 2025, deepfakes improved dramatically. AI-generated faces, voices and full-body performances that mimic real people increased in quality far beyond what even many experts expected would be the case just a few years ago. They were also increasingly used to deceive people.

Inforrm reported on a large number of defamation cases from around the world in 2024.  Following a now established tradition, with our widely read posts on 2017,  2018,  2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 defamation cases, we present our own eccentric selection of legally and factually interesting cases from England, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Florida from the past year.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

On 15 December 2025, President Donald Trump issued a claim for defamation and deceptive and unfair trade practices, claiming damages of "not less than" $5 billion, interest, costs punitive damages and attorney's fees for each cause of action.

It seems everyday new applications and new threats emerge from the AI world. This applies in particular to creators who see growing AI challenges to their livelihoods; graphic art and album covers spat out by AI generators; voice actors replaced by AI clones; authors struggling to make their works known in a sea of AI-generated slop; now AI artists are even making the Billboard charts.

Reddit is asking Australia’s High Court to rule that it’s not a social media platform and therefore should not have to comply with the under-16s social media account ban.