Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights
Nora manages the organization’s efforts around platform and media accountability to defend against digital threats to democracy. She previously served as the director of PEN America’s U.S. Free Expression Programs, where she guided the organization’s national advocacy agenda on First Amendment and free-expression issues, including press freedom, disinformation defense and protest rights. Nora launched and led PEN America’s media-literacy and disinformation-defense program. She also led the organization's groundbreaking First Amendment lawsuit, PEN America v. Donald Trump, to hold the former president accountable for his retaliation against and censorship of journalists he disliked. She has also authored policy reports on legislative attacks on fundamental rights. Nora is a civil-rights and constitutional lawyer who previously worked in private practice and at the ACLU of Georgia, litigating significant cases representing victims of voting-rights violations, unconstitutional police practices, First Amendment infringements and more. In all aspects of her work, she seeks to defend the human dignity of all and overcome structural barriers to equity and justice. Nora graduated from Emory University School of Law and received her B.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School.
Instead of holding yet another listening session about AI, Congress should follow these steps to safeguard against discrimination and privacy violations.
An appeals court ruled that Facebook can be sued for allegedly discriminating on the basis of race and sex in housing advertisements. Here’s what that means.
The Change the Terms coalition is urging social-media companies to stop amplifying hate and disinformation in the runup to the midterm elections and beyond.
“This kind of data collection is becoming more common on platforms and most people aren’t aware of the way it affects their privacy and free expression rights,” said Free Press’ Nora Benavidez.
Platforms have announced last-minute changes to their policies and practices, but these are too little and too late to meet the DSA's full requirements.
The American Constitution Society speaks to Free Press’ Nora Benavidez about the ways in which social media is impacting our elections and our democracy.
This Free Press report shows how Meta, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube are failing to crack down on hate and anti-democratic disinformation ahead of the U.S. midterms.
The groups submitted a letter for the record in advance of the July 19 House Judiciary hearing on “Digital Dragnets: Examining the Government's Access to Your Personal Data.”
Nearly 50 consumer-advocacy, media-justice and privacy-rights groups are calling on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to conduct hearings on this bill.
