It’s Wednesday, April 1. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Kat Rosenfield asks, should we judge age-gap relationships? Peter Savodnik on the Republicans leading the polls in the Golden State. Patrick McGee on 50 years of Apple. David Patrikarakos on the European officials siding with Trump on Iran. All that and much more.
But first: Is the age of censorship really over?
Someday, when the history of the early 21st century is written, a big part of the story will be about information. As rapidly advancing technology has reached into nearly every corner of our lives, control over knowledge and opinions has become one of the great issues of our age. Think content erased for violating the wrong set of beliefs, and people fired for posting the wrong kind of content.
These are issues we’ve covered extensively here at The Free Press, because they get at some of the values we treasure the most: truth, trust, freedom. These questions are also the focus of a new book by Jacob Siegel, The Information State, in which he argues that over the past decade, a powerful new kind of censorship took hold in American public life—then finally came to an end.
Or did it?
Just a day after the book’s publication, Siegel found himself in a surreal position. His book about censorship was subjected to the very dynamic he describes in its pages when a review of it was purged from the website of left-wing magazine The Baffler after a person mentioned in the text requested a correction. Read his full, firsthand account of this strange tale, and what it says about how we get our information in 2026.
Then, consider the case of Logan Levkoff, a sex education teacher at a private K–8 school in New York City for more than two decades—until two weeks ago, when she was fired for reposting Brianna Wu, a transgender woman. “I am a sex ed teacher with an excellent 21-year record,” she writes, “and I was targeted, scrutinized, and ultimately dismissed for daring to deviate from the mob.”
Could a Republican Win the California Governor’s Race? |
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A Republican might soon lead the state synonymous with American liberalism—California. How? Peter Savodnik describes the perfect storm hovering over the state’s Democrats: a wacky primary election format combined with tremendous discontent with progressive governance. These factors could lead to a Republican governor running the Golden State for the first time in 15 years. | | |
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Conversion Therapy Is Controversial. It’s Also Free Speech. |
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Does taking a job as a therapist or dentist mean giving up your right to free speech? The Supreme Court just reversed a lower court ruling that upheld a Colorado law barring counselors from dissuading minors who wanted to transition genders. It’s a big win for First Amendment rights, according to Jed Rubenfeld: Whatever your thoughts of the merits of child transitions, “states should not be able to set up an orthodoxy of opinion and penalize people—including therapists—who dissent from it.” | | |
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The Surveillance Economy Is Apple’s Legacy, Too |
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Fifty years ago Apple created its first circuit board, which became the technological ancestor of the dozens of cutting-edge Apple devices we know today. There’s a good chance you are reading these words on an Apple product right now. But there’s more to these devices than browsing the web. Patrick McGee describes how the iPhone provides “a high-definition camera in every hand, and apps that track individuals 24-7”—tools of the modern surveillance state. Read McGee’s account of how one of the world’s largest tech companies also ended privacy as we knew it. | | |
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The Europeans Shocked at Their Countries’ Response to Iran |
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President Trump isn’t too pleased with Europe right now. He called the UK and France “unhelpful” yesterday after they continued to abstain from joining the war against Iran in the Middle East. But not all Europeans are pleased to be on the sidelines, David Patrikarakos reports. He talks to the European officials losing their patience with the continent’s timidity. | | |
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Should We Judge Age-Gap Relationships? |
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The new Netflix show, Age of Attraction, is addressing the taboo around age-gap relationships head-on, barring contestants looking for love, ages 20–60, from asking each other, “How old are you?” Kat Rosenfield watched it and offers an unfiltered account of the show. The show may be a “train wreck” in some ways, but it offers a glance at a world where age takes a backseat to love. | | |
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