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It's hard to believe we once were shocked to hear a government figure proudly declare that we kill people based on metadata. What's happening now is even more disturbing. We're killing people simply because they happen to be in boats spotted exiting certain shores and headed towards international waters. The War on Drugs has always [...]

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Elon Musk, business genius. When Elon Musk announced his plans to buy Twitter, some of his billionaire friends rushed to text him to say they'd throw whatever money they wanted into the deal. Larry Ellison casually offered a billion... or whatever you recommend." Marc Andreessen offered $250 million, no questions asked. This all came out [...]

Late last year we wrote about a new startup that was flooding the internet with AI-generated podcast slop. Featuring fake hosts having fake discussions, the startup proudly stated it was creating about 3,000 new AI-generated podcasts every single week. The owners of the startup (who called critics of AI slop Luddites,") stated that because they [...]

Just a few days ago, I wrote a post about how Bill Cassidy had been primaried out of returning as a senator for Louisiana and how all of this bootlicking of the Trump administration obviously didn't do the job he hoped it would do. As a result, he has been left as a lame duck [...]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice - or go straight to the RSS feed. In this week's roundup of the latest news in online [...]

As statehouses ramp up for 2026, we're seeing a familiar and concerning trend of lawmakers rushing to regulate the internet based on shockingly shaky science. From theCalifornia State Assemblyto theMassachusettsandMinnesotalegislatures, a wave of bills is crashing against the digital lives of young people, with proponents of these measures framing social media access as a public [...]

Last week I read this excerpt of Steven Rosenbaum's new book in Wired. His book is titled The Future of Truth" and the Wired article has the attention grabbing headline: Gen Z Is Pioneering a New Understanding of Truth." I debated writing about the article, because it read to me like pretty typical older generation [...]

The Modern No-Code Creator Bundle is an extensive online curriculum specifically developed to enable individuals to construct professional websites, applications & automated workflows without the necessity of writing any code. It has five courses, covering leading no-code platforms and tools like ChatGPT, Mendix, and Tabnine. It is ideally suited for novices and non-technical professionals, empowering [...]

It's absolutely amazing how wrong this administration has been when it comes to immigration enforcement. That some people still think the Supreme Court is in the best position to resolve this is insane. This isn't a circuit split in need of mending. This is pretty much the entirety of the court system coming to the [...]

Back in February the Trump FCC announced it was launching new reforms" of a major bipartisan FCC program that helps poor people afford broadband. Dubbed Lifeline, the program provides a modest $9.25 stipend to help low-income Americans afford either broadband or phone service. Lifeline, developed and supported as a popular bipartisan initiative, is one of [...]

I assume at one point America was a serious big boy country, but we are certainly not that any longer. You can get examples of the unserious nature of our government in spades, of course, but I'm just going to keep hammering on what is going on at HHS and its child agencies as the [...]

I'm not here to kink shame or suggest sex work isn't work. I'm not here to claim that every sex worker is a victim of sex trafficking. I'm not even here to suggest that government officials shouldn't be allowed to exchange money for goods and sexual services. If they're not on the clock, I'm not [...]

When I was in high school, part of the mandatory social studies curriculum included watching the miniseries Roots in class over the course of several days. I remember it fondly, though I did get myself into a bit of trouble in the process. Apparently shouting things like Hey, where is Geordi La Forge's visor?" and [...]

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Puerile, vindictive, and hateful is no way to run a government. That's how Trump is running his, however. And that means his DOJ cannot possibly hope to stay on the good side of judges, not when it's actively engaged in appeasing an autocratic megalomaniac and his enablers. The lawyers currently staffing the DOJ cannot be [...]

When right wing billionaire Larry Ellison (and his nepobaby kid David) hired trolling blogger Bari Weiss to run CBS News, Weiss arrived with the promise of balanced, fact-based news," independent, principled journalism," and a unique entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision" that would completely modernize the network and reach the everyday Americans" she claimed were being [...]

Senator Bill Cassidy just lost his campaign for reelection to his Senate seat in Louisiana. With that, his career in federal government is likely over. It's no secret as to why this happened. In early 2021, Cassidy suffered from a spasm of patriotism and voted to convict Donald Trump during his impeachment trial after the [...]

As convenient as it is for cops to play along with hysterical claims made by politicians, sometimes a politician goes too far. That seems to be the case here. Scott Bottoms - currently a state rep in Colorado - tried to flex his self-proclaimed far right" bona fides by making a truly absurd claim about [...]

Today marks the deadline for online platforms to implement a process for notice-and-takedown of nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) under the TAKE IT DOWN Act (TIDA), which became law one year ago. Starting today, platforms must conspicuously offer a notice-and-removal process for NCII, remove reported material within 48 hours of a valid removal request" from the [...]

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Section 702 surveillance powers are still limping along, mostly unimpeded, despite on-again/off-again objections by federal politicians. More active recently have been several GOP politicians. These representatives are newly opposed to clean reauthorization of Section 702 powers. This isn't because they've come to realize the threat to Americans' rights that warrantless access by the FBI (and [...]

We've talked a lot about how Americans have somehow accepted the fact that our voice networks are now saturated with scammers, fraudsters, and robocallers (no, that's not something that happens in well run, functionally regulated countries). I've also explained for years how the U.S. government solutions to the problems are usually ineffective because they're endlessly [...]

In the online world, we certainly have seen some companies make very poor decisions when it comes to dealing with negative reviews of their products or services. While it can be very frustrating to see this sort of online negativity pop up, the response to a negative review can be as telling as the review [...]

Judge Beryl Howell has now told ICE at least twice: it's not allowed to grade its own papers. Since Trump's return to office, the federal government has been engaged in a months-long purge of anyone who looks a bit foreign. ICE has increasingly relied on administrative warrants to do everything including enter homes to effect [...]

We discussed the rumor of this on Friday, but it's now real: Donald Trump has handed himself a $1.776 billion fund of taxpayer money - unappropriated by Congress - to dole out to friends in the MAGA movement who claim they were mistreated by the Biden administration, but with no judicial review over such claims. [...]

As someone who thinks a lot about AI and suicide, I was disappointed with John Oliver's recent episode of Last Week Tonight on AI Chatbots." The segment boiled down to this: chatbots exploit vulnerable people, drive them toward delusion and harm, and AI companies aren't meaningfully trying to fix them. If anything, as John Oliver [...]

Opusonix is the workflow-first platform built for music producers and engineers who are tired of endless email chains and scattered files. By centralizing feedback, versions, and tasks in one structured workspace, it helps you cut email traffic by up to 90% so you can focus more on creating and less on chasing approvals. From time-coded [...]

Behold this utter bullshit, uttered by the Trump administration's border czar" Tom Homan: White House border czar Tom Homan said Thursday he's sure" Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have detained U.S. citizens, but we don't deport them." Homan told reporters outside the White House that U.S. citizens have nothing to fear." We deport people [...]

One recurring theme during the Trump era is that because he fundamentally doesn't know how anything actually works, his beliefs and policies are broadly shaped by whatever terrible rich person was in his ear last. Even when it comes to stuff like streaming video. It's all transactional cronyism, and by and large the public interest [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Whoever with a response to one particular line in our post about John Roberts decimating faith in the Supreme Court's consistency: In second place, it's Stephen T. Stone with another comment on that post, this time in response to a comment asking if we [...]

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In all of our conversations about video game preservation, one common thread is the general apathy of developers and publishers when it comes to this sort of thing. It's actually a bit mind boggling to me that apathy is even a thing here. After all, this is the work done by these developers and, to [...]

It is widely accepted that drones have changed the conduct of modern war dramatically. The war in Ukraine, in particular, is driving the rapid evolution of drone technology. Evidence of how far things have come was provided recently by the following claim from Ukraine, reported here on The Next Web (TNW): In April, Ukrainian President [...]

The recent internet addiction" verdicts against Apple, Meta, and YouTube drew applause from those eager to see big tech take a hit. But look behind the headlines and the result is something else entirely. These cases won't help children. They will fuel a litigation plague that raises costs, chills innovation and hits smaller companies the [...]

Something that never was a problem for years suddenly became a thing after Trump's return to office. As his administration ramped up its cruelty towards non-white people, Democratic leaders suddenly became much more interested in seeing how ICE was handling this influx of detainees. Not that they were wrong to do so. The history of [...]

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The saga of Trump suing his own IRS for $10 billion just got weirder. What started as a brazenly corrupt attempt to personally pocket $10 billion in taxpayer money has now morphed into something arguably worse: a $1.7 billion patronage slush fund - unappropriated by Congress - that Trump could dole out to loyal MAGA [...]

What's left of CBS News recently landed an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It's a bit of a doozy (transcript, video). There's a part where Netanyahu tries to blame foreign social media bot farms for the rise in people disgusted by his government's carpet bombing of children. There's a part where he pretends [...]

We've complained a great deal about RFK Jr.'s stint running HHS and its effects on the health of Americans in the short and long term because, well, there's a lot to complain about. His anti-vaxxer stances have begun infecting national vaccine policy, of course, and his stance of essentially ignoring an ongoing 17 month measles [...]

Following criticism, lawmakers have narrowed theGUARD Act, a bill aimed at restricting minors' access to certain AI systems. Theearlier version could have applied broadlyto nearly every AI-powered chatbot or search tool. The amended bill focuses more narrowly on so-called AI companions"-conversational systems designed to simulate emotional or interpersonal interactions with users. That change does address [...]

Earlier this week, OpenAI became the latest tech company to publicly endorse KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. The company, conveniently, tries to frame this as being about its support of child safety. It's not. It's about political horse trading, desperation for good publicity, and building a regulatory moat. KOSA would help create stronger online [...]

It might be time to do a wellness check on GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen. We had just discussed Cohen's announced bid to have GameStop buy eBay as part of an absolutely bizarre interview he did on CNBC's Squawk Box. In that interview, Cohen attempted to explain how GameStop would buy the much more highly valued [...]

The InfoSec4TC Projects Hub is a one-of-a-kind interactive platform where learning meets real-world practice. It enables learners to work on actual cybersecurity and compliance projects that simulate professional work environments and can help improve career readiness for roles like GRC Analyst, SOC Analyst, ISMS Consultant, or Cybersecurity Specialist. Each project is designed, reviewed, and evaluated [...]

As was covered here last week, ProPublica's Hannah Allam reached out to Trump's terrorism czar" Sebastian Gorka to ask him about the wreckage he's caused since being elevated to a position of power he clearly has no expertise to handle. Gorka's no expert in domestic security. While his resume may include occasional work for government [...]

A new Christian" mobile phone provider named Radiant Mobile is promising to offer a wireless service that censors all LGBTQ+ content. The MVNO (mobile virtual network operator), which runs on the T-Mobile network, says it's keen to deliver faith-focused mobile service," according tothe company's website. According to NIT Technology Review, the MVNO is working alongside [...]

Complaining about automagic enforcement of copyrights on the internet through copyright bots is so old hat at this point so as to be cliche. But there is a very good reason for that. Even in the narrower realm of PC gaming, we have seen examples of how copyright enforcement has ensnared totally innocent games, or [...]