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I don't know what it is about US law enforcement culture, but it far too often seems to be that officers deployed to help people choose to hurt people instead. When people are suffering mental distress, cops become first responders. Unlike other first responders, like EMTs or firefighters, the desire to harm tends to surpass [...]

With almost zero public notice, the Board of Supervisors of Marin County, California (just to the north of San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge) is on the verge of approving tomorrow a demand by the county sheriff's department to install license plate cameras throughout the county. As a county resident, I object. My comment [...]

We've noted how the GOP's obsession with TikTok is... weird and superficial. Guys like Ted Cruz or Brendan Carr will suffer absolute embolisms about TikTok (and TikTok only) to get on cable news where they'll be portrayed as good faith privacy reformers. While simultaneously refusing to pass a privacy law or regulate dodgy data brokers [...]

Facial recognition tech has slowly gone mainstream over the past half-decade. Not just in acceptance, but also in opposition. Kashmir Hill exposed perhaps the worst purveyor of this tech - Clearview - with a series of articles exposing the company's tactics as well as its far right backers. Clearview has managed to become a pariah [...]

Luminar Neo is an easy-to-use photo editing software that empowers photography lovers to express the beauty they imagined using innovative AI-driven tools. Luminar Neo was built from the ground up to be different from previous Luminar editors. It keeps your favorite LuminarAI tools and expands your arsenal with more state-of-the-art technologies and important changes at [...]

We've already discussed the extremely censorial nature of ExTwitter's lawsuit against Media Matters for accurately describing ads from major brands that appeared next to explicitly neoNazi content. The lawsuit outright admits that Media Matters did, in fact, see those ads next to that content. Its main complaint is that Elon is mad that he thinks [...]

Two years ago the state of California unveiled amajor broadband planthat, among other things, aims to spend $3.5 billion to create a massive, open access middle mile" fiber network in a bid to boost competition. It's part of a broader quest to make broadband bothmore affordable and more competitive(see ourCopia report from last yeardiscussing the [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Thad with a simple comment about Elon Musk's extremely terrible lawsuit against Media Matters: Of course, as you know firsthand, a suit doesn't have to have any merit to make life miserable for its targets. In second place, it's Mechanical Rhizome with a comment [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, the government agreed to delete data copied from a traveler's phone after being hit with a motion for return of property" while, in something of an inverse situation, prosecutors charged a suspect with evidence tampering after a seized iPhone was remotely wiped. Cord-cutting was setting more records while [...]

Given that the overwhelming majority of DMCA takedown notices are generated by copyright bots that are only moderately good at their job, at best, perhaps it's not terribly surprising that these bots keep finding new and interesting ways to cause collateral damage unintentionally. From publishers taking down YouTubers because of an oopsie to Viacom DMCAing [...]

For years we've talked about the growing threat of SIM hijacking, which involves a criminal covertly porting out your phone number from right underneath your nose (quite often with the help of bribed or connedwireless carrier employees). Once they have your phone identity, they have access to most of your personal accounts secured by two-factor [...]

It's somewhat incredible when you look at the full story, but once again, the DOJ has failed in its attempt to claim that Backpage founder/editor Michael Lacey was facilitating sex trafficking with the site. They did convict him on one count of money laundering, for transferring $16.5 million to a bank in Hungary right around [...]

In Italy, an age-verification coalition against porn is getting traction. On September 4th, the Minister of Family Eugenia Roccella, representing the right-wing majority,initiatedconsultations for introducing a law to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content. On November 13th, the Democratic Party (currently the main opposition party)presentedthe Digital Innovation Act, whoseArticle 17aims to prevent minors from accessing [...]

There are few moves that make reporting more credible than suing the reporter for defamation and losing. It not only revives the negative reporting that might have faded into the white noise of constant internet churn, but also exposes the plaintiff as someone unable to handle being the subject of factual reporting. The Streisand Effect, [...]

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Over the last few years, we've highlighted study after study after study showing that, contrary to the public narrative, claims by politicians, the media, and plaintiffs in many, many lawsuits, the actual evidence just does not show at all that social media/internet is doing damage to kids. In a recent post we highlighted just a [...]

We've noted many times how the GOP's obsession with TikTok is stupid, performative, and utterly hollow. For example, the party desperately wants to ban TikTok for privacy reasons," yet consistently opposes passing privacy laws, or regulating data brokers that traffic in far more data - at a far greater international scale - than TikTok executives [...]

The thin blue line between cops and cop-friendly tech continues to be erased, mostly by cops. No longer content to underserve the public, law enforcement agencies are welcoming the warm embrace of consumer surveillance products in hopes of adding private tech to their publicly-funded surveillance mesh networks. Ring, Amazon's home surveillance tech acquisition, was one [...]

We've documented in detail how the whole AT&T->Time Warner->Warner Brothers Discovery merger process has been a pointless mess, resulting in no limits of layoffs and damage to the underlying brands. What was supposed to be a gambit by these companies to dominate streaming TV, wound up being a very expensive act of seppuku by over-compensated [...]

If you - like Florida governor Ron DeSantis and his hateful little legislative buddies - want to oppress certain people, you're going to have to do it on your own time. The state isn't allowed to help you be shitty. Florida passed an anti-drag show law earlier this year. Legislators were careful to ensure the [...]

A few weeks back we wrote about a report that the EU Commission, in its push for dangerous client-side scanning mandates, had started buying highly targeted ads to try to influence people to support the policy. The ads, first revealed by Wired, were incredibly misleading. But, also, as we noted, appeared to violate EU's privacy [...]

After years of continuous, unrepentant abuse of surveillance powers, the FBI is facing the real possibility of seeing Section 702 curtailed, if not scuttled entirely. Section 702 allows the NSA to gather foreign communications in bulk. The FBI benefits from this collection by being allowed to perform backdoor" searches of NSA collections to obtain communications [...]

Take your basic knowledge of cybersecurity to a whole new level with the Advanced Cyber Security bundle. This bundle offers you 6 courses on industry-standard certifications on cybersecurity so you can enjoy the wonders of modern tech without compromising your data and privacy. Courses cover CISA, CCSP, CISM, and CISSP certification prep. You'll also get [...]

So, yesterday we covered Elon Musk's ridiculous censorial threat to sue Media Matters the split second the court opens on Monday." Of course, as we noted, you can file lawsuits 24/7. And yet, as the courts opened on Monday, there was nothing. As mentioned in the original post, I was away from internet access for [...]

AI" (or more accurately language learning models nowhere close to sentience or genuine awareness) has plenty of innovative potential. Unfortunately, most of the folks actually in charge of the technology's deployment largely see it as a way to cut corners, attack labor, and double down on all of their very worst impulses. Case in point: [...]

The NYPD has plenty of problems with accountability and transparency. The main problem is this: the public wants some of this and the NYPD wants none of this. So, it does stupid things repeatedly that do little more than remind the public it's not to be trusted. Like any cop shop, it's manned by cops [...]

The copyright system is flawed at many levels, as hundreds of posts on this blog make clear. One particular class of problems concern takedowns. The best known of the notice and takedown' systems, that of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), allows the copyright industry to send takedown notices when they discover infringements on [...]

Holy shit. So, in 2021 there was a car accident in Atwater California that killed a married couple, Pam and Joe Juarez. According to police reports at the time, a 20-year-old Stanford student, King Vanga, struck their car from behind. Here's how ABC 30 reported on the matter: The California Highway Patrol says Pam, 56, [...]

Some city officials in Illinois are now engaged in a round of How Can I Get Sued?" Sounds like fun, but Calumet City officials might do well to remember the only way to win is not to play. That's the upshot of the latest bit of officious nonsense to surface in the Chicago area. Granted, [...]

The Complete Information Security Bundle has 7 courses to help you learn about information security. You'll be introduced to the fundamentals, learn about various tools, and get information on AWS and CCSP certification exams. It's on sale for $32. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales [...]

The fakest free speech absolutist" who ever lived is at it again. As you may recall, earlier this year, Elon Musk sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) claiming that its report documenting an alleged surge of hateful content" on exTwitter somehow violated contracts (after first threatening to sue for defamation, but not actually [...]

Right to repair reform continues to have a moment here in the U.S., with four states (California, Minnesota, New York, and recently Maine) having passed state level protections. The goal: to fight repair monopolies and make it easier and more affordable to repair the technology you own, whether it's your car, game console, cell phone, [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Thad with with a comment about Elon Musk citing The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy as the inspiration for his new Grok" AI product, and our point that the titular guide was compiled by humans: Yeah, if you want a real-life equivalent of the [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, the RIAA made a court filing where it warned about overprotection from copyright, Nintendo secured a huge settlement against ROM site (probably just to scare other ROM sites), and the Girl Scouts sued the Boy Scouts over trademark. CNN filed a lawsuit seeking to show that Trump can't [...]

The things said by law enforcement when trying to keep evidence from being tossed all sound the same. There are only a handful of acceptable excuses for performing warrantless searches and, man, do they get used so frequently we can probably all repeat them in our sleep. Exigent circumstances." This one means things were happening [...]

Video game addiction. Sigh. Big sigh, even. Like, the biggest of sighs. We've talked about claims that video game addiction is a documentable affliction in the past, as well as the pushback that claim has received from addiction experts, who have pointed out that much of this is being done to allow doctors to get [...]

We've done this a few times now where people start talking about a social media trend that actually only went viral because of the media coverage of the supposed (but not really) social media trend. And each time there's some outrage moral panic about how social media" is destroying the children or whatever, when it's [...]

There's nothing new about cop shops letting their tech providers write their press releases for them. Law enforcement officers love power but often think nothing of surrendering their autonomy to the providers of the snooping tools. For years, Harris Corporation - the maker of Stingray devices - told cops what they could or couldn't say [...]

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At this point you need to assume that organizations still advertising on exTwitter know that they're supporting a new fascist movement... and are okay with it. Yes, many advertisers on exTwitter have pulled the plug on advertising on the site. And even the ones that Linda Yaccarino has been able to coax back appear to [...]

For decades, big ISPs like AT&T have refused to upgrade low income and poor communities to fiber, despite billions in subsidies, regulatory favors, and tax breaks that were supposed to accomplish precisely that. Groups like the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) have released studies on cities like Cleveland and Detroit, documenting how this discrimination lines [...]

Three years ago we discussed an interesting trademark battle between McDonald's and Hungry Jack's in Australia. It's interesting for a number of reasons. For starters, Hungry Jack's is a part of Burger King, McDonald's chief rival globally, making this something of a proxy war. Second, this suit was filed on the heels of McDonald's losing [...]

Last week in our Error 402 series on the history of web monetization, we wrote about the earliest forms of web advertising: banner ads. As we noted, this simple" way of making money seemed to derail other forms of monetization, including early attempts at paywalls (which had many other problems and were destined to fail). [...]

The courts in Indiana have made significant moves in recent years to do what the legislature won't: limit asset forfeiture abuse. A case that made its way from Indiana's Supreme Court to the US Supreme Court ended with a declaration that certain forfeitures violated constitutional protections against excessive fines. In that case, Tyson Timbs was [...]

Just a few weeks ago Judge William Orrick massively trimmed back the first big lawsuit that was filed against generative AI companies for training their works on copyright-covered materials. Most of the case was dismissed, and what bits remained may not last much longer. And now, it appears that Judge Vince Chhabria (who has been [...]

Reach new heights (literally) with this 4K Dual-Camera Drone. It's equipped with an HD 4K front camera that supports a remote 90 control angle and a bottom camera with a 120 wide angle. This drone also uses optical flow positioning, allowing the bottom camera to accurately capture the ground or any object, keeping the drone [...]

UK law enforcement seems incapable of recognizing warning signs. Officials seem willing to compete with China in terms of Most Cameras Per Capita. And it's not enough to just have cameras covering every bit of open space. Those cameras must contain questionable tech that is notoriously inaccurate, at least when deployed by UK law enforcement. [...]

The consumer quest to be able to affordably repair your own tech is going well, if you hadn't noticed. Maine just became the fourth state to implement right to repair protections in the wake of laws passed in New York, California, and Minnesota. As that vote (84 percent of Maine voters approved) illustrates, support for [...]

Some will never learn. The Streisand Effect, coined by site-god Mike Masnick two decades ago, is a term that describes when a person or group attempts to disappear content, typically from the internet, which only serves to make that content far more visible and sought out. Because the internet tends to round around censorship and [...]

Another state lawmaker has introduced an age verification bill looking to block minors' access to porn websites. This time, Indiana state Sen. Mike Bohacek of the community of Michiana Shores has introduced a preliminary draft that proposes copycat age verification policies similar to other states, including Louisiana, Texas, Utah, and others. The Indiana bill would [...]