This Week In Techdirt History: February 1st – 7th

Five Years Ago

This week in 2021, the attacks on Section 230 were coming fast, with a Columbia law professor spewing blatantly false information in the Wall Street Journal and Joe Lieberman calling for its repeal, followed by the Democrats introducing the dumpster fire that was the SAFE TECH Act, which we dug into in depth. We also wrote about how attempts to tie 230 to a horrific story of online stalking were just plain wrong. Meanwhile, a federal court tossed out a constitutional challenge to FOSTA, 14 states were considering right to repair laws, and the RIAA launched a brand new front group pretending to represent independent artists.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2016, a DHS official was calling for an end to anonymity online, French politicians were trying to ban linking to any website without permission, and India was getting ready to ban zero rating after the failure of Facebook's misleading lobbying. We wrote about how lobbyists turned an education reform bill into a copyright propaganda push, Take Two Software was sued over tattoo copyrights, Hasbro was sued for font piracy on My Little Pony merchandise, and a ridiculous copyright fight was still keeping the only video of the first Super Bowl locked up.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2011, there was a lot of coverage of the recent uprising in Egypt and the government's response. We looked at just how the government shut down the internet in an attempt to quell the protests, then at how they turned it back on for the same reasons. Al Jazeera offered up its Egypt coverage under a Creative Commons license, while China was trying to prevent people from talking about it online. Meanwhile, Homeland Security embarked on a new round of domain seizures that raised serious questions and strongly suggested the agency was twisting the law, especially with the now-infamous seizure of Spanish streaming site Rojadirecta.