Techdirt

The Raspberry Pi and Arduino Bootcamp Bundle has 5 courses to help you dive into the world of hands-on programming. Courses cover Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ROS2. It's on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The [...]

Gang databases are just handy racism. They're a way for cops to harass, arrest, or otherwise make minorities' lives more miserable. Very little in the way of logic or evidence is required to allow officers to add people to these databases. That's why victims of gang violence and the occasional infant have been labelled gang [...]

There's simply no limit of problems in telecom and media that competent FCC regulatorscouldbe taking aim at.Broadband price gouging by monopolies, widespreadtelecom privacy and security failures, the obvious harm ofunchecked media consolidationall come quickly to mind. Instead of tackling any of this, new Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr has spent the lion's share of his [...]

The fear over industry disruptions due to technological advances is so predictable that we have the entire buggy whip" analogy pre-built to rebut it. For the uninitiated, the analogy harkens back to when the automobile came into wide circulation and the disruption it had on the makers of horse buggy tools, like the whip for [...]

As Artificial Intelligence reshapes the internet landscape, we're watching history repeat itself: The same people who fundamentally misunderstood Section 230's role in enabling the modern internet are now making eerily similar mistakes about how we should approach AI regulation. This week's episode of Otherwise Objectionable dives into these parallel debates, exploring both how Section 230's [...]

For a long time, we've believed no president would dare enact the Alien Enemies Act again, not after it was abused to send more than 100,000 residents and citizens of Japanese descent to US concentration camps during the Second World War. Even the administrative power grabs and uptick in bigotry that followed the 9/11 attacks [...]

Last fall Trump sued CBSclaimed (falsely) that a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris had been deceitfully edited" to her benefit (they simply shortened some of her answers for brevity, as news outlets often do). AsMike explored, the lawsuit was utterly baseless, and tramples the First Amendment, editorial discretion, and common sense. CBS/Paramount is looking [...]

The Trump administration's attempt to rendition people to El Salvador without due process has hit another judicial roadblock. Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado has blocked the government from using the improper Alien Enemies Act to remove noncitizens from the US without due process. The administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is both legally absurd [...]

Embedded systems are at the heart of modern innovation, powering everything from smart devices to automotive technology. This Embedded Systems Engineer Mastery Bundle has 10 courses to help equip you with the skills to design, program, and implement microcontroller-based solutions. Gain hands-on experience with Arduino, PIC, and ESP32, master C programming for embedded applications, and [...]

When a federal judge starts calling out government lawyers for willful and bad faith" behavior and deliberate evasion of fundamental discovery obligations," you know things have gotten serious. But in the case of Abrego Garcia - the man who the DOJ admitted they accidentally sent to a Salvadoran gulag without due process - the DOJ [...]

For decades, major wireless carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile collected vast troves of sensitive user location and movement data, then sold access to any random nitwit with two nickels to rub together. The result was a parade of scandals wherein everybody fromstalkers, law enforcement(orpeople pretending to be law enforcement), car companies, governments, and right wing [...]

A handful of Seattle police officers who had nothing better to do on January 6, 2021 than support a man whose followers spent the next several hours assaulting cops and committing a number of federal crimes are asking the Supreme Court to prevent having their names disclosed to public records requesters. Using John Doe" pseudonyms, [...]

While I'm sure all of us would like to completely forget about COVID-19, it is simply the case that the virus hasn't forgotten about us. Gone are the days of the pandemic, of course, so this isn't meant to fear monger. But the fact is that hundreds of Americans are still dying of this disease [...]

Support us on Patreon It's hard to create a law about children online without first identifying who the children are. We've written a lot about the problems that arise with mandated age verification, and a new paper by Eric Goldman, The Segregate-and-Suppress" Approach to Regulating Child Safety Online, digs into why the entire popular approach [...]

It's no longer about you," Marco Rubio declared in 2023, describing the transformative moment of becoming a father. It's the first time in my life that I have been responsible, entirely at that stage, for the life of another human being." The Senator has repeatedly stressed the critical importance of fathers being present, going so [...]

The narrative during Trump's first term is that he was going after the worst of the worst" undocumented immigrants. But ICE and other DHS components ran out of actual dangerous criminals pretty quickly, largely because immigrants tend to be more law-abiding than regular US citizens. Trump's return to office came coupled with promises to deport [...]

LabsDigest is built for those who learn best by doing. Whether you're preparing for a CompTIA certification or diving into Python development, our platform offers interactive labs that simulate real-world tasks-no passive watching or reading, just real experience. Work through performance-based exercises for CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, and more, or sharpen your coding skills with [...]

Last week, we wrote about Harvard showing a bit of institutional courage in telling the Trump administration to fuck off with its demands that the university fire certain professors, change its curriculum, and allow government oversight of campus activities. In response, Trump escalated things, as he tends to do, cutting off over $2 billion in [...]

For decades, telecom giants like Verizon reacted hysterically every single time the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tried to do anything to protect consumers or hold telecom giants accountable. I spent decades covering it as a telecom policy reporter. Whether privacy rules or popular net neutrality rules, Verizon (and its lobbying proxies at various think tanks) [...]

Walled Culture the book (free digital versionsavailable) concluded with a look at true fans," an alternative way of funding creators that avoids the main problems of the current copyright system. The approach is based on nurturing the connection between artists and their most dedicated fans, allowing the former to generate extra revenue by providing the [...]

I guess it's good to know there are still surprises left for me in this universe. We have talked about the common absurdity in which video games are blamed for all manner of things. It's the moral panic of our time. Video games are blamed for violence, for supposed addictions, for violence, for the eventual [...]

We used to be above this. We used to make fun of the in-fighting occurring in autocratic nations. We used to mock the sycophancy of government officials who spent most of their time jockeying for the position of loyalest loyalist, something that usually came packaged with an inordinate amount of backstabbing. We used to think [...]

At 1:15am early Saturday morning the Supreme Court, in just a few lines of text, did something that was both small and huge: It directed" the government not to remove anyone detained in the Northern District of Texas (or, more specifically, All noncitizens in custody in the Northern District of Texas who were, are, or [...]

Become a language expert with the Babble Language Learning deal. However you choose to access your 10K+ hours of online language education, you'll be able to choose from 14 languages. Want to try your hand at all of them? Knock yourself out - you'll have a lifetime to get it done. And you can tackle [...]

There's a certain predictable pattern when unqualified MAGA political appointees get put in charge of highly technical government operations. First, they demonstrate their complete misunderstanding of the systems they're supposed to oversee. Then, they make a series of increasingly dangerous mistakes. Finally, they try to distract from those mistakes by focusing on culture war issues. [...]

Last year Microsoft announced that it was bringing a new feature to its under-performing Windows 11 OS dubbed Recall." According toMicrosoft's explanation of Recall, the AI" powered technology was supposed to take screenshots of your activity every five seconds, giving you an explorable timeline of your PC's past," that Microsoft's AI-powered assistant,Copilot, can then help [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment about the Trump administration's pivot to claiming that it meant to send Abrego Garcia to El Salvador: Remember, folks: If they'll do it to non-citizens, they'll do it to citizens soon enough. They want you afraid of being [...]

It's time for the second in our series of posts about the winners of this year's public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1929! We've already covered Best Remix winner Accoutrements, and now it's time for a closer look at the winner of the Best Deep Cut category: A Pocketful of Peril! by Perrin Ellis [...]

For most of a half-decade, law enforcement officials and retail execs have been engaged in a mass crime spree" duet. Despite this hysteria being debunked several times by rigorous reporting, cops and shops have been manipulating a non-existent shoplifting crime wave for their own benefit for nearly as long. Every time another smash-and-grab hits TikTok, [...]

As we unfortunately have to keep reiterating, the current measles outbreak in America is not going away. While we have suffered from outbreaks ranging from mild to slightly worse than that since the disease was officially declared eliminated in 2000 due to a concentrated vaccination effort, the current outbreak is putting that elimination status at [...]

On Tuesday, the White House effectively eliminated the Associated Press from the White House press pool, changing the rules to basically bar the wire service entirely. This is even after (or perhaps in response to) a Trump-appointed judge ruling that the White House was clearly violating the First Amendment in excluding the AP from various [...]

It's telling that the Trump Administration thinks it needs access to millions of taxpayer records to locate and capture dangerous" immigrants. Most criminals don't file taxes or hold down regular day jobs. On top of that, this undermines the constant claim made by awful people that immigrants are lazy interlopers who come here to help [...]

Capture emotions and tell stories through photography with the 6-in-1 Photography Master Class Bundle. Transform your skills with six diverse courses, including Portrait Photography, DSLR Photography, Wedding Photography, and more. Whether you're a beginner or experienced, this bundle offers a wealth of knowledge and techniques to enhance your craft. It's on sale for $40. Note: [...]

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear." Those words came not from a liberal jurist or a civil liberties activist, but from Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and [...]

Authoritarians don't much like journalism, education, or informed consensus for what should be obvious reasons. But the far right has long had a particular animosity for publicly-funded broadcasting. In part, because when done right, public broadcasting is free of the kind of perverse financial incentives that results in the kind of feckless, truth-averse, both sides" [...]

For three years now, a select group of states have had a pilot program through the IRS for its Direct File program. For years and years, companies like Intuit had gotten away with all kinds of shady tactics designed to lure people in with the promise of free tax prep filing using online software, only [...]

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.

What's been noted before has been confirmed yet again: there is no widespread concern about the books kids have access to in public libraries. Instead, there's just the concerted, but effective, efforts of a small group of people who feel everyone else's rights end where their morality begins. Something that was just the occasional blip [...]

There's a certain dark irony in watching tech billionaires who built their empires on the democratizing power of technology" now actively working to dismantle democratic institutions. The same figures who once championed connection and openness are now the architects of the most dangerous centralization of power in modern history. This is why I wrote last [...]

The Apple Watch Wireless Charger Keychain is the perfect accessory for Apple Watch users on-the-go. With a built-in 950mAh lithium-ion battery, it can charge all series of Apple Watch. Its portable, pocket-size design makes it easy to carry around while exercising or traveling. With four LED lights indicating the status of the charge, it's easy [...]

At least Florida'sSB 868/HB 743, Social Media Use By Minors" bill isn't beating around the bush when it states that it would require social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena." Usually these sorts of sweeping mandates are hidden behind smoke and mirrors, but this time [...]

Last month Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr announced his DELETE, DELETE, DELETE" initiative. It's basically a plan to lobotomize FCC corporate oversight and consumer protection at the behest of industry giants, dressed up as very serious, very efficient adult policymaking. Carr's trying to pretend this is a serious democratic process, so he opened a public [...]

Some people just don't know how to take the L" I suppose. We've been following a silly trademark case in Australia between pop singer Katy Perry and fashion designer Katie Perry for some time now. As in previous posts on this topic, I will revert to using first names in attempt to avoid any confusion. [...]

While politicians from both parties race to dismantle Section 230, we're missing a crucial part of the story: how this uniquely American law helped US internet companies succeed globally. In the latest episode of Otherwise Objectionable, I explore with legal scholar Anupam Chander what might seem paradoxical - how a domestic liability shield became America's [...]

Support us on Patreon Many people don't think of reproductive health and reproductive rights as tech issues, but they very much are - moreso than ever in a post-Dobbs America. The internet is vital to communication and spreading information around reproductive health care, while abortion drugs are changing the very nature of what reproductive rights [...]

In what appears to be the latest move in this administration's total incompetence with regards to critical government tech infrastructure, MITRE announced yesterday that funding had run out for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system, the fundamental framework that basically everyone in cybersecurity relies on to keep computer systems safe. After the entire cybersecurity [...]

Having turned little-known Venezuelan gang Tren de Agagua (TdA) into the new MS-13 with a few viral videos and extremely questionable assertions, the Trump Administration is now injecting the same artifice into its TdA membership determinations. ICE is not only along for the ride, but it's helping drive. Despite guidance warning against using tattoos to [...]

Edit with the magic of AI, create with stylish effects and templates, and be creative on the go. With Adobe Photoshop Elements, it's never been easier to fix flaws, fine-tune specific areas, and add motion to quickly bring your vision to life. A 3-year license is on sale for $100. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store [...]

As the US government trotted out its latest excuses for illegally trafficking Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran torture camp, the district court overseeing the case has made it clear that she's had enough of the government defying her orders. In hearing followed by an order granting discovery, Judge Paula Xinis has made it clear [...]

The first Trump FCC tried to give Musk nearly a billion dollars to deliver expensive Starlink access to sometraffic medians and airport parking lots. The Biden FCCclawed back those subsidies, (correctly) worrying that the service couldn't deliver consistent speeds, and arguing (also correctly) that if we're going to spend taxpayer money on broadband, affordable fiber [...]