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It's finally time! Once again it took us a little while to get through all the entries this year, but we've now selected the winners in the latest installment of our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1930! As usual, we've got winners in six categories. Plus, at the end, we've got some honorable [...]

With RFK Jr. and his version of HHS entirely out to lunch on the ongoing measles issue in America, it's been left to states and local medical professionals to try to figure out how to do combat with one of the most infectious diseases on the planet. In a sane world with a real, big [...]

When Rep. Leigh Finkespoke last month beforethe Minnesota House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee to testify againstHF1434, a broad-sweeping proposal to age-gate the internet, she began with something disarming: agreement. I want to support the basic part of this," she said, the shared goal of protecting young people online. Because that is not controversial: everyone [...]

Last June, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court upheld a lower court's ruling declaring a Louisiana law mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools to be a violation of the Constitution. This decision made immediate sense, given that courts elsewhere in the nation (including the US Supreme Court) had repeatedly ruled that laws [...]

We've been covering Australia's under-16 social media ban since before it went into effect, first noting the confusion and obvious implementation problems as pretty much everyone realized it was a total mess, and then documenting how the ban was actively harming kids with disabilities by cutting them off from critical support communities. None of this [...]

The 2026 C# Course Bundle offers 8 courses that cover everything C#. You'll master the fundamentals, explore object-oriented programming, and start building your own apps in no time. It's on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. [...]

Black Lives Matter. All Cops Are Bastards. These are not temporary catchphrases. These are universal and forever. And leave it to a cop to ensure we never forget either of these concepts. A foot pursuit that ended in the shooting of Connecticut resident Dyshan Best would otherwise just be a footnote in cop history if [...]

When he's not busy trampling free speech, crushing the First Amendment, and destroying media consolidation and consumer protection standards, Brendan Carr has other hobbies. Like helping the telecom industry patriotically sell a brutal coming wave of new layoffs caused by the kind of industry consolidation he regularly rubber stamps. Carr recently began circulating plans for [...]

There is an old axiom you will have heard of before: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If we wanted to boil this down to a math equation, it might be described as something like: 0 < any positive integer. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, typically, until you add [...]

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 round-up of the latest news in online [...]

We've all had the unsettling experience of seeing an ad online that reveals just how much advertisers know about our lives. You're right to be disturbed. Those very same online ad systems have been used by the government to warrantlessly track peoples' locations, new reporting has confirmed. For years, the internet advertising industry has been [...]

There's a concept in economics known as Goodhart's Law, often summarized as: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." The idea, originally about monetary policy, has proven remarkably durable across domains. When you attach high enough stakes to a single metric, people stop trying to accurately reflect reality and [...]

Shortly after Trump took office for a second time, his administration made it clear that it felt constitutional rights were merely privileges it would extend only to those who fully supported whatever the hell the administration happened to be doing. At the time, the administration was not only engaged in a full-blown, bigoted war against [...]

Discover the innovative Zeus Smart Car Kit, a versatile robot equipped with 4WD omnidirectional movement, FPV (First Person View), app-based remote control, RGB lighting, and a durable metal frame. Powered by an Arduino Uno-compatible main board, this all-in-one kit delivers multi-functional capabilities, including obstacle avoidance, line tracking, IR remote control, face detection, gesture recognition, voice [...]

As we wrote just yesterday, the defamation trial brought by seven Adams County, Ohio deputies against rapper Afroman was going about as well for the officers as their original botched raid on his home. Today we can report the inevitable conclusion: the jury sided entirely with Afroman, clearing him of all liability after just hours [...]

Brunchlords can only fail upward. It's physics. Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav is poised to get as much as $550 million in compensation and tax reimbursement as the company prepares to be acquired by Larry Ellison's CBS/Paramount: Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance; $517.2 [...]

It was mere days ago that we were discussing an interesting lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, challenging RFK Jr. and HHS for violating the Administrative Procedures Act in making changes to the CDC's ACIP panel and immunization schedules. If you're not up on what the APA is and does, the [...]

We've been following the saga of Afroman (real name Joseph Foreman) and the Adams County Sheriff's Office for a few years now, and I'm delighted to report that the defamation trial is currently underway and it is delivering everything you could possibly hope for, starting with this absolutely astounding suit that he's wearing in court [...]

Obviously, this headline owes everything to The Onion, which generated this masterpiece years ago: And so it is here: someone you'd never think would oppose fascism and bigotry deciding to speak up, despite knowing he could have just kept his head down and maintained his position as Sheriff For Life in Polk County, Florida. I'm [...]

EFF announced last week that it has stepped in to defend yet another anonymous Jehovah's Witness critic from having their identity exposed through bogus copyright claims. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society - the organizational arm of the Jehovah's Witnesses - has sent DMCA subpoenas to both Google and Cloudflare seeking information to unmask [...]

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 [...]

The boat strike program the Trump administration is engaged in isn't actually supported by law. Even his own in-house counsel can't seem to agree on what justification to use. Shortly after being threatened with a little congressional oversight, the Office of Legal Counsel shrugged together a legal memo that basically said that the less of [...]

We've noted repeatedly how the U.S. authoritarian right is buying up all of our new and old media companies because they're trying to mimic what Viktor Orban created in Hungary. Namely, a media where all the major outlets are owned by rich autocratic allies, who spew propaganda 24/7 while the government strangles real, independent journalism [...]

It's been a long and winding road to mostly get us right back to where we started in the battle between pop star Katy Perry and Aussie clothing designer Katie Perry. If you're not familiar with this saga, here is a brief summary. Note that I will be mostly using only Katy and Katie when [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. The Trump administration is loosening restrictions on the sharing of law enforcement information with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, officials said, overriding controls that have been in place for decades to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. Government officials said the changes could give the [...]

Support us on Patreon There's a notion that pops up in the comments here on Techdirt that Mike and our writer Karl Bode are deeply opposed in their opinions on AI and engaged in an epic ongoing debate. Alas, the truth is a little less spectacular: while they might have some differences of opinion here [...]

TheSAFE act,introduced by Senators Mike Lee and Dick Durbin, is the first of many likely proposals we will see to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008-and while imperfect, it does propose a litany of real and much-needed reforms of Big Brother's favorite surveillance authority. The irresponsible 2024 [...]

The DOJ is filled with grossly incompetent prosecutors these days. It's a bunch of subservients acting in obeisance to the zenith of gross incompetence: the current President of the United States. When not being sidelined by judges for not being legally appointed, the handpicked losers of Trump's DOJ Revenge Squad are being shut out by [...]

The Academy of Game Art Bundle teaches you the basics of how to create video game art. You'll learn how to use Inkscape to create logos, 2D backgrounds, pre-defined modules, UI designs, and characters. A course on using DragonBones will teach you how to animate your characters as well. The bundle is on sale for [...]

Look, I get it. Government waste is real. Bureaucratic bloat is real. The desire to have a federal government that spends taxpayer money wisely and operates without unnecessary friction? That's a pretty standard and quite reasonable desire in American politics. So when Elon Musk showed up promising he could cut $2 trillion in federal spending [...]

Brendan Carr is once again doing Brendan Carr stuff. Carr has threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of broadcasters that tell the truth about Trump's disastrous war in Iran. In a post over at Elon Musk's right wing propaganda website, Carr insists that news outlets that are running hoaxes and news distortions" (read: telling the [...]

Normally, a post about the signing of an NFL free agent wouldn't make it anywhere near these here Techdirt pages. Today, that is not the case. The site For The Win posted a mildly interesting report on the Tennessee Titans signing wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson to a 4 year, $78 million contract. But wait, you're [...]

It has long been clear: Trump needs to be removed from office before he can inflict even more damage than he already has. But he doesn't just need to be stopped; for America to have a future he also needs to be repudiated. Impeachment speaks to each need, to both make clear his behavior is [...]

We've been covering the growing parade of lawyers submitting AI-hallucinated case citations to courts for a while now. It keeps happening, and courts keep having to deal with it. But the pattern is usually the same: a careless attorney uses ChatGPT to draft a brief, the fake citations get spotted by the opposing side or [...]

We've discussed at length how Trump's fix" for TikTok's problems basically involved forcing the sale of the platform to his greedy billionaire buddies (with the help of pathetic Democrats). The deal fixed none of the real issues Trumpland pretended to be concerned about (national security, privacy, propaganda), and China still maintains a significant ownership stake. [...]

It's not that arrest and ticket quotas don't exist. They do. They always have. They always will. It's that they're illegal. Courts have repeatedly criticized quotas because they create incentives so perverse they'd make /b/ board denizens uncomfortable. Since they're presumptively illegal, most law enforcement agencies will use any word but quota" to describe these. [...]

Power all your Apple essentials-without the clutter. The Mag 3 Ultra Qi2 25W 3-in-1 Foldable Charger delivers fast charging for your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods all at once. The new Qi2 25W makes charging 70% faster, reaching from 0 to 50% in just 30 minutes! Magnetic charging also lets you power up your Apple [...]

Much of last week I had been working on a different article than the one this became. The American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association, and the American Council of Learned Societies - all plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the National Endowment for the Humanities over DOGE's mass grant cancellations - had uploaded the full [...]

We've noted how Microsoft is a little sensitive about AI slop at the moment. Back in January, CEO Satya Nadella wrote a well-circulated blog post lamenting critics of AI slop" and demanding the public simply move past such conversations. It was relatively innocuous, but wasn't received well for some valid reasons. One problem is that [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Nimrod with a comment about the lack of checks and balances for RFK Jr.: Observation If a member of organized crime were to manage to get themself elected President, they would probably try to delegitimize the legal system, law enforcement and government authority in [...]

Before we get started: last week, I asked for your feedback on the weekend posts and some possible changes we're considering going forward. The dominant theme of the responses was that lots of people like the Comment posts just the way they are, but can take or leave these History posts. We're still mulling over [...]

The World Baseball Classic is currently going on and I absolutely adore it. Essentially a World Cup for baseball, 20 nations are playing against one another in a banger of a tune-up for the Major League Baseball season. It's a flamboyant delight, with cultural celebrations such as the Italian team doing a shot of espresso [...]

We're a couple weeks late to this one, but it deserves more attention than it received. As the Washington Post first reported, a federal judge has found that the IRS violated federal law 42,695 times when it handed over confidential taxpayer addresses to ICE last summer. But the raw number, staggering as it is, undersells [...]

The power of the latest generation of AI systems is such that previously impractical applications are not just possible, but scalable. For example, moving beyond basic early AI text translation tools, it is now possible to use live translation to communicate in another language in real time. For many people that will be a real [...]

Roughly a year ago - as Trump was trying to turn anti-genocide protests into deportable antisemitism - his administration made it clear it was only willing to support white people with antisemitic views. The administration threw some anti-Israel filters into the mix for DHS vetting of incoming migrants, blending them with the anti-Trump filters that [...]

Luminar Mobile is your all-in-one creative companion designed for iOS, Android OS, and Chrome OS. Powered by an intuitive, touch-responsive interface, it lets you enhance photos effortlessly-anytime, anywhere. Whether you're adjusting lighting, perfecting portraits, or adding artistic flair, Luminar Mobile delivers pro-level results in the palm of your hand. It's on sale for $20. Note: [...]

It's been a little while since we last wrote about California's deeply problematic Age Appropriate Design Code," which tried to force internet companies into taking blatantly unconstitutional steps to pressure companies into magically preventing all harms" to kids. The law has bounced between the district court and the Ninth Circuit multiple times - and yesterday, [...]

Last election season, you might recall how the Trump campaign lied to everyone repeatedly about how his second administration would rein in big tech," and be a natural extension of the Lina Khan antitrust movement. As we noted at the time, that was always an obvious fake populist lie, but it was propped up anyway [...]

If you agree with me that what RFK Jr. has done at HHS - particularly when it comes to altering vaccine schedules, approvals, research, and access - is bad well, you ain't seen nothing yet. Kennedy rode Trump's coattails, building his own Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement on the back of the wider MAGA [...]

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 round-up of the latest news in online [...]