Techdirt

We have discussed at great lengths the many problems of the UK’s Online Safety Bill, in particular how it will be a disaster for the open internet. Unfortunately, it appears that important politicians seem to think that the Online Safety Bill will be a sort of magic wand that will make the “bad stuff” online […]

Lie down with dogs, get put in the position of producing potentially damning evidence. That’s the lesson NSO is going to learn if this lawsuit goes any further. Israeli tech firm NSO Group has sold its malware to plenty of questionable customers and, thanks to an endless stream of revelations about misuse of its phone […]

I really don’t have time for this kind of thing, but I wanted to pass along that it appears that the California legislature is very, very close to passing AB 2273, “The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act.” As far as I can tell, it has strong support in the legislature and very little opposition. And […]

There’s a vast difference between what the government thinks it should know vs. what it’s actually entitled to know. And when the government decides more surveillance is needed, the most frequent targets are non-citizens (even if they’re legal residents) and children. Children are vulnerable. In the name of protecting children, the government often exploits the […]

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We already wrote a long story looking at many of the eye-opening claims from Peiter “Mudge” Zatko in his whistleblower report regarding Twitter’s security operations, and the possibility that the company both has shit security practices and violated its FTC consent decree regarding those security practices. As I noted, the report is a mixed bag […]

If you recall, AT&T spent nearly $200 billion on megamergers thinking it was going to dominate the online video advertising space. But after spending a fortune on DirecTV and Time Warner, laying off 50,000 people, killing off popular properties like Mad Magazine and DC’s Vertigo imprint, it quickly became clear that AT&T executives had absolutely […]

I guess I shouldn’t be shocked, but the trademark and publicity rights dispute between Disney and K&K Promotions, the company that manages the rights for the late stuntman Evel Knievel, was still ongoing until recently. If you’re not aware of what I’m talking about, the movie Toy Story 4 included a character named Duke Caboom, […]

So, look, I’ve been pretty clear that for as much as Elon Musk refers to himself as a “free speech absolutist,” his actions suggest otherwise. He has regularly punished people for their speech, he recently embraced the EU’s highly censorial plans for social media regulation, and his filings in the Twitter case suggest that he […]

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: the FBI is not a trustworthy agency. It has a long history of civil rights abuses, national security power abuses, and has spent more than four years refusing to be honest about the effect device encryption has on investigations. But to pretend the recent raid on Donald […]

Both CNN and the Washington Post are running stories today about Peiter Zatko, better known as Mudge, filing whistleblower reports on Twitter’s security practices, including a few shocking claims. Twitter is denying many of the claims and, frankly, at this point it’s difficult to tell who’s correct. However, I will note that Mudge is widely […]

The Florida Politics site has a report on what appears to a be truly despicable individual running for the Florida state house with horrifically dangerous ideas — who has now been banned from Twitter. The article notes that he’s still on Instagram and Facebook, though it looks like the same message that got him banned […]

The Duex Max + Mini Mouse Bundle is the perfect companion for your laptop. The Duex Max features landscape mode, portrait mode, presentation mode, eye care mode, and kickstand mode. You can easily pair your Duex Max with any laptop or device, including a Nintendo Switch and select Android phones, via USB-C or USB-A connection. […]

On August 23rd, 1997, I sent out this emailed newsletter — which was then called Up-To-Date — to various business school colleagues. That was exactly 25 years ago, and that began dragging me down the path of what became Techdirt early the following year (when I realized it might be nice to have a website […]

The writing has been on the wall for a while, but streaming TV has finally surpassed traditional cable in terms of overall viewership numbers for the first time ever. According to viewership tracking firm Nielsen (who once upon a time called the cord cutting revolution “purely fiction“) streaming saw a 34.8 percent overall viewership in […]

Why do bad cops stay employed for years while good cops find themselves out of their jobs? The answer will not surprise you. The answer is not so complicated as it is filled with infuriating details. Cops drive fast because they have tacit permission to do so. Almost any reason will do. A deputy who […]

For many years now, Tesla has referred to its various driver assistance tools as “full self-driving” and then acted shocked and surprised when people point out that it’s nowhere near what any normal human being would consider “full self-driving.” That, of course, hasn’t stopped Tesla boss Elon Musk from repeatedly promoting Full Self-Driving and insisting […]

All aboard the schadenfreude train! It’s always a pleasure to see denizens of the various Islands of Misfit Social Media Users get bent out of shape when their platform of choice (and by that I mean the options they had left after getting excommunicated by actually popular social media services) does regular-ass things that are […]

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of attention paid to the issue of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. It is a huge and serious problem. And has been for a while. If you talk to trust and safety experts who work in the field, the stories they tell are horrifying […]

Joseph Cuffari, addressed as the “Honorable” in this letter [PDF] from the House Committee seeking information on the January 6, 2021 raid of the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn election results, has been anything but honorable since being appointed to his position by former president Donald Trump. The DHS, which oversees the US […]

There are an endless number of programming languages out there. To keep on top of the game and to broaden your skill set, picking up a few of these new languages never hurts. Google Go (golang) is the programming language created by one of the largest technology names in the world, so having Go in […]

Earlier this year, I bought a Framework laptop. If you haven’t heard of the Framework, it’s a very new laptop company, but one that really believes in not just respecting, but encouraging tinkering and the right to repair. Cory Doctorow had written a glowing piece about the Framework that first got my attention, talking about […]

I’ve spent many years criticizing government officials and politicians of both parties for threatening retaliation against individuals and companies for their speech. But there are some pretty clear lines of what counts as actual 1st Amendment violations in retaliating over speech, and what is just government folks mouthing off and expressing their own opinion. To […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is drkkgt with a comment about the Texas school district that banned every book that had been flagged for review: Personally, I think these libraries should then be required to post a prominently displayed list of the books that were removed, author, ISBN, Publisher, Publishing […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2017, the FCC unveiled its new broadband “advisory panel” that was stocked with telecom consultants, allies, and cronies, and got to work weakening the definition of quality broadband, while a former Commissioner was trying to claim that net neutrality aided the rise of white supremacy. A Florida city was […]

There’s no better way to admit you’re a pariah than skipping out on a celebration of your specific talents. Roman Polanski has passed on attending awards ceremonies out of fear of being extradited to face criminal charges related to the drugging and raping of a 13-year-old girl. Polanski remains a (cautiously) celebrated film director and […]

Following through on a request by the Biden administration to defend right to repair, the FTC recently demanded that Harley Davidson and Westinghouse stop voiding customer warranties over repairs. An FTC announcement noted how both companies told consumers that using cheaper, third-party parts or repair shops to repair equipment violated warranty in a bid to […]

Let’s be clear about this upfront: MUSO is a European copyright enforcement group with all the negative trappings that come along with that industry. That being said, MUSO has also distinguished itself from other piracy tracking groups by making some forward-thinking statements that don’t track with the copyright industries, such as coming out against the […]

There are a bunch of moving parts involved in this case that I really wasn’t planning on covering — but something quite amusing happened and I can’t resist. The basics are fairly straightforward: there’s an outfit named “Business Casual” that makes videos, apparently sometimes discussing historical events and whatnot. One part of the videos is […]

This post was inspired by a Benedict Evans’ tweet. One of the many phrases that has become popular to an annoying degree over the last few years is the concept of “dark patterns.” These are, we’re told, sneaky, ethically dubious ways, in which companies — usually “big tech” — trick users into doing what the […]

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There is no doubt civil asset forfeiture perverts law enforcement’s incentives. When a government agency can directly profit from seizing people’s property, it will do this as often as it can. And when the justice system is skewed against people seeking to have their property returned, it greases the wheels for abuse. In forfeiture cases, […]

Ron DeSantis likes to pretend that he’s in favor of free speech. He talks about free speech quite frequently. But the fact is that he’s a garden variety authoritarian censor in a cheap suit. He keeps passing culture war pro-censorship bills that try to stifle the free speech rights of his critics — quintessential anti-1st […]

We haven’t found ourselves talking about Mariah Carey much at Techdirt in the past, but the few times we have, have been for positive reasons. This time, not so much. If you’re not a fan of Mariah Carey, like me, you are probably still familiar with her hit holiday single, All I Want For Christmas […]

As you may recall, back during the Trump administration, after a bunch of kids on TikTok trolled Trump into believing one of his campaign rallies would be massively attended (which it was not), Trump decided to take out his anger on TikTok by issuing an almost certainly unconstitutional executive order demanding that TikTok’s owner, the […]

For a few years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low orbit satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but not eliminated. Musk and company […]

Earlier this week, Bloomberg released a well-investigated, and somewhat damning article highlighting how people searching for abortion clinics on Google Maps are often being misled to go to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are sketchy organizations designed to try to convince women to give birth. Google Maps routinely misleads people looking for abortion providers, a new […]

The Microsoft Office Pro for Windows 2021 + HP EliteBook + Office Courses Bundle is pretty self-explanatory. You get one license for Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows and 8 courses to help you learn how to get the most out of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Publisher, and Access. You also get a […]

Senator Richard Blumenthal has been attacking the internet while demonstrating his own ignorance of how technology works for basically as long as I can remember. He did it back before he was Senator, when, as Attorney General of Connecticut he was eager to blame Craigslist for ads on its site. It appears that Blumenthal has […]

There’s another player in the phone malware game. NSO is far from the only malware merchant out there. Its products are the most well-known and the most dangerous, thanks to zero-click deployment options. NSO Group and Candiru — both Israeli companies created and staffed by former state intelligence operatives — were recently hit with sanctions […]

If you’re not familiar with the story and history behind the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then go read up on it, because it’s a great story. For you lazy bums out there, I’ll summarize it thusly. A 24-year old in Oregon got sick of religious types in Kansas trying to inject the teaching […]

Back in the spring of 2021, we wrote briefly about yet another Steven Biss SLAPP lawsuit. This one was filed by the brother of disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Jack Flynn, arguing that CNN defamed him by showing a video of both Flynns and other family members, repeating the QAnon slogan “where we […]

The FBI needs to shut the fuck up about phone encryption. This isn’t just profane hyperbole. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. The FBI has continued — via consecutive directors — to agitate for encryption backdoors. And these directors have done this by delivering a false narrative, aided and abetted by the FBI’s refusal to correct its […]

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Earlier this year, we had a podcast with Jacob Mchangama about his excellent book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, and I pointed out one theme that is seen throughout the book. Over and over again, vocal supporters of free speech eventually seem to change their position when they realize people say […]

We’ve noted for a long while that Americans pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for mobile data. But U.S. network quality doesn’t really make that a great value equation. U.S. 5G networks are notoriously slower than 5G networks in many other countries, and studies have found U.S. video streaming over wireless […]

There are very few things that are more dangerous for citizens and cops than no-knock warrants. These warrants allow cops to raid houses without announcing themselves, leading those on the receiving end to assume they’re being invaded by armed criminals. People who don’t know they’re dealing with cops defend themselves. Cops, who believe everyone should […]

Being the “Queen of Talk,” perhaps it’s no surprise that Oprah Winfrey has made it onto Techdirt’s pages plenty of times in the past. To be fair to her, most of the posts we’ve done concern her being on the receiving end of typically silly intellectual property disputes. That being said, Oprah and her company, […]

The federal court-authorized search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate has brought renewed attention to the obscure but infamous law known as the Espionage Act of 1917. A section of the law was listed as one of three potential violations under Justice Department investigation. The Espionage Act has historically been employed most often by […]

Former Congressman, now Trump lackey TruthSocial CEO, Devin Nunes hasn’t had very much success with his long list of lawsuits against critics and the media. In just the past few months he’s lost multiple such cases. Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from soldiering on. One of the bigger cases he filed was against reporter […]