Techdirt

For years a growing number of US towns and cities have been forced into the broadband business thanks to US telecom market failure. Frustrated by high prices, lack of competition, spotty coverage, and terrible customer service, some 750 US towns and cities have explored some kind of community broadband option. While the telecom industry routinely insists these […]

Well, that’s a wrap on our first week with Techdirt running on WordPress. Overall things have been working pretty well, but as expected there have also been several issues and some things that need improvement. We’ve been tracking user feedback in the comments and via the contact form, and I want to assure everyone that […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2017, new FCC boss Ajit Pai was getting down to work: moving to kill broadband privacy protections, falsely claiming benefits from his attacks on net neutrality (which he also called a mistake), and scaling back rules that forced ISPs to be clear about usage caps and hidden fees. On […]

I’ve banged on for quite a while about how video games have long not gotten the recognition they deserve as a major and growing part of the cultural landscape throughout the world. While there is no doubt that there has been a shift in this as time has gone on, it’s still the case that […]

Over the last five to six years, The NarrativeTM has been that Russia has built up such powerful propaganda and social media disinformation peddlers that it could effectively drive its own narrative and convince entire populations to go along with its preferred version of reality (i.e., not reality). There have always been reasons to question […]

Thanks to the one-two punch of the infrastructure bill and COVID relief, there’s more money sloshing around in the U.S. broadband ecosystem than perhaps any time in history. $46 billion (with a b) is slated to be distributed by the government over the next year, much of it overseen by the National Telecommunications and Information […]

At Tuesday’s State of the Union address, one of President Joe Biden’s pledges regarding the internet, was that he wanted to ban targeted advertising. Lots of people cheered this on, because lots of people absolutely loathe targeted advertising — which is sometimes, misleadingly, referred to as “surveillance capitalism.” My own opinion on this is that […]

Remember how Texas passed a social media content moderation law which was then blocked as unconstitutional by a federal court? Apparently people in Texas remember the passing of the law, but not the fact that it was blocked. Incredibly, this includes a judge as well. If it had been allowed to be come law, Texas’ […]

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All the way back in August 2020, a Cincinnati (OH) police officer decided to sue some fellow citizens for defamation. The cop went after the authors of social media posts claiming the officer flashed a “white supremacist sign” during a city council meeting discussing concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. These posts also […]

For years we’ve talked about how the broadband and cable industry has perfected the use of utterly bogus fees to jack up subscriber bills — a dash of financial creativity it adopted from the banking and airline industries. Countless cable and broadband companies tack on a myriad of completely bogus fees below the line, letting them advertise […]

If you’re not a sports fan, or not an American, you may not be aware that there is currently an owner’s lockout occurring in Major League Baseball. We’ve talked a bit in the past about some of the bullshit MLB is pulling with all of this, namely its decision to strip out all references to […]

Back in December, we wrote about how the major book publishers had teamed up to sue the state of Maryland over a fairly tame law concerning ebooks and libraries. As we’ve been detailing, over the last few years, the big book publishers have been working overtime to abuse copyright law to destroy libraries. Whereas, historically, […]

It’s not often you see a cop face criminal charges for injuring or killing someone they’re attempting to arrest. It’s even rarer still to see a cop convicted. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a unicorn. He knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, choking the life out of the unarmed black man, […]

While the repeated freak outs over TikTok tend to be bipartisan, they’re often motivated by different things. The Trumpist right generally doesn’t like TikTok because Chinese people made a product that’s better and more successful than U.S. tech platforms (the latter point being obvious if you spend thirty seconds comparing the Facebook/Instagram and TikTok video […]

There may be many good reasons to ban Russian state-sponsored media propaganda from a site or a pay TV service. But there is definitely one very bad reason to: because random governments ask you to. And, yet, that’s exactly what Meta/Facebook has done. Former UK politician Nick Clegg, who was recently promoted into the top […]

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Spotify — the world’s most popular music streaming service — has hitched its wagon to Joe Rogan, a former comedian and reality TV host whose particular take on world events involves him inviting highly controversial guests onto his podcast and then just muttering “that’s wild” when they invoke insane conspiracy theories. Rogan has drawn heat […]

Domain registrar Namecheap announced this week that the company would no longer be doing business with customers registered in Russia. In an email notification sent to customers, that I’ve confirmed as genuine with the company, it recommends that any Russia-based customers of its domain hosting, email, and other services find a new registrar by March […]

Automated enforcement may ease the burden on law enforcement agencies and direct more officers towards serious crime, but nearly every device given that job has tended to perform poorly. Red light and speed enforcement cameras often get things wrong while simultaneously depriving falsely accused drivers of the opportunity to confront their accusers. And, because cities […]

DirecTV has announced that the company will be removing Russian government-backed news outlet RT from the company’s satellite TV lineup in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to a company statement, DirecTV was already contemplating ditching RT and other channels from the company’s lineup in a bid to lower costs, and simply […]

Much of the world is, correctly, standing up against Russia following its despicable invasion of Ukraine as part of Vladimir Putin’s power-mad fever dream. And in response there are lots of questions about how different companies are looking to punish, sanction, or limit Russian access to goods and services. Some of the ideas make sense. […]

People feeling ways about stuff continue to file stupid lawsuits against all and sundry because, well, we have a pretty open court system (which is good!) and not enough lawyers willing to tell people their stupid lawsuits are unwinnable (not great!). [For everything else, there’s pro se.] This completely foreseen ending at the hands of […]

For not the first time, John Oliver is taking on topics we often cover at Techdirt, and doing a fantastic job of it. His latest show went deep on just how screwed up laws and law enforcement about sex work are, including a specific look at FOSTA. The whole video is worth watching, and discusses […]

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Here comes The Motherland, insisting that no one allow anything to undermine its “LET’S INVADE UKRAINE” narrative. Russia, which has never taken a hands-off approach to content moderation, is demanding US companies stop fucking with its plans for world domination. Here’s Patrick Tucker with the details for Defense One. The Russian government took steps Friday […]

We’ve long discussed how if you really want to understand how the highly monopolistic U.S. broadband industry really works, you should look at regional phone monopoly Frontier Communications. Especially in states like West Virginia, where the company has spent decades lagging on fundamental fiber upgrades, or DSL and phone repairs under a regime of regulatory […]

It’s nothing new that video games are getting realistic enough at this point that some out there will use it and pass that footage off as things happening in real life. A rather innocuous example of this would be a real estate developer using images from a city-building game in a brochure, for instance. On […]

I have heard rumors from multiple quarters that President Biden might mention Section 230 in tonight’s State of the Union speech, and I cannot think of any reason he should, unless it is to venerate it. Because it is only through the existence of Section 230 that we, or the world, stand a chance against […]

Nearly three years ago, we were joined by Professor Jeff Kosseff to discuss his then-new book about Section 230, The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet. Now, Jeff has a new book coming out, about another internet issue that is deeply misunderstood by many people: anonymity. The United States Of Anonymous releases in two weeks, […]

Several days into Russia’s attack on Ukraine, we are already witnessing astonishing stories play out online. Social media platforms, after years of Techlash, are once again in the center of a historic event, as it unfolds. Different tech issues are still evolving, but for now, here are the key themes. Information overload The combination of […]

Remote test-taking spyware company Proctorio has spent months turning itself into an internet villain. It all started when student and security researcher Erik Johnson decided to take a look at the inner workings of Proctorio’s spyware, noting that it tracked everything from eye movement to mouse movement (with plenty in between) in apparent hopes of […]

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I’ve heard some truly bizarre attacks on Section 230, but Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma has taken it all to a new level of nonsense. The already Trumpian Senator is apparently facing a primary from someone even Trumpier, which perhaps contributes to whatever brain damage caused him to tweet a bunch of total nonsense over […]

U.S. infrastructure policy is treated as annoying and boring… until a crisis hits and suddenly everybody cares. As millions of Texans found out last year when the state’s energy infrastructure crumbled like a rotten old house under the weight of heating energy demands, leaving millions without power during a major cold snap. While the state […]

There’s a good reason we have strict standards for warrant requests — ones that requires plenty of probable cause and factual statements. Because if we didn’t have that, people would literally die when officers raid the wrong house or point guns at the wrong person. Innocent people would end up in jail and people’s rights […]

We’ve pointed out before that we’re generally bad at regulating privacy because we don’t understand privacy. All of the regulations around privacy seem to treat a set of information as “special” that must be locked up and hidden. However, as we’ve pointed out over and over again, privacy is actually a set of trade-offs, and […]

We’ve pointed out before that we’re generally bad at regulating privacy because we don’t understand privacy. All of the regulations around privacy seem to treat a set of information as “special” that must be locked up and hidden. However, as we’ve pointed out over and over again, privacy is actually a set of trade-offs, and […]

We all know the term “football,” but our definitions vary greatly. For those in the United States, it’s a sport that delivers beer ads and concussions with similar frequency. For most of the rest of the world, it’s a sport that delivers riots and tie scores with similar frequency. In Australia, the definition doesn’t necessarily […]

We all know the term “football,” but our definitions vary greatly. For those in the United States, it’s a sport that delivers beer ads and concussions with similar frequency. For most of the rest of the world, it’s a sport that delivers riots and tie scores with similar frequency. In Australia, the definition doesn’t necessarily […]

Like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve spent the past week following the news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and feeling mostly helpless about such tragic events. On the other hand, Disney wants you to remember the real tragedy happening here: how this invasion might negatively impact its profits. As Jamie Love points out on Twitter, Disney Music […]

If any take has been evergreen over the past few decades, it’s that video games are the source of all the problems with the youth these days. If you want to take that further, you can boil it down to, “that thing kids enjoy but I didn’t grow up with is the reason why everything […]

If any take has been evergreen over the past few decades, it’s that video games are the source of all the problems with the youth these days. If you want to take that further, you can boil it down to, “that thing kids enjoy but I didn’t grow up with is the reason why everything […]

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We already have enough problems with the no-fly lists we already have. No due process. No effective way to challenge placement on the list. No real oversight of the means and methods used to “nominate” Americans and visiting foreigners into flightlessness. So why in the name of all that is holy are airlines and, yes, […]

We already have enough problems with the no-fly lists we already have. No due process. No effective way to challenge placement on the list. No real oversight of the means and methods used to “nominate” Americans and visiting foreigners into flightlessness. So why in the name of all that is holy are airlines and, yes, […]

As usual, the “smart” home isn’t always all that smart, and dumber technology can often be the best option. That’s certainly true in the smart lock realm, where studies repeatedly have shown that many major smart lock brands are easily compromised. The same has reportedly been proven to be of most other “smart” devices, whether […]

As usual, the “smart” home isn’t always all that smart, and dumber technology can often be the best option. That’s certainly true in the smart lock realm, where studies repeatedly have shown that many major smart lock brands are easily compromised. The same has reportedly been proven to be of most other “smart” devices, whether […]

On Friday, we announced that we were beginning Techdirt’s migration to a new platform – and now that migration is complete! Though you’ll only see some changes on the public-facing site (especially in the comments section) we’re now running on an all-new WordPress back end. There is still a small handful of known bugs and […]

Almost since its inception, Techdirt has been run on a custom content management system that we've built, expanded, and maintained ourselves. Once upon a time this had its advantages, but lately it's been an obstacle to developing the new features and improvements we'd like to add for our readers. So for the past two years we've been working on a huge project: migrating the entire site, and its history of over 75,000 posts and millions of comments, to WordPress — and now we're ready to make the switch. We've worked hard to ensure the transition is as seamless as possible, but there will be a few changes, and those of you with accounts will need to reset your passwords. This post outlines what's going to happen during the transition this weekend, and what you can expect to see when the site changes some time this Sunday evening.First of all, a note about what this is not: it's not a Techdirt redesign. For the time being, the changes are primarily on the back-end and the site will look and work just the way it does now with only a few exceptions, the biggest of which is a significant overhaul and upgrade to the comments section. That's the one part of the site that will look quite different, and work much better: it can now handle deeply-nested threads without becoming unreadable, and there's a handy new tool for navigating lengthy comment sections. All the features you're used to, like Funny/Insightful voting, reporting, and First Word/Last Word will continue to work just as they do now.Another important note is that all posts and comments are being retained, and all old post URLs will continue to work. It was extremely important to us that we not lose any content, or break any links — even though the URL structure for posts is changing, old links will continue to work just fine and be redirected to the appropriate page.And, of course, all user accounts and membership subscriptions are being retained as well. However, as noted, all users will have to reset their passwords before logging in to the new system. It's also possible that you might have to reset your display name, profile picture, and account preferences, though we've tried to ensure that these things are all properly copied as well. We'll make sure there's a prominent notice on Techdirt reminding you once the switch is complete.Amidst all this, there will likely be some unforeseen hiccups. We'll have prominent links to our contact form, and a special feedback category for issues with the website migration, for you to report any problems with your own account or the site in general. This is a massive migration and we're hopeful that problems will be minimal, but please bear with us as we work to fix anything that does go wrong!As for the migration itself, shortly after this post we'll be locking down Techdirt for a few days — you'll still be able to read and navigate the site, but you won't be able to submit comments or create new accounts, and any comment votes or changes to user preferences will not be saved. We also won't be publishing the normal weekend posts. New membership subscription purchases will still be accepted and recorded, but won't be activated until Monday when the new site is live.We're extremely excited to be finally making this change — it makes Techdirt much more manageable and maintainable for our small team, and lays the foundation for the site to improve and grow in the future. Stay tuned for another announcement when the new site is live, and thanks in advance to all our readers for your patience and support as we complete this migration.