Techdirt

It’s difficult to overstate the amount of scammy bullshit that permeates the NFT space at the moment. On any given day my inbox is absolutely inundated with PR pitches for NFT-related products that are either pushing something that isn’t really new, don’t actually work, aren’t actually innovative if you eliminate the NFTs (the world’s first […]

Shortly after it was becoming clear Israeli malware manufacturer NSO Group was a troubling company selling to troubling governments (but before its odiousness hit critical mass last summer), the FBI took a meeting with NSO and test drove a bespoke exploit. It was a variant of NSO’s uber-powerful Pegasus malware — one that bypassed NSO’s […]

As Russia increasingly looks to cut itself off from the internet to avoid having any bit of reality reach its citizenry, others are working to get around the information blockade. The BBC on Friday reminded people that BBC News is available on the dark web in Ukrainian and Russian via Tor. As the BBC explained […]

While our attention is focused on a handful of Israeli malware purveyors that have the capability to turn phones into state witnesses, plenty of others are operating under the radar. Israel doesn’t have a monopoly on powerful phone exploits. It’s a crowded market and everybody — from totalitarian states to the FBI — wants some. […]

The 2022 Premium Python Programming PCEP Certification Prep Bundle will help you master the essentials of today’s digital literacy with 12 courses on beginner, intermediate, and professional Python training. You’ll learn how to build your own apps and websites, get an introduction to Machine Learning, and more. It’s on sale for $35. Note: The Techdirt […]

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is at it again. Over the last few years, he’s taken to using the Supreme Court’s denial of cert in various cases as his own personal blog, to randomly muse on legal issues without any briefing. He’s done it to attack long standing defamation/1st Amendment precedent, and has used it […]

It’s really hard to overstate what a colossal failure AT&T’s $200 billion acquisition of Time Warner and DirecTV was. And if you’re an AT&T executive with a bruised ego in the wake of the implosion, the hits just keep on coming. The megadeals were supposed to cement AT&T as a powerhouse in media and video […]

Over the last few weeks, as Russia invaded Ukraine, you’ve probably heard some version of the story about how carefully Putin prepared for economic sanctions against the country. Whether or not those preparations actually have helped protect Russia is another story, but it wasn’t just the economics part of the equation that Russia was preparing […]

Back in 2019, Reps. Ro Khanna and Barbara Lee along with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden introduced a bill to study the actual impact of FOSTA on sex workers. While that bill unfortunately went nowhere, the same group is now back and have reintroduced the SAFE SEX Workers Study Act (SSWSA). This is an […]

The ice cream machines used by a majority of McDonald’s franchise owners are notoriously flaky. Produced by Taylor Restaurant Equipment, the machines are so unreliable even the McDonald’s corporate Twitter account has made jokes about them. This unreliability has created a (very small) cottage industry of solutions. One solution is web-based: it simply tells you […]

Last week the world watched in horror as Russia illegally launched a brutal war in Ukraine. Online videos and eyewitness accounts evoked a terrible throwback to WWII, with tanks rolling over borders, frightened refugees, and bomb blasts in a major European capital. While the visuals look hauntingly familiar, this war is very different: it is […]

An astounding number of people seem to think that having a “fake news” law would be a good idea, even as we’ve shown over and over and over again how those kinds of laws are always abused by authoritarian goons to silence criticism. As part of its ongoing offensive on both Ukraine and the truth, […]

Never forget another password with Dashlane, the world’s smartest, simplest, most secure password manager. With patented security architecture, the most accurate autofill, and our instant password generator and changer, you don’t trade convenience for security—you get both. Available across all platforms and browsers, Dashlane lets you instantly log into any website, make digital payments, securely […]

The federal government would prefer information not want quite so badly to be free. It has obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to set information free, but it also has a handy stack of exemptions to ensure not too much information is freed. Citizens are free to ask for information. And the government is, […]

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’ […]

Now, you can understand any book or reading material of your choice regardless of its language! This state-of-the-art device is designed to translate up to 112 languages accurately and efficiently. The NEWYES Scan Reader can recognize 3000 characters per minute, has 0.3s fast translation speed, and its accuracy rate is as high as 98%. It […]

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 […]

Start honing your programming skills with the Complete 2022 Python Programmer Bundle. Blending practical work with solid theoretical training, this bundle takes you from the basics of Python Programming to mastery, giving you the training you need not just to create software programs, scrape websites, and build automation, but also to give you the foundational […]

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 […]

The Ultimate Microsoft Excel Training Bundle has 6 courses to help you learn everything you need to know about working with Excel. You’ll learn how to build a household budget, how to work with Macros and VBA, how to use Pivot Tables, and much more. The bundle is on sale for $34. Note: The Techdirt […]

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 […]

AppMySite is a no-code DIY mobile app builder that delivers premium native mobile apps, in real-time, without writing a single line of code. Our product enables website owners, freelancers, and digital agencies to create customizable and affordable apps for Android & iOS. All mobile apps created are optimized for performance and built for publishing on […]

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 […]