Techdirt

In recent years, there have been concerns about social media and disinformation. The narrative has three dominant threads: (1) foreign troll farms pushing disinfo, (2) grifter influencers" pushing disinfo, and (3) the poor kids these days suckered in by disinformation. A new study in Science suggests that instead of the kids or the trolls, perhaps [...]

It appears Chicago's city leaders (well... excluding the mayor, Brandon Johnson) aren't afraid of spending nothing on do-nothing tech that even the city's watchdog says is a waste of money. They're not afraid to blow money on stuff that's doing nothing to make residents safer, even as residents continue to complain about the level of [...]

Microsoft Windows 11 Pro is designed with the modern professional in mind. Whether you are a developer who needs a secure platform, an artist seeking a seamless experience, or an entrepreneur needing to stay connected effortlessly, Windows 11 Pro is your solution. This version is designed for PCs that need a new license for Windows [...]

In anindictmentagainstDefend the Atlanta Forestactivists in Georgia, state prosecutors are citing use of encrypted communications to fearmonger. Alleging the defendants-which include journalists and lawyers, in addition to activists-in the indictment were responsible for a number of crimes related to the Stop Cop City campaign, the state Attorney General's prosecutors cast suspicion on the defendants' use [...]

Back in 2013, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos noted that his company's goal was to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." His point, at the time, was that Netflix wanted to become synonymous with quality and creative artistry in the same way HBO had after decades of hard work. 11 years later, and everything [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is a simple anonymous reply to a complaint that Techdirt has become more politically biased: Perhaps it isn't really Techdirt that has changed, have you ever considered that? In second place, it's an anonymous comment about the UK moral panic about kids having phones: Yeah, [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2019, a report showed how EU ISPs were happily ignoring net neutrality rules. We wondered why Congress was moving forward with its plan to encourage more copyright trolling, and then Congress also started pushing a bill to bring back patent trolls. China was, once again, using the US's obsession [...]

This nonsense is somehow still going. To catch you up if you're not familiar with this story, the Ravinia Festival Association operates the Ravinia Festival venue in the north suburbs of Chicago. When a small brewery opened its doors in Highland Park, calling itself Ravinia Brewing Company, the RFA objected to its name and convinced [...]

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 response toa number of copyright lawsuits about AI training datasets, we are starting to see efforts to build non-infringing' collections of media for training AI. While I continue to believe that most AI training is covered by fair use in the US and therefore inherently non-infringing', I think these efforts to build safe' or [...]

I don't know why I'm drawn to doomed litigation but there's no denying this impulse. I know what the plaintiff wants to achieve. That much is made clear by Justin Rodrich's reporting on the lawsuit for the Daily Beast. But I don't know how he (or any other pronoun! - it's filed as Doe") expects [...]

The real fight for free speech means more than just doing that which matches the law." It means being willing to stand up to extremist authoritarian bullies, even when the odds are stacked against you. Challenging regimes where a single satirical post, a meme, or a critical blog can put someone behind bars requires bravery. [...]

Take your basic knowledge of cybersecurity to a whole new level with the Advanced Cyber Security bundle. This bundle offers you 6 courses on industry-standard certifications on cybersecurity so you can enjoy the wonders of modern tech without compromising your data and privacy. Courses cover CISA, CCSP, CISM, and CISSP certification prep. You'll also get [...]

This week all nine Supreme Court justices found in favor of the NRA. Not because they all like what the NRA is selling (although some of them probably do) but because the behavior of New York State, to try to silence the NRA by threatening third parties, was so constitutionally alarming. If New York could [...]

We've noted repeatedly how the primary problem with U.S. media and journalism often isn't the actual journalists, or even the sloppy automation being used to cut corners; it's the terrible, trust fund brunchlords that fail upwards into positions of power. The kind of owners and managers who, through malice or sheer incompetence, turn the outlets [...]

Alright, this one is going to get a bit convoluted, so stay with me here. There seems to be something going on in the foreign foodstuffs and restaurant industries lately when it comes to trademarking otherwise common phrases for niche foods in a way that pisses off other providers that operate in those same niche [...]

More bad news for ShotSpotter, which recently re-branded to SoundThinking" to distance itself from exactly this sort of negative press. Four legislators (three senators, one congressperson) are asking the DHS Inspector General to take a closer look at the tech the DHS is funding via one of its grant programs. The problem with Spotshotter is [...]

Two years ago, the independent repair advocates over at iFixit launched a partnership with Samsung in the hopes of making Samsung phones and other tech easier and cheaper to repair. It didn't work out. In an announcement issued this week, iFixit states that Samsung did very little to contribute to the partnership, and that its [...]

The 2024 elections in India are widely regarded as the largest in history, with nearly a billion people eligible to cast a vote. Alongside the sheer human scale, there's another aspect of the Indian elections that is surprising for its magnitude. This is the use of millions of deepfakes by Indian politicians in an attempt [...]

Well... this is a fun one. The FBI requested a warrant, got it shot down, and thought it would just try to bypass the proper judicial process by pitching the same warrant to another judge all the way across the country. (h/t FourthAmendment.com) This saga/debacle begins in Washington D.C. The FBI is building a case [...]

This DevDojo Pro subscription gives you access to a set of tools to help you build your next great idea. Start with the Page Creator, where you'll find Tailwind CSS Page Builder, a tool for crafting beautiful landing pages. Then, move on to Wave SAAS Starter Kit, where you'll learn how to build your Software [...]

Donald Trump getting mad at an unflattering portrayal of himself in a movie isn't that interesting. But how that anger may make people rethink laws against AI recreating real people and the Citizens United case, highlights how gut reactions to these laws may lead people astray. At Cannes Film Festival, journalist Gabriel Sherman's independently produced [...]

Just two weeks ago a new report showed how U.S. wireless price competitioneffectively ground to a haltimmediately in the wake of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger. Consolidating the U.S. wireless sector from four to three major providers immediately muted price competition, much like every credible academic, consumer group, and deal critic predicted. It alsoresulted in [...]

It should not be controversial to state that, as it stands today, YouTube's ContentID platform for policing copyright on YouTube videos is hopelessly broken. The system is wide open to abuse from bad actors who might lay claim to content that simply isn't theirs, sometimes to the tune of raking in millions of dollars. ContentID [...]

The ultimate lesson here is one that's been taught over and over again by the government of a free nation: if you attempt to bypass government revenue generation mechanisms, expect to get put in your place, citizen. Back in 2021, North Carolina resident Michael Jones - with the assistance of the Institute for Justice - [...]

The moral panic about kids and technology these days is just getting dumber and dumber. The latest is that MPs in the UK are considering an outright ban on smartphones for kids under 16. Just last week, we posted about a thorough debunking of the mobile phones are bad for kids" argument making the rounds. [...]

TikTok, the short-video company with Chinese roots, did the most American thing possible on May 7, 2024: Itsued the U.S. government, in the person of Attorney General Merrick Garland, in federal court. The suit claims the federal law that took effect on April 24, 2024,banning TikTok unless it sells itselfviolates the U.S. Constitution. The law [...]

We've long been critics of facial recognition tech here at Techdirt. Even though the steady march of technology inevitably means the tech will get faster and better, the problem is the first part: faster. The tech has proven to be very fallible. And it has made things even worse for the sort of people most [...]

The Speed Reading Mastery Bundle has 6 courses to help you learn to absorb new information faster by learning speed reading methods used by top universities and Guinness World Record holders. These skills will not only help you with your everyday tasks, but open doors to take on any new interest or career. Within minutes, [...]

Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed free speech absolutist,' rarely gets it right when it comes to actual free speech. But he deserves a rare round of applause in his fight against Australia's global speech injunction. We've had many posts detailing Elon Musk's somewhat hypocritical understanding of free speech. This included his willingness to fold and give [...]

The U.S. yet yet to pass even a basic internet-era privacy law - or regulate data brokers. And while there's a lot of misdirection and pretense to the contrary, the primary reason is (1) because the U.S. government is too corrupt; and (2) because the U.S. government really enjoys being able to purchase massive amounts [...]

And here we go again. It used to be that when you bought a thing, you owned the thing. You could do whatever you wanted with the thing, so long as you didn't violate the law with the thing, because you owned the thing. And I recognize I'm using the word thing" a lot here, [...]

Never underestimate the coercive power of law enforcement. Officers were so convinced Thomas Perez Jr. had murdered his missing" father, they spent 17 hours torturing him into confessing to a crime no one had actually committed. Perez Jr. initiated this. He called the police to report his father was missing, mistakenly assuming they'd help him, [...]

I wonder if Gina Rinehart, an Australian mining magnate, is a fan of Barbra Streisand? It's been a bit since we had a straight-up classic Streisand Effect story like the good old days, where someone powerful saw something they didn't like and insisted that it must be disappeared because they didn't like it. Meet Gina [...]

You have to feel tremendous sympathy for the families of the victims in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. As has been well documented, there was a series of cascading failures by law enforcement that made that situation way worse and way more devastating than it should have been. So who should be blamed? Apparently, [...]

The Premium Python Programming PCEP Certification Prep Bundle has 12 courses to help you become an expert Python coder. Courses cover everything from app creation to AI and machine learning. It's on sale for $35. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps [...]

It's no fun when your friends ask you to take sides in their disputes. The plans for every dinner party, wedding, and even funeral arrive at a juncture where you find yourself thinking, Dang, if I inviteher, thenhewon't come." It's evenlessfun when you're running an online community, from a groupchat to a Mastodon server (or [...]

Just recently we discussed a new report showing how U.S. wireless price competition effectively ground to a halt immediately in the wake of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger. Consolidating the U.S. wireless sector from four to three major providers immediately muted price competition, much like every credible academic, consumer group, and deal critic predicted. It [...]

This week, Stephen T. Stone takes both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, it's a preemptive comment on our post about five Section 230 cases that made online communities better: In second place, it's a comment about laws that aim to ban library books: The best libraries offend everyone. The worst libraries [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2019, people were jumping on the bandwagon of fearmongering about Huawei, while we pointed out that the real security threat is the internet of things. Another federal magistrate said that compelled production of passwords and biometrics violates the Fifth Amendment, ICE spent another $820,000 on cellphone cracking tools, and [...]

The last time we saw German-based grocer Aldi get into a trademark tiff over an alcohol product, it was with Brew Dog in the UK and it was one of the most good-natured trademark disputes" on the record. While that whole thing was refreshing to see, not every company chooses to approach things in a [...]

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 [...]

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) tends to treat the Constitution as some ticky-tack policy its officers can safely ignore. That's not to say ICE believes the Constitution does not exist. It probably at least realizes it exists. After all, it's a US federal agency. What it firmly believes is that the Constitution provides no protection [...]

Another day, another dumb lawsuit against TikTok. We've seen school districts and parents suing TikTok on the basis of extremely weird claims of kids used TikTok, some bad stuff happened to kids, TikTok should be liable." But in the past year, it seems that a bunch of state AGs have decided to sue TikTok as [...]

None of this makes sense. At least, not when you attempt to reconcile what's being said with the university's actions. It makes more sense later. But we'll get to that in a moment. A non-profit called the Atlanta Police Foundation, which claims to be interested in building a better relationship between Atlanta's police and the [...]

Embark on the journey of language learning with the Rosetta Stone lifetime subscription for all languages. Rosetta Stone has been the go-to software for language learning for the past 27 years. With its immersive and intuitive training method, you might be reading, writing, and speaking a new language with confidence in no time. It's on [...]

Public libraries are supposed to be places for communities to gather and learn, with an important focus on being a place for kids to gain access to information. But thanks to a moral panic in the GOP about indoctrination" in libraries, it seems that at least one library has decided to shut its door to [...]

Earlier this year you probably sawthe storyabout how a political consultant used a (sloppy) deepfake of Joe Biden in a bid to try and trick voters into staying home during the Presidential Primary. It wasn't particularly well done; nor was it clear it reached all that many people or had much of an actual impact. [...]

A couple of months back, we talked about an odd decision Warner Bros. Discovery made to simply retire" a bunch of games it published, mostly from small indie studios, from the various online stores where they were sold, such as Steam. This resulted in anger from those who bought these games and confusion from those [...]

Hey Google, can you spare a few hundred million to keep Rupert Murdoch's yacht afloat? That's essentially what some legislators are demanding with their harebrained schemes to force tech companies to fund journalism. It is no secret that the journalism business is in trouble these days. News organizations are failing and journalists are being laid [...]