Techdirt

State laws attempting to make it cheaper and easier to repair your own tech continue to gain steam. With the recent introduction of a new right to repair" law in Wisconsin, U.S. PIRG notes that all 50 U.S. states have now at least introduced such bills: This is more than a legislative landmark-it's a tipping [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Thad with a comment on our post about Techdirt's focus as of late, in response to another comment asking for recommendations of other good outlets: Wired has been pretty much head of the pack at covering Musk's government takeover. ProPublica might be the best [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2020, Senator Thom Tillis followed up his awful patent reform push with an awful copyright reform push, while bogus automated copyright claims by CBS were blocking a bunch of Super Tuesday speeches, and Senators officially began their push to undermine encryption and Section 230 with the EARN IT act. [...]

We really need to stop pointing to Artificial Intelligence as some panacea, with all the world's problems one well-constructed AI prompt away from resolution. That's especially true when those same problems have much more simple and accessible answers. The preservation of video games has been a hobbyhorse of mine for some time, one which can [...]

Uber has only been around for 15 years, but its underlying business model of on-demand labor, organized online, has been applied widely around the world in many industries. That's despite concerns that gig workers get a raw deal, since they do the same work as employees, but without the protections and benefits the latter enjoy. [...]

The Supreme Court moves at a glacial pace. Sure, it's got a bit more to do now with the Trump Administration creating new constitutional crises on a daily basis, but for the most part, it's willing to sit back and let cases pile up until the conservative majority can undermine rights by issuing an 82-page [...]

We really should have two major parties committed to upholding the Constitution. But at the moment we seem to have none. Because not only have the Republicans been captured by the corrupt fascism of Trump but, instead of standing against the grotesque assault on our democracy Trump has been perpetrating non-stop since January 20, Democrats [...]

MagStack Foldable 3-in-1 is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a floating stand for smartphone FaceTime or video playback while charging. This portable design featuring 3 wireless charging spots, enables charging for up to 3 devices simultaneously, including iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, other Qi-compatible Android [...]

The Fifth Circuit's unlikely decision to side with a constitutional right that wasn't the Second Amendment is starting to trickle down to the lower levels of the federal court system. Last August, the Fifth Circuit bucked its own cop-friendly trend by ruling that geofence warrants - warrants that demand massive amounts of geolocation data when [...]

Last year Trumplicans killed a popular program that provided poor people with $30 off of their monthly broadband bill. The FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was unsurprisingly very popular, with more than 23 million Americans benefitting at its peak. At the time, the GOP claimed they were simply looking to save money. The real reason, [...]

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 roundup of the latest news in online [...]

In our recent discussion about Valve releasing the source code for Team Fortress 2, you should have noticed that that post was headlined as a Part 1." This post is Part 2 and is arguably way more impressive and important for a couple of reasons we'll get into. But as a reminder, the entire reason [...]

The city of Detroit finally revamped the rules for police department use of facial recognition tech last July. We'll have to wait and see whether adding guardrails will result in fewer false arrests, but what may end up being too little definitely arrived too late for a Detroit woman who was falsely arrested by the [...]

Here's a puzzle: When does a Supreme Court justice believe courts can review executive branch decisions? The answer, at least for Justice Alito, appears to be whenever a Democrat is president, but only then." There is plenty of commentary making the rounds regarding yesterday's 5-4 Supreme Court decision confirming that of course a judge can [...]

The hate and stupidity continues. Emboldened by Trump's first presidential term and his subsequent, extremely destructive return to the Oval Office, legislators with an unacknowledged preference for fascism are pushing further and further, comfortable in the uncomfortable fact that the only thing capable of stopping them is their own shame. And since they don't have [...]

The 2025 Business & Leadership Skills Bundle has 5 courses to help you learn skills you need to advance your career. Courses cover strategic planning, leadership styles,marketing communications, the art of professional poise and politeness, office politics, and more. It's on sale for $25. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. [...]

During his address to Congress this week, Donald Trump endorsed the Take It Down Act while openly declaring his plans to abuse it: And I'm going to use that bill for myself too, if you don't mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody." (You might think a former president openly declaring [...]

After some initial waffling, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has finally shredded his Province's $100 million contract with Elon Musk's Starlink satellite broadband service. Like many politicians (and shitty c-tier comedians turned podcasters), Ford was apparently tricked into thinking that the expensive, capacity-constrained broadband service was a sort of magic bullet for rural broadband access. But [...]

One of the more frustrating aspects of any conversation we have around the preservation of video games, something that is simply not being done for the most part today for the vast majority of titles created, is how easy and simple the ultimate fix is. It isn't a secret. It's not an arduous process. It [...]

Last October,Donald Trump sued CBSclaiming (falsely) that a 60 Minutes" interview of Kamala Harris had been deceitfully edited" to her benefit (they simply shortened some of her answers for brevity, as news outlets often do). AsMike explored, the lawsuit tramples the First Amendment and editorial discretion. At the same time, Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr [...]

My project thus far has been to educate you, to help you renormalize history from a common ethical center. To show you what should be abundantly clear: that simple truths, all around us, reveal things that are blatantly obvious. That we are now ruled by liars, cheaters, and men with an unbounded appetite for power. [...]

It is almost difficult to believe this is a real thing that happened with the President of the United States, but here's what actually happened on Tuesday. In the morning, Donald Trump threatened to imprison protesters and defund any university that allows certain protests. Then, that same evening, he stood before Congress and declared - [...]

The Complete 2025 Microsoft Tech Training Super Bundle has 11 courses to help you level up your Microsoft IT skill set. Courses cover Microsoft 365 identity management, Azure administration, cybersecurity, and more. It's on sale for $59.97. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt [...]

I don't know if Trump believes this is what will finally score him a Nobel Peace Prize for him to wave around as proof of his impeccable deal-making skills, but while we wait for the world to get even worse, things are going to get a little less secure here in the United States. Here's [...]

Late last year we wrote about how LA Times billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong confidently announced that he was going to use AI to display artificial intelligence-generated ratings" of news content, while also providing AI-generated lists of alternative political views on that issue" under each article. After he got done firing a lot of longstanding LA [...]

Trademark disputes where it is very clear that the complaining party is actually concerned about something other than customer confusion are always fun. All the more so when the target is a work of fiction, with the supposedly offending content also being fictional. We saw an example of this when a software company sued Warner [...]

Okay, people. You keep asking me, Mike, but what should we do?" I am going to condescend to you now, about what you should do. The only resistance worth a damn is the one where you stop calculating the odds and start living your truth without reservation. What separates the merely clever from the genuinely [...]

Support us on Patreon We're finally getting back into the rhythm of things, and in fact right at this very moment Mike is recording a brand new original episode for next week on the podcast - but this week, we've got a cross-post and a special extra treat. Mike recently once again joined Andy Levy [...]

While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere Democrats say this, Republicans say that" dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recognizable plan unfold - a playbook we're all too familiar with. We've seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power, how institutional guardrails can be circumvented through technical and legal [...]

The recent book Character Limit" exposes a perfect case study in destructive arrogance: Twitter was already building more sophisticated versions of everything Musk claimed he wanted. But Musk and his sycophants were so convinced of their own brilliance, and so certain everyone at Twitter was an idiot, they didn't even bother to understand what was [...]

To completely understand computer security, it's vital to step outside the fence and to think outside the box. Computer security is not just about firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems, or anti-viruses. It's also about tricking people into doing whatever a hacker wishes. A secure system, network, or infrastructure is also about informed people. The All-in-One Super-Sized [...]

Trump's second term has elevated a bunch of people who have no idea what they're doing to positions of power where every blunder is just considered to be the acceptable outcome for an administration that likes breaking things even more than it likes moving fast. The Department of Government Efficiency still isn't an official government [...]

Like many big companies, Verizon eagerly signed up for Trump 2.0 excited to get tax cuts, rubber stamped merger approvals, attacks on organized labor, and oodles of unaccountable subsidies. But as is often the deal with authoritarian zealots (and force-wielding intergalactic warlords with deep-rooted mommy issues), the deal you think you struck can and will [...]

We talk a lot here about the concept of ownership" of what we spend money on, particularly as it relates to purchases that are digital or have some reliance on internet connectivity. Despite being related, those two categories are actually quite distinct. On the one hand, you have situations where a company may go out [...]

At a time when Section 230 faces unprecedented threats from all sides - with both major political parties gunning for it, albeit for opposite reasons - understanding this crucial internet law has never been more important. That's probably why our Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230" post remains one of [...]

You never think the worst thing imaginable can actually happen. But sometimes it does. And when it does there is not a moment to lose coming to terms with it so you can start to do what needs to be done to deal with it. Because whether you are suddenly facing being diagnosed with a [...]

The Party of Mooks has ascended to the top tier yet again. We're all going to pay the price for this, even the mooks that think electing mooks will elevate them from their own mook-hood. Republicans have spent most of the past decade complaining about things like diversity, inclusion, and equitable treatment of American residents [...]

Look, I'm no rocket-building super-genius*, but I have this weird idea that if you want to make an organization more efficient, you might start by talking to the people who are... already making it efficient? A crazy idea, I know. (*Neither are some other people who pretend to be). But Elon Musk had a different [...]

The 2025 ChatGPT Skills and Creativity Bundle has 5 courses to help you learn how to use AI in your daily life. Courses cover creative writing, office and personal productivity, travel planning, content creation, and more. It's on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of [...]

Well, this didn't last long. For a state as staunchly conservative as South Dakota, this is somewhat of a surprise. But less than a week after a bill mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms was forwarded to a vote by the House committee, the South Dakota House rejected this odious [...]

The FCC runs an $8 billion federal subsidy program to help bring phone and broadband services to lower income homes and schools called theUniversal Service Fund. The program was historically a bipartisan thing, until the extremist Trump administration came to town. Driven by a fake right wing consumer group called Consumers' Research," theTrumplican-stackedFifth Circuit court [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is MrWilson with a comment about US Attorney Ed Martin's apparent personal intimidation campaign against Trump/Musk rivals: Note the direct association of putting America first" with the act of adhering to a presidential executive order that can only apply to government employees. Sycophantry to authoritarianism [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2020, a court finally dumped one of Devin Nunes' ridiculous lawsuits only for him to immediately promise to file another, while Public Citizen weighed in on why the famous cow's information should be protected under the First Amendment and a watchdog group asked the Congressional Ethics Office to investigate [...]

A couple of years back, we talked about how Ubisoft handled its own accidental leak of the Beyond Good & Evil remaster to its subscribers. Months before it was due to be released, a technical error resulted in an incomplete version of the game suddenly being available on Ubisoft+. Some people grabbed copies of it, [...]

Last November, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released Steam-Powered Hate, accusing Valve's game launcher, Steam, of fostering extremism. The report dropped just before Senator Mark Warner, a SAFE TECH Act proponent, threatened Steam's owner, raising concerns about the political motivations behind the ADL's claims. The ADL analyzed over one billion data points, flagging just 0.5% as [...]

During peak COVID lockdowns, New York State passed a law requiring that ISPs (with more than 20,000 subscribers) offer low-income state residents (and low income residents only) a 25 Mbps broadband tier for $15. Big Telecom didn't much like that, but their multi-year effort to kill the law, first passed in 2021, recently fell apart [...]

You shouldn't need a permission slip to read a webpage-whether you do it with your own eyes, or use software to help.AI is a category of general-purpose tools with myriad beneficial uses. Requiring developers to license the materials needed to create this technology threatens the development of more innovative and inclusive AI models, as well [...]

Prepare to sit a various CompTIA certification courses with the Complete 2025 CompTIA Certification Training Super Bundle by IDUNOVA. Over 17 courses, you'll learn about penetration testing, network security, IT fundamentals, and more. It's on sale for $50. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from [...]

The rule of law" folks (who also have a sizable overlap with the party of free speech) are at it again. Around the nation, legislators emboldened by the Republican party's embrace of bigotry have been passing bills banning books (or, worse, subjecting librarians to criminal charges). Almost as often as a law gets passed, it [...]

The first Trump FCC tried to give Musk nearly a billion dollars to deliver expensive Starlink access to sometraffic medians and airport parking lots. The Biden FCCclawed back most of those subsidies, (correctly) arguing that the service couldn't deliver consistent speeds, and if we're going to spend taxpayer money on broadband, more future-proof and less [...]