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You just can't tell Florida no," which is a bit ironic. The state obviously feels it can say no" to all sorts of things, even if doing so means violating the Constitution. Another dumbass bill written by dumbass legislators and signed into law by the state's dumbass governor, Ron DeSantis, continue to bleed money from [...]

Paramount (CBS) Corporation this week simply erased decades of music journalism in the blink of an eye. Last year the company shut down MTV News and fired all its staff as part of a strategic realignment." This week, without warning, the company deleted the entirety of the MTV News archives, erasing decades of music journalism [...]

[screaming at my mute laptop screen]: WHO GOT TO YOU This isn't the first time I've felt this way. In 2022, the Fifth Circuit got a decision very right. It said it was very fucking definitely a rights violation to arrest a journalist for publishing information she had received from a law enforcement source. Rather [...]

Techdirt has been covering the disgraceful attempts by the EU to break end-to-end encryption - supposedly in order to protect the children" - for two years now. An important vote that could have seen EU nations back the proposal was due to take place recently. The vote was cancelled - not because politicians finally came [...]

There have been a bunch of lawsuits over the last couple of years from traditional content industries suing AI providers, claiming copyright infringement. We're still a long way from figuring out how all of these lawsuits will shake out. We've made it clear that we're skeptical of these lawsuits, largely because you would have to [...]

The murder of Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich ignited a massive wave of conspiracy theories. The murder is still unsolved, but was considered by law enforcement to be the violent outcome of an attempted robbery. Despite the lack of supporting evidence, a bunch of right-wing conspiracy theorists began suggesting Rich was murdered because of [...]

MagStack is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a phone stand for FaceTime or video playback while charging. This 3-in-1 foldable 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 phones, and [...]

Actual free speech survives for yet another day as the Supreme Court has rejected a bunch of fantasy-land nonsense in a case in which Trumpists were absolutely positive they'd caught the government censoring" speech on social media. But every time we looked at the actual evidence, all we saw was lizard people" level conspiracy theory [...]

If there's been one recurring theme during the AI" (read, language learning models) revolution, it's that the tech sector and greedy financiers are prematurely rushing undercooked technology to market. We've seen it broadly across industries, whether it's fabulism-prone fake journalists, automated health insurance systems with 90% error rates, or Google telling people to eat rocks [...]

The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court is one of the better circuits when it comes to holding the government accountable for the violence it inflicts on citizens. It's pretty much the polar opposite of the Fifth Circuit, which can't seem to forgive cops quickly enough. This lawsuit, springing from the shooting and killing of Francis Calonge [...]

The recent publication of Griner v. King seems to have just about everything: an iconic meme (Success Kid!), a troll-ish politician, charges of political censorship, and an application of the latest big Supreme Court opinion on fair use, Warhol v. Goldsmith. Oh my! But the most important thing for friends of fair use to know [...]

We weren't planning to do a series, but after our last two episodes with Alice Marwick and then Candice Odgers, things have lined up nicely for a trifecta of episodes about the current moral panic around kids and social media. This week, we're joined by Dr. Devorah Heitner, an expert on kids and technology and [...]

Does Elon Musk control all of his companies as if they're a single entity where he can shift resources between them with no restrictions? Certainly, there has been a lot of reporting to that effect over the years, and now that might have some legal consequences, though perhaps not the ones you'd expect. Media Matters [...]

Yet another attempt to mandate broken encryption has been disrupted. The Australian government has long held the belief that broken encryption would be a net win for citizens. Or, at the very least, it's pretty sure it will be a huge win for law enforcement, which won't have to deal with encrypted communications or devices. [...]

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The Julian Assange saga has finally reached its absurd conclusion with a plea deal. But while Assange may be heading home to Australia, the implications for press freedom remain as dire as ever. The U.S. government has successfully criminalized a core function of journalism - working with sources to obtain and publish information in the [...]

When it comes to China, the U.S. likes to pretend its business policies are well-crafted, logic-driven decisions based on the welfare of the markets and the public, but very often that's simply not the case. We've already noted how the TikTok ban is an unconstitutional mess that doesn't have the public's support, in large part [...]

I'm going to quote at length from this decision because the things said by the officer who killed one person and wounded two others said so many amazing (in the pejorative sense) things while explaining and defending his actions. (h/t FourthAmendment.com) Now, the Fifth Circuit often chooses to side with cops. That's just the way [...]

To be clear: SpaceX's Starlink service can be a game changer for those completely out of range of broadband access. Getting several hundred megabits per second in the middle of nowhere is a decidedly good thing, assuming you can afford the $120 a month subscription cost and up front hardware costs. But contrary to what [...]

A case about First Amendment retaliation reached the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court last March. It involved Sylvia Gonzalez, a recently elected city council member who was unhappy with her current representation - that being mainly city manager Ryan Rapelye. Her first act as an elected official was to create a petition calling for Rapelye's removal [...]

We live in the age of performative lawmaking. Something must be done! This is something. We will do it. Who cares about the tradeoffs, nuances, or the evidence? Throw all that out the window and DO SOMETHING. And if you're going to DO SOMETHING why not make it big, bold, and already proven ineffective? At [...]

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 [...]

We didn't really need more precedent assuring us our rights don't mean anything at the borders, but we got it anyway. Within 100 miles of any US border (and that includes international airports), courts have generally ruled that rights are optional. If they seem to be getting in the way of securing" the border, they [...]

Last December I wrote afeature for The Vergeexploring the FCC's long overdue effort to stop race and class discrimination in broadband deployment. For decades, big telecoms have not onlyrefused to evenly upgrade broadband in low income and poor areas(despite billions in subsidies for this exact purpose), they've provably charged poor and minority neighborhoods significantlymore money [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side Rico R. with a comment about the Surgeon General's call for a warning label on social media: In second place, it's an anonymous comment about the fictional crime wave: There's another factor underlying this A lot of the people wailing about a historic crime wave" [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2019, we reiterated the all-important point that there is no legal distinction between a platform" and a publisher", and explained why the freedom to decide what content to facilitate is essential to Section 230, while the Supreme Court signaled its recognition that social media sites don't have to allow [...]

When school students are tested, those overseeing the tests seemingly are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent cheating, even if it means utilizing extremely intrusive spyware to lower the risk of dishonesty. Students are just supposed to take this in stride, but the lessons they'll often learn of just how little respect school [...]

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 [...]

Definitely loving all of this. And right up front (just in case the defendant thinks she can rob Peter Techdirt to pay Paul Eric Posey), I'll make it clear this post will be filled with colorful expression, hyperbole, highly opinionated takes on the lawsuit, and... possibly... archaic slang. A lot of people (especially the most [...]

If ExTwitter is the bastion of free speech, you would think that it would allow for the publishing of newsworthy documents revealing a politician's funding briefings, right? Apparently not when that politician is politically aligned with Elon Musk, whose commitment to open discourse appears to be about as floppy as the Cybertruck's giant windshield wiper. [...]

New York Governor Kathy Hochul's response to the horrifying shootings in Buffalo in 2022 was not to look for ways to limit access to guns or improve mental health care. It was not to look into why law enforcement ignored the threats that the shooter had made, which they were aware of. It was not [...]

Fire up a wild ride across the cosmos with a fresh take on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. In this third-person action-adventure game, you are Star-Lord, and thanks to your bold yet questionable leadership, you have persuaded an oddball crew of unlikely heroes to join you. Some jerk (surely not you) has set off a [...]

The inevitable is upon us: a police officer has been caught using Clearview AI for non-law enforcement purposes. That wouldn't mean anything if the officer had private access to the most ethically dubious player in the facial recognition tech market. But he didn't. He was using access purchased by his employer, so it wasn't only [...]

Back in 2018 (pre-brunchlord owned) Deadspin posted the definitive video on Sinclair Broadcasting, highlighting in less than two and a half minutes how the local broadcaster is a right wing propaganda mill pretending to be a local news organization and the poster child for why media consolidation limits still matter: Like Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, [...]

As the line from the Bill Murray movies goes, It's Groundhog Day... again." Back in 2015, Valve launched its Paid Creations" platform on the Steam client, through which those who made game mods could list them in a marketplace for a cost. This was done at least in coordination with, if not at the behest [...]

Shortly after the company's $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit in 2019, Google Senior VP Rick Osterloh wrote a blog post proclaiming that the merger would result in better and cheaper fitness tracking tech: We're confident the combination of Fitbit's leading technology, product expertise and health and wellness innovation with the best of Google's AI, software [...]

ShotSpotter isn't having a great year. Or two. Its tech has been called into question - both for its ability to truly detect gunshots and for its contribution (if any) to public safety. What is known about ShotSpotter isn't great. The most in-depth examination of the tech was performed by the Inspector General of the [...]

If you found out that 500,000 books had been removed from your local public library, at the demands of big publishers who refused to let them buy and lend new copies, and were further suing the library for damages, wouldn't you think that would be a major news story? Wouldn't you think many people would [...]

We had a post earlier this week about the silliness of the Surgeon General's idea for a warning on social media, and that linked to a longer piece Mike wrote about it at The Daily Beast, which talked about a similar push by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop getting upset about video games. The [...]

MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creating of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages. That's all well and good, but it means nothing if you don't have a firm grasp of the data types used within MATLAB. In this course you'll cover not just data [...]

There's a large contingent of people who want you to believe each successive year is worse than the last one. Despite being the beneficiary of a two-decade run of historically low crime rates, the United States is often portrayed as a crime-ridden wasteland where only the bravest dare to police the mean streets. This year [...]

Like so many of Elon Musk's accomplishments, the importance of his Starlink low-Earth orbit efforts is quite often overstated. While a great option for those in remote locations who can actually afford the steep price tag (affordability often tops access as the top barrier to broadband adoption), the network hasstruggled with speed issuesdue to satellite [...]

If you're in any way interested in tabletop board games, you will likely be familiar with the term meeple." If you're not, the term refers to the small game piece that represents the player or the player's people, to be moved around the board or gameset during play. It has become a ubiquitous term in [...]

In terms of percentages, does the law enforcement community employ a larger number of sexual abusers? Or is it something else? It's difficult to prove any of this with statistics, especially since most law enforcement agencies in the nation are able to bury this information, citing state laws, confidentiality agreements with police unions, or the [...]

In the conversation about keeping kids safe online, the actual experts with the most to offer are all too often treated as outsiders and interlopers. One such expert is Candice Odgers, Professor of Psychological Science and Informatics at the University of California Irvine, who has recently been involved in a lot of debates against people [...]

We've noted repeatedly how early attempts to integrate AI" into journalism have proven to be acomical mess, resulting in no shortage ofshoddy product, dangerous falsehoods, and plagiarism. It's thanks in large part to the incompetent executives at many large media companies, who see AI primarily as a way to cut corners, assault unionized labor, and [...]

This lawsuit might be a long shot, but it's not completely a foregone conclusion at this point. The state of Illinois has tougher privacy laws than most states, which may factor into the judge's decision. On the other hand, this lawsuit - filed by two Illinois residents with the assistance of the Liberty Justice Center [...]

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You may have heard that yesterday the Surgeon General of the US, Vivek Murthy, announced that Congress should mandate Surgeon General warnings" on social media, saying that it is harmful to kids. Over at the Daily Beast I went into great detail about just how far from the actual science this suggestion is. As with [...]

We've noted repeatedly how T-Mobile simply hasn't been the same company since its controversial 2020 merger with Sprint. All of the pre-merger concerns deal critics warned about came true, whether it was 9,000 layoffs, worse service, or higher wireless prices. Long gone is the company's John Legere-era pretense that it was ever seriously interested in [...]