Techdirt

Elon Musk seems infatuated with bots and scrapers as the root of all his problems at Twitter. Given his propensity to fire engineers who tell him things he doesn't want to hear, it's not difficult to believe that engineers afraid to tell Musk the truth are conveniently blaming scraping" on the variety of problems that [...]

Last February, a report in Politico found that Crisis Text Line, one of the nation's largest nonprofit support options for the suicidal, had been monetizing user data. More specifically, the nonprofit was collecting all sorts of data on customer interactions" (ranging from the frequency certain words are used, to the type of distress users are [...]

This week, both our winners on the insightful side are responses to tiresome comments from some... prolific commenters. In first place, it's Rocky tackling some platform/publisher nonsense: Fox News and the NY Post are publishers, not platforms. We don't care to control what they publish." The 1A doesn't care if a private company is a [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, Ajit Pai was pretending to care about the identity fraud that plagued the net neutrality repeal, Netflix's CEO was proclaiming the death of net neutrality to be no big deal, while the government in India was moving in the opposite direction and embracing full net neutrality (though the [...]

The Supreme Court made it clear in 2018 with its Carpenter decision: gathering historical cell site location info in bulk was impermissible under the Fourth Amendment. If law enforcement wanted to engage in third-party-enabled long term tracking of suspects via this info, it needed to get a warrant first. That ruling seemed to make everything [...]

While the telecom industry did manage to successfully defang U.S. consumer protection regulators for the better part of the last decade, they're still facing some notable headwinds. Broadband growth has dramatically slowed, their cable TV customers are leaving in droves, and while they are getting a ton of new subsidies via the infrastructure bill, a [...]

Apparently, Elon Musk has little to no interest in paying ex-employees the $500 million in severance he owes them (which was included in the purchase agreement he signed, but which it's unclear if he ever read), but he (and the close friends and family he stuffed the Tesla board with) need to pay back $735 [...]

Apple fought the law and - contrary to the song lyrics - it won. Years later, Apple decided it would get ahead of the law enforcement curve by attempting to engage in client-side scanning of iPhone users' content. That worked out less well for Apple, which (at least momentarily) decided making governments happy was more [...]

The HomeSpot Rugged Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker was built to keep up with your adventures. It deflects dust, dirt, and water - and is coated with a rubberized surface that you'll feel comfortable bringing camping, rafting, and beyond. Best of all, this speaker truly delivers powerful sound that will fill even outdoor spaces with impressive audio. [...]

It seems to happen over and over again, and the mainstream media always makes it worse. The mainstream media hears about a TikTok challenge," reports on it like crazy, and people freak out that TikTok is destroying the children or some such. And every single time, it turns out that the media got the story [...]

In just the last five years, the right to repair" movement has shifted from nerdy niche to the mainstream, thanks in part to significant support fromthe Biden FTC and efforts in states like Minnesota and New York to pass new right to repair laws, making it easier and less expensive for consumers and independent repair [...]

So much of what is considered [cough] bulletproof evidence in criminal cases is nothing more than pseudoscience dressed in a lab coat. For years, prosecutors have presented science-y sounding evidence" derived from lab techniques that had never undergone any sort of peer review or blind testing. The government - especially the DOJ - has also [...]

Reading through the increasing number of Techdirt articles about AI, the overwhelming impression is that many people think AI is bad, and needs to be reined in before it destroys journalism/creativity/society/humanity (delete as applicable). To see an interesting new phase of an old technology attacked in this way is rather depressing, since it seems to [...]

Protests ignited by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's murder of an unarmed black man (George Floyd) spread across the nation following that horrific event. And these protests against police violence went on for months, prompting a federal response from an irked president, who declared Portland, Oregon one of many anarchy jurisdictions." The Portland police had [...]

One thing that should be evident by now is that every online community eventually learns the need for some level of trust & safety" or basic moderation to take place. And they quickly find that things are a lot more complex than they seem from the outside. Just try to moderate a medium sized Facebook [...]

Because cops are the frailest of creatures and are actively harmed by people, you know, looking at them, legislators have made sure they're ultra-protected by enacting super shitty laws that elevate cops above the people they serve. Blue Lives" laws insist cops' lives are worth more than anyone else's lives. They add years to sentences [...]

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There have been some ongoing debates (going back many years) in the copyright space regarding whether or not embedding infringing content into a website could be infringing in and of itself. If you understand what's happening technically, this seems ludicrous. An embed is basically the same thing as a link. And merely linking to infringing [...]

We noted how as Netflix growth has stalled internationally, the company has turned to nickel-and-diming its existing customers in order to give Wall Street its beloved quarterly returns at any cost. That has included not only last year's price hikes, but this week's decision to eliminate the company's cheapest ad-free tier in both the US [...]

Last fall, a few people sent me this fun video from YouTuber Allen Pan, which briefly talks about how he ended up with a MythBusters trademark for clothing and apparel. I didn't write it up at the time because, while amusing, the discussion of the trademark (and, for that matter, copyright) issues was so confused [...]

As we just noted, satellite TV provider Dish Network's planned pivot into streaming video and wireless isn't going great. The company continues to bleed traditional satellite TV subscribers, new streaming subscribers, and wireless customers. And the company's supposed 5G network (spawned during the Trump FCC era) has, by most accounts, proven to be a bit [...]

A few months back, I got added to a group chat of Hollywood writers/actors/directors, all seeking to understand what the fuck was going on with AI. And one topic that came up consistently early on was will copyright protect us" and, if not, how can copyright be changed to better protect us?" I've already made [...]

ShotSpotter has routinely claimed its system of mics and location info is crucial to reducing gun crime. The theory is that if you can hear it, you can respond to it, even if officers can't physically hear these gunshots themselves. The problem with this assertion is that there's a margin of error. The system can't [...]

These MaxLight mini flashlights are designed to fit in your backpack or pocket. They are super bright and strong enough to be used in emergencies when you need reliable illumination. The 4 modes let you switch from super bright, medium, low, and strobe modes. They have a magnetic base, a kickstand, a rechargeable battery, a [...]

We've already talked a bit about how Rep. Jim Jordan's Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Government" is the exact thing it claims it seeks to stop: a part of the government that is being weaponized to attack free speech. This week, Jordan sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, demanding he reveal a bunch of [...]

While early AI" systems have plenty of creativity and productivity potential, early implementations into the already very broken US journalism and media markets have proven to be an ugly mess. In part because the tech isn't really fully cooked yet. But also because the kind of folks that get to run major modern US media [...]

A previous post discussed what the recently released files of the late Associate Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens revealed about development of the Court's decisions inLotus v. Borland,MGM v. Grokster, andEldred v. Ashcroft. This post looks at the disclosures contained in the files forQuality King v. L'anza,New York Times v. Tasini, andDastar v. Twentieth [...]

The law surrounding vanity license plates is unsettled, to vastly understate the reality. There's no consensus across states, much less federal jurisdictions. Every government seems to have its own idea about what's offensive and what isn't, as well as its own take on whether a personalized plate is government speech or merely the expression of [...]

Last week, we promised an upcoming episode featuring a conversation with Cory Doctorow - and that conversation has been recorded and is arriving next week! But we decided to take a brief intermission this week, since things in the social media landscape are changing so quickly. Mike recently appeared on The Neoliberal Podcast with Jeremiah [...]

People accuse me of unfairly bashing Elon Musk, but I've always highlighted the things he's done that I thought were smart as well, and a big one was his decision nearly a decade ago to free all of Tesla's patents. The company put out a blog post, saying that anyone could use its patents, and [...]

With every government in Europe pitching their own version of acceptable" intrusion, it's hardly surprising France's government wants in on the action. Amid calls to criminalize end-to-end encryption, to mandate client-side scanning, and to otherwise interfere directly with content moderation efforts, the French government's latest move is nothing more than the sort of thing we've [...]

Nibble is an educational tool disguised in the shape of a retro game console. It's a new and improved version of MAKERbuino that makes learning about electronics and programming fun! With a build guide, assembling the kit will be easy peasy. This DIY console comes preloaded with 4 retro games inspired by cult classics - [...]

The tech press often gets called out for lazy journalism, and here we have yet another example. On Monday, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri posted that due to an influx of spam on Threads (and there's been a lot), the company was tightening up its rate limits: He said: Spam attacks have picked up so we're [...]

The FCC, under both Trump and Biden, has made a huge, noisy deal about forcing U.S. telecoms to rip out Chinese telecom gear from U.S. networks, under the argument that the gear is used to spy on Americans (you're to ignore, of course, that the United States spies on everyone, constantly, and has broadly supported [...]

Law enforcement agencies often command an outsized portion of city and county budgets. The argument for this expenditure is basically just Blue Line bullshit: without the police at full staff, surely every locality will descend into criminal anarchy. That's the argument but the facts don't bear it out. There's very little evidence that increased law [...]

Grocery chain Trader Joe's is not a complete stranger to Techdirt's pages, and not for good reasons. The company, in the past, has shown itself to be perfectly willing to abuse trademark law to stop anything it doesn't like, such as a man reselling its goods across borders where the company has no stores (perfectly [...]

Gathering evidence has never been easier than it is now. So much is created so easily and so often. And there are so many access points for law enforcement. Sure, a few outliers (and outright liars [cough] Chris Wray [cough]) may claim everything is going dark," but never before in history have there been this [...]

As you almost certainly know, earlier this month, Meta released Threads, its Twitter-like microblogging service. There are rumors that the company rushed the launch, pushing it up a few weeks to try to capitalize on the latest nonsense at Twitter. And, it seemed to work (to some extent) in that the company was able to [...]

Well, this is an unfortunate turn of events. The last time we discussed this issue in this state (March 2019), a state appeals court came to the opposite conclusion: compelling password production is a violation of rights. That ruling said the foregone conclusion doctrine didn't apply, at least not the way the state wanted it [...]

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It seems to anger certain Elon Musk fans every time I mention it, but pre-Elon Twitter was generally doing okay. Not great. Not terrible. Just okay. It wasn't printing cash like Meta or Google, but it had been steadily increasing revenue and was profitable in 16 of the previous 20 quarters before Elon took over. [...]

For more than a decade now, app makers, phone makers, wireless companies - and pretty much everybody else - has been collecting and monetizing your daily movement habits. There's genuinely no reason most of these companies (like, say, your light bulb maker) need this information, but because the U.S. is too corrupt to pass a [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is zeiche with a response to the claim that we have an axe to grind" against In-N-Out because we covered their trademark tourism in Japan: techdirt grinds axes against companies that try to protect trademarks in countries that they don't do business in. that isn't [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, more police were admitting that FOSTA/SESTA made it harder to catch traffickers, while UK Parliament members were looking to enact a similar law of their own. California was cooking up its disastrous privacy bill, while we looked at the censorship potential of the EU Copyright Directive's Article 13. [...]

If you go back and read nearly all of the posts we've done on luxury fashion company Louis Vuitton, you'll see a history of a company that is about as big a pain in the ass when it comes to intellectual property bullying as you'll find. The company often times takes it's protecting" of it's [...]

So we wrote about Judge Terry Doughty's somewhat questionable ruling preventing the Biden White House from communicating with tech companies or researchers regarding certain areas of disinformation. As we noted, there were some good elements in the ruling, reminding government officials of the 1st Amendment restrictions on coercion in attempting to silence protected speech. But [...]

There aren't many sites with tech" in their names that provide this much discussion on the First Amendment implications of vanity plate laws. Maybe it's just us. Or maybe it's just (mostly) me. Whatever the case, I find it fascinating that so many state governments have so many restrictions on what people can express via [...]

Well, well, it appears that rumors of the death of the regulatory battle over the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard purchase have been greatly exaggerated. We just discussed media reports of two items related to the deal. The first was the FTC's loss in court to get a preliminary injunction barring the two companies from consummating [...]

Portable, sleek and sophisticated, the Nix Mini 2 Color Sensor is engineered with life in mind. It's perfect for those who find inspiration wherever they go. The Nix Mini can easily identify any color with a simple scan, ideal for those who work with color, or for those who simply want to bring it into [...]

We're getting a bit more clarity and commonsense applied to lawsuits involving constitutional violations by TSA agents. As we're all painfully aware, to fly is to spend some time in often uncomfortably close proximity to a TSA officer. That's the bargain we make when we choose to board a plane. These searches are far from [...]