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Agree with them or not, the folks behind Cards Against Humanity certainly do have a penchant for flair. As you may recall, back during the Trump presidency, when we were still hearing about how a border wall would be built and then billed back to a sovereign nation that was absolutely never going to pay [...]

Elon Musk's superpower does not appear to be rocket science or electric cars-it's an uncanny ability to misunderstand why ExTwitter's features exist. The clear takeaway from the book Character Limit" about his Twitter takeover was that he only views the platform's features through the lens of whether or not he, the richest man in the [...]

Tennessee's government cranks out a lot of stupid laws. It's been doing it for years, but things have accelerated recently as the state's legislators seek to curtail rights for, well, pretty much everyone but white men. It has enacted book bans, anti-trans laws, and the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision triggered its long-dormant anti-abortion law. But [...]

The Ultimate Learn Unity Game Development Bundle has 10 courses to help you learn how to create your own games. Unity allows you to easily make cross-platform 2D, 3D, VR, AR, and mobile games. It powers indie and AAA games, films, job training apps, and much more - making it a versatile program that's used [...]

I do not understand why California Governor Gavin Newsom thinks he has to be the Democratic equivalent of Texas Governor Greg Abbott or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, signing obviously unconstitutional laws for the sake of winning culture war arguments. It's really shameful. It's cheap political pandering, while disrespecting the rights of everyone he's supposed to [...]

Last July the FCC announced it was moving forward with plans that should make unlocking your mobile phone easier than ever. According tothe FCC announcement, the agency, with broad and bipartisan public support, has been working on new rules requiring that wireless carriers unlock customers' mobile phones within 60 days of activation. Wireless carriers, trying [...]

It happened again and it has to stop. Back in 2014, we talked about how a UK woman had trouble getting her passport approved because her middle name was Skywalker" and the UK's passport office for some reason thought that Disney would have to give its permission to have the passport approved. There is nothing [...]

The writing was on the wall, or rather, on the City of Chicago's Inspector General's report: The CPD data examined by OIG does not support a conclusion that ShotSpotter is an effective tool in developing evidence of gun-related crime. Kind of a big problem when the tech was acquired specifically to address Chicago's years-long acceleration [...]

Back in March, Walled Culture wrote about theterrible jobthat academic publishers are doing in terms of creating backups of the articles they publish. We also mentioned there two large-scale archives that are trying to help,Sci-HubandAnna's Archive. Legal action by publishers against the former seems to have led to a halt to new items being added [...]

If it can be accessed via the internet, it will be. That's a fact too many entities learn far too late. Amazingly, this wholly expected outcome often comes as a surprise to entities with lots power, money, or expertise - the sort of people you'd think would have considered all possible outcomes before giving a [...]

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I've covered telecom giants like AT&T for most of an adult life. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that the company all but owns most state legislatures, who are happy to pass no limit of terrible, anti-consumer, anti-competitive legislation in exchange for a nice vacation trip or campaign contribution. AT&T lawyers and executives [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous response to a comment arguing that Cloudflare isn't very important to the internet: I would like to hear your argument as to why DDoS mitigation is not an essential part of hosting a website in 2024. In second place, it's an anonymous [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2019, some investors were getting sick of AT&T's obsession with mergers, leading the company to think about dumping DirecTV. Nintendo was ramping up its war on ROM websites, while Congress was moving forward with plans to massively increase copyright trolling. The DOJ helped boost Ed Snowden's memoir by suing [...]

As we just talked about the joint lawsuit filed in Japan by Nintendo and The Pokemon Co. against Pocketpair, the company behind the hit game Palworld, we still don't have all the details. But one of the strange things about the suit is that is not a copyright or trademark suit, which is what everyone [...]

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 [...]

MAGA world's false belief that Joe Biden is censoring conservatives" on social media may actually kill the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). As we mentioned earlier this week, while KOSA has already passed the Senate and advanced in a different form out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, there were still big concerns among [...]

We all hate data brokers. I mean, those of us who aren't in law enforcement. Law enforcement tends to love data brokers because they allow investigators to collect a bunch of stuff (including location info) without having to whip up a subpoena or (the horror...) ask a judge to sign off on a warrant. Nope, [...]

The Ultimate Adobe CC Training Bundle has 12 courses to help you get the most out of the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. Courses cover Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and more. It's on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt [...]

Elon Musk fought the Brazilian law, and it looks like the Brazilian law won. After making a big show of how he was supposedly standing up for free speech, Elon caved yet again. Just as happened back in April when he first refused to comply with court orders from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, [...]

Cable broadband giants like Charter Communications (Spectrum) and Comcast (Xfinity) generally don't have to try very hard, because they enjoy a monopoly over broadband access across vast swaths of the U.S. That lack of competition traditionally results in high prices, spotty access, slow speeds, and some of the worst customer satisfaction ratings of any sector [...]

Oh, these law and order" types. What a joke. The self-proclaimed law and order" candidate is Donald Trump, a convicted felon and open supporter of those who committed federal crimes during the January 6th raid of the Capitol building. And, of course, he's earned the endorsement of another law and order" figurehead, the Fraternal Order [...]

The United States is already a global leader in traffic-related fatalities, with athirty-percent jump in the last decade. That's in contrast toevery other developed country, which saw a decline. 40,000 Americans die every year in traffic fatalities. And while tech advancements have made life safer for drivers and passengers, the same can't be true for [...]

Well, it took awhile, but we finally got here. Earlier this year, we discussed the game Palworld shortly after its release. It made our pages because the game is clearly partially inspired by the Pokemon series of video games, with some very stark differences. Similarities aside, the characters in the game are certainly different than [...]

As California edges closer to enacting SB 1047, the state risks throwing the entire AI industry into turmoil. The bill has already cleared the legislative process and now sits on Governor Newsom's desk, leaving him with a critical decision: veto this ill-conceived policy or sign away the U.S.' future in AI. While Newsom appears skeptical [...]

The FBI and DOJ have always felt comfortable going after Islamic extremists. That's the sort of thing they like to do. They like it so much they'll radicalize vulnerable people for the sole purpose of locking them up for multiple decades. A lot of digital ink has been spilled covering the FBI's success rate in [...]

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Automation and language learning models aren't inherently bad. But when half-cooked automation is layered on top of very broken systems by greedy, incompetent people, it certainly can be. See, for example, the way brunchlords are using AI" to cut corners or undermine labor in journalism, or the way insurance companies are using it to automatically [...]

Have you been missing patent trolls destroying innovation and making products you like more expensive? Have you felt that, maybe, some lawyers who did nothing but send extortionate shakedown letters weren't getting rich enough? Well then, good news for you, Congress is looking to bring all that back! In the early years of Techdirt, we [...]

Update: Annnnnnnnd... Cloudflare has already said it will isolate and block Brazilian IP addresses from reaching ExTwitter. Original story below. It appears that Elon has decided to take the Brazilian hornet's nest he'd already kicked over the last few weeks and start slamming it with a baseball bat. It's unlikely this will end well. I've [...]

This morning, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a pretty long markup about KOSA, COPPA 2.0, and other bills. The quick summary is that both of those bills passed out of committee and could be taken to the House floor this session. The longer version, though, is that cracks in the coalition pushing these [...]

Wikipedia seems such an essential and benign aspect of the online world that it is hard to understand why people would want to attack it in the courts. But it is nonetheless subject to lawsuits that try to force it to censor its articles because they contain facts that are inconvenient for someone. The Wikimedia [...]

Florida's legislative antipathy towards free speech and general overall bigotry has generated plenty of bad laws and plenty of fully justified lawsuits. Earlier this month, the state's quasi-book bans became the defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by multiple big-name publishers. But that was just the latest lawsuit, and the first to actually sue the [...]

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 [...]

Back in 2022, you might recall that ex-Moviepass executives Theodore Farnsworth and J. Mitchell Lowe were charged by the DOJ for wire and securities fraud, after it was found they'd repeatedly misled investors about the profitability of their all you can eat" movie ticket efforts. Lowe this week pleaded guilty to a securities fraud conspiracy [...]

If you had that Congress was going to take bad protect the children" bills and make them worse on your bingo card, congratulations, you've won this week's easiest prediction. This seems like a not great situation. As mentioned, the House Energy & Commerce Committee is holding a markup today for a bunch of bills. Yesterday, [...]

It's amazing just how many of the trademark disputes we cover here are only disputes because the USPTO granted a trademark that it shouldn't have. The examples of this sort of thing are legion, but they typically revolve around trademarks that are either generic, descriptive, or both. Which brings us to Chickie's and Pete's, a [...]

Thierry Breton has finally taken the next logical step in his role as the EU's censor: he's talked himself out of his job. Over the last few years, Thierry Breton, the former CEO of France Telecom, has spent the last few years as the Commissioner for the Internal Market in the EU, where he has [...]

If you're a Techdirt reader (or any tech news reader) you've already heard a lot of stories about the chaos of Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, but no matter how much you know, there's a lot to learn in a new book that hits the shelves today. Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, by [...]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the internet, KOSA rears its ugly head once again. The rumors of KOSA's demise in Congress may have been overstated. Following a big push by supporters of the bill, including Senator Marsha we need this to protect kids from the transgender in our culture" [...]

It's been a whirlwind few months for NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, at least in terms of press coverage. None of it has been positive, though. A few months ago, reporting from ProPublica exposed Commissioner Caban's efforts to make the NYPD even less accountable than it always has been. Public records and other information obtained by [...]

The Database Administration Super Bundle has 9 courses to help you go from data novice to expert administrator. You'll discover how to build and manage databases with MySQL and MongoDB. Courses also cover Microsoft SQL Server, Informatica, Minitab, Tableau, and regression modeling. It's on sale for $60. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and [...]

Today, the new book by NY Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, comes out. If you're at all interested in what went down, I can't recommend it enough. It's a well-written, deeply researched book with all sorts of details about the lead-up to the acquisition, the acquisition [...]

AT&T's $86 billionmerger with Time Warner resulted in an ocean of chaos, layoffs, and quality control problems. That was followed up with T-Mobile's$26 billion merger with Sprint, which resulted in thousands of layoffs and an immediate end to wireless price competition in the U.S. Not to be outdone, struggling satellite TV providers Dish Network (owned [...]

It was almost exactly a year ago to the day that Unity updated its pricing program for its game engine in a way that seemed perfectly designed to piss everyone off. Whereas Unity was once a subscription-based game engine, rather than one which collected royalties, suddenly Unity went in the opposite direction, with per-install fees [...]

Some of you may have heard about this. It made all the papers (at least in the United States). Tyreek Hill, wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins, was pulled over about a block away from the stadium by Miami-Dade police officers. What started as a simple situation involving a speeding/seat belt ticket escalated quickly when [...]

It's no secret that Trump-administration-in-waiting at the Heritage Foundation supports KOSA because it thinks it will be useful in achieving some of the most extreme goals of Project 2025, a project Heritage created. Last year they came out and said that they supported KOSA because keeping trans content away from children is protecting kids." With [...]

More than a half-decade ago, the Australian government gave itself more powers. These new powers allowed the government to compel decryption - something far easier said than done, especially if existing encryption was expected to still protect everyone else but the government's targets. Shortly after the law was passed, Australia's federal law enforcement and national [...]

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In the bizarro world of MAGA politics, up is down, black is white, and apparently, fact-checking is now a form of election interference. It is no secret that people across the political spectrum have a very warped view of what free speech or the First Amendment means. But I am particularly perplexed by the view [...]