Techdirt

In case you’d missed it, the EU is currently proposing a telecom-industry backed plan to effectively tax Big Tech companies, and throw that money at Big Telecom companies for broadband expansion. On the surface, the proposal is part of the EU’s efforts to craft digital policies for the next few decades, with an eye on […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is weevie833 bringing some facts to the conversation about the perception of Conservative bias in Twitter content moderation: Here is a research study (like, actual research) that provides nuance to the perception of Conservative bias in Twitter account deplatforming. Keep in mind that (as obvious […]

We’re nearing the end of our series of posts showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927. So far we’ve featured Best Remix winner Lucia, Best Visuals winner Urbanity, Best Adaptation winner To And Again, and Best Deep Cut winner The Pigeon Wager. Today, […]

If you don’t use the 3CX VoIP platform, or work in the MSP space with companies that do, you may have missed the news that the company suffered a massive supply chain attack over the past few days. With comparisons being made to the SolarWinds fiasco, this was really, really bad. Unsuspecting clients of 3CX […]

If someone loses a patent lawsuit very badly—to the point where they face orders to pay attorneys’ fees—you wouldn’t think they would be eager to come back to court with a nearly identical lawsuit. But that’s what has happened with this month’s patent. What’s more, the lawyer representing the patent owner, William Ramey, has been […]

In recent years, major media organizations have been lobbying Congress to enact legislation, the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act,” requiring search engine providers to engage in a form of collective bargaining about the tax they would pay to media publishers for the privilege of providing links to their news articles, backed up by mandatory interest arbitration in which […]

We’ve already covered how Florida man Governor Ron DeSantis flipped out that Disney, the largest employer in his state, offered some mild criticism over one of his unconstitutional censorship bills, and decided to retaliate by (1) removing the stupid questionable “theme park exemption” his office had directly worked with Disney to insert into his unconstitutional […]

As a rule, it’s a good idea to be particularly suspicious of defenses of censorship that — coincidentally — materially benefit the people espousing them. In this case, the argument in favor of censorship is coming from founder and CEO of AI image generator Midjourney, David Holz. And Holz makes clear that he is willing […]

With its intuitive, immersive training method, Rosetta Stone will have you reading, writing, and speaking new languages like a natural in no time. You’ll start by matching words with images just like when you learned your native language as a child. Then you’ll move onto interactive lessons where speech recognition technology works to evaluate and […]

It’s been so weird the way Elon Musk and his friends have been jealous of underpaid, overworked journalists who happened to have blue check marks next to their name. There’s some sort of deep-seated insecurity to think that just because Twitter decided some people should be verified to avoid problems with impersonation that it was […]

Hungry to boost municipal budgets, a growing roster of states and cities have spent the last five years or so trying to implement a tax on Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services. Sometimes (like in Chicago) this has involved expanding an existing amusement tax (traditionally covering book stores, music stores, ball games and other brick and mortar […]

It’s opening day and already Major League Baseball has struck out. It’s a story as old as time: major sports league tries to trademark a bunch of city names only to be schooled on the internet and media by law professors and dropping the applications. Well, okay, so that’s not that common of a story, […]

It’s not as though we really need any more evidence that client-side scanning is a bad idea. Apple decided to be a pioneer and immediately discovered the world wasn’t exactly waiting for it to become a market leader in privacy invasion. We don’t need more information. We know breaking encryption results in broken encryption — […]

U.S. telecom monopolies like AT&T and Comcast spent millions of dollars and several decades quite literally buying shitty, protectionist laws in around twenty states that either ban or heavily hamstring towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. Even in instances and areas where AT&T and Comcast have repeatedly refused to upgrade their networks. Quite often, […]

Earlier this month, we wrote about Mark Warner’s RESTRICT Act, mainly in the context of how it appeared to be kneejerk legislating in response to the moral panic around TikTok. Despite the bill being out for a few weeks, over the last few days, some of the discussion around it has gone viral, in particular […]

The Ultimate Advanced Cybersecurity Bundle has 5 courses to help you become a cybersecurity expert. You’ll learn how to architect, engineer, integrate, and implement secure solutions across complex environments to support a resilient enterprise while considering the impact of governance, risk, and compliance requirements. Courses will introduce you to the NIST Risk Management Framework, and […]

Officer Richard Gasparino of the Stamford, Connecticut police department couldn’t stand to have his “revenue diverted.” So, he arrested Michael Friend for the imaginary crime of holding up a sign warning motorists there was a sting operation in progress further up the road. The officer claimed Friend was “interfering with a police investigation” despite there […]

Dish Network remains a bit of a hot mess a month after a cyberattack effectively wiped the company off the face of the internet and disrupted most of the wireless and TV company’s internal systems. If you recall, it took the better part of a week before Dish even acknowledged to its users that anything […]

To be fair, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals doesn’t always hand out immunity while waving away egregious, often horrific rights violations perpetrated by law enforcement officers. But it certainly seems to frequently find creative ways to let cops exit lawsuits, no matter how awful their behavior. Even the Supreme Court, which has done the […]

As you’ll recall, Elon Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist” but his definition of free speech… is not free speech supportive at all. It’s the opposite. Saying that free speech means “that which matches the law” means that when you have an oppressive, censorial government, they can suppress speech all you want, and […]

A couple of years ago, Utah became the first state in the union to mandate that content filters be enabled on all mobile devices sold by manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Lenovo, or TCL. The measure was a hit among the anti-porn crowd because it created a precedent for other states which sought to curtail the […]

The life-plus-seventy-years sentence imposed on Winnie the Pooh by Cher’s ex-husband is finally over. Petitions for an early release went unheeded, forcing the butt naked childhood icon to perform tricks for the heirs of its creator’s estate until it was finally allowed to roam free — nearly 40 years after the bear’s sentence should have […]

I know we’re deep, deep, deep into the moral panic about social media being uniquely awful, especially for kids. It’s driving all sorts of nonsense, including the false idea that we’re in a uniquely excessive period of depression, or that it’s been “proven” that social media makes kids feel bad. But… that’s not what the […]

The All-In-One Hardcore Unity Game Developer Bundle has 8 courses to help you learn how to build your own games plus a 1 month pass for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Unity is one of the world’s most popular game engines. Used to easily create cross-platform 2D and 3D games, it comes with a powerful set […]

When the Adams County (OH) sheriff’s office raided rap artist Afroman’s home, he didn’t just sit back and assume everyone involved operated in good faith. The raid was captured on Afroman’s security cameras, which the artist soon converted into a viral video/rap song entitled “Will You Help Me Repair My Door.” The footage — which […]

The broadband and cable industry has long perfected the use of bullshit fees to jack up subscriber bills. Countless cable and broadband companies tack on a myriad of completely bogus fees below the line, letting them advertise one rate — then sock you with a higher rate once your bill actually arrives. They’ll then pretend they haven’t […]

Timing, as they say, is everything. We’ve been talking about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard a lot lately and for good reason. It’s a huge deal, both in terms of the size of the purchase relative to the video game industry, but also because of what it could mean for the overall competitive marketplace […]

Most tech companies handling data requests from governments now publish transparency reports. As everything moves towards always-online status (including, you know, your fridge), social media platforms and other online services have become the favored targets of government data requests. It just makes sense to look there first rather than out there in the real world, […]

Science fiction has always served as a source of inspiration for real technological progress. Sometimes that’s great, but other times it enables abuse or leads people to make terrible assumptions that result in harmful decisions. This week we’re joined by the hosts of the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, authors Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane […]

Elon Musk says he’s against a “lords and peasants” system on Twitter. And he thinks celebrities on the platform should be treated equal: And he’s really mad about shadowbanning: Even as he uses the shadowban features all the time, mainly against accounts he dislikes. But now it turns out that, all along, he’s set up […]

It was by no means certain that the internet would enjoy full First Amendment protection. The radio is not shielded from the government in that way. Nor is broadcast television. Both Congress and the President supported placing online speech under some degree of state control. In Reno v. ACLU (1997), however, the Supreme Court could […]

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Okay, this is just getting silly. We just explained why the various attempts to tax Google and Meta to fund the owners of news organizations (often hedge funds who have a long history of pocketing any cash and cutting jobs) is a clear attack on the open web. And yet, many people keep pushing these […]

For numerous years, automakers have been keen to boost consistent monthly income by pushing users subscription services. The problem: whether it’s a specific in-car 5G wireless broadband connection (made kind of irrelevant by the fact everyone has a tetherable smartphone), or subscriptions for app-based services like remote starting: consumers aren’t really interested. A new survey […]

We’ve spilled a great deal of ink thus far on the subject of Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Activision Blizzard. The discussion around this whole thing began with the acquisition itself, before quickly moving into the topic of how Microsoft was going to get past the narrow glares of several regulatory bodies that all made noises […]

For months, Elon Musk has been promising the rapidly dwindling workforce at Twitter that he’d give them stock grants. He’d promised that those grants would come on March 24th, and I can tell you that when normal business hours ended on the 24th with no details, some of those remaining employees were pissed off. However, […]

The Indian government under Narendra Modi has become an even worse version of itself. It has expanded its power unilaterally to silence critics and oppress citizens Modi doesn’t care for. It has continued to do this despite courts finding these actions illegal. The government has, on more than one occasion, cut millions of people’s access […]

Ever since Elon Musk made his initial bid to buy Twitter, he’s talked about “open sourcing” the algorithm. He mentioned it last April in the first interview he gave, on the TED stage, to talk about his plans with Twitter. And since taking over the company at the end of October, he’s mentioned it over […]

While NSO Group made most of the headlines in the cell phone malware market, it had plenty of competition back at home. Israel is also home to its competitors. Candiru — another malware company with more talent than ethics — managed to make headlines of its own while being blacklisted by the US Commerce Department […]

Microsoft Office 2021 Professional is the perfect choice for any professional who needs to handle data and documents. It comes with many new features that will make you more productive in every stage of development, whether it’s processing paperwork or creating presentations from scratch – whatever your needs are. You’ll get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, […]

Last Monday was the day of the oral arguments in the Big Publishers’ lawsuit against libraries in the form of the Internet Archive. As we noted mid-week, publishers won’t quit until libraries are dead. And they got one step closer to that goal on Friday, when Judge John Koetl wasted no time in rejecting every […]

The great TikTok moral panic of 2023 is largely a distraction. It’s a distraction from the fact we’ve refused to meaningfully regulate dodgy data brokers, who traffic in everything from your daily movement habits to your mental health diagnosis. And it’s a distraction from our corrupt failure to pass even a baseline privacy law for the internet era. Until […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is a statement about a particular presence in the comment sections that most of you are surely familiar with. And a lot of people seem to agree! It comes from an anonymous account, but is signed by sumgai (and later confirmed with a logged in […]

So far in our series of posts showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927, we’ve featured Best Remix winner Lucia, Best Visuals winner Urbanity, and Best Adaptation winner To And Again. Today, we’re taking a closer look at the winner of the Best […]

It’s absolutely stupid just how often we’ve had to write about issues surrounding license plates. For convoluted reasons that involve how plates, which are mandated on all cars by states, are government property, that means that a state disallowing a vanity plate therefore does not violate the First Amendment. There are caveats to that that […]

Elon Musk’s next big revenue bet is that companies really, really, really want to show up as “verified.” All evidence suggests that very few Twitter users are interested in paying Elon $8/month to constantly break the site or engage in ego-driven experiments that make the general experience worse. A few weeks ago, we found out […]

We’ve noted how agricultural machinery giants like John Deere have spent several years waging war on independent tractor repair shops in a bid to monopolize maintenance and drive up costs. We’ve also noted that every time industry promises to stop doing this, it turns out they’re largely full of shit. With John Deere now facing […]

On Thursday, Utah’s governor Spencer Cox officially signed into law two bills that seek to “protect the children” on the internet. He did with a signing ceremony that he chose to stream on nearly every social media platform, despite his assertions that those platforms are problematic. Yes, yes, watch live on the platforms that your […]

Back in August 2020, the Trump White House issued an executive order purporting to ban TikTok, citing national security concerns. The ban ultimately went nowhere — but not before TikTok and Oracle cobbled together “Project Texas” as an attempt to appease regulators’ privacy worries and keep TikTok available in the United States. The basic gist […]

The ChatGPT By OpenAI Training Bundle has four courses to introduce you to ChatGPT. You will learn the fundamentals of working with ChatGPT, a state-of-the-art language model developed by OpenAI. You’ll gain hands-on experience using ChatGPT to generate text that is coherent and natural, and you will explore the many possibilities for using this tool […]