Techdirt

You might think that perusing Techdirt posts on the topic of fan-made video games using the IP of others would yield you only one kind of story in which threats and lawsuits abound. Fortunately, that’s something of a misconception. While there are indeed plenty of stories of that nature, there are also examples of studios […]

The War on Terror will never end. It’s a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that ensures we will always live in fear, even if we realistically have nothing to fear. The war we waged for the hearts and minds of Afghanistan residents lasted long enough that soldiers participating in another US losing effort weren’t even born when […]

Summary: Elon Musk has demonstrated contempt for free speech in general, and journalism in particular, with his behavior at Twitter. He is also demonstrating why it is foolhardy for anyone to rely on centralized platforms to create and distribute vital information. Journalists — among many information providers and users — should move to decentralized systems […]

It’s no secret that Elon Musk is desperately trying to cut costs at Twitter, the company he overpaid for and saddled with approximately an extra billion dollars a year in interest payments by leveraging the buyout. He’s cut staff somewhere around 75% and we still keep hearing rumors of further cuts. He’s turning off data […]

The Microsoft Surface 3 features a quad-core Intel Atom x7-Z8700 processor. The device comes with 2GB of RAM and 64 of storage, which is expandable up to 200GB by adding a microSD card. The display on the device supports up to 4K at 1920×1280 resolution. The device has two USB 3.0 ports and a kickstand […]

Nearly a half-decade ago, the DHS began rolling out biometric scanning at international airports. The early efforts targeted foreign travelers, but it was always clear the DHS (and its underling, the TSA) ultimately desired facial recognition tech to be the status quo in US airports. The slow rollout that began with scanning foreigners’ faces was […]

Back in 2016 we noted how U.S. power utilities like Florida Power & Light created entirely fake consumer groups to try and derail legislation that would have brought more competition to market. Six years later and the company has again found itself in the middle of another scandal, this time for buying favorable news coverage […]

Law enforcement officers really enjoy performing warrantless searches. To get to that point, however, they need to be in certain places (airports, roadsides) and have one certain thing: “reasonable suspicion.” But what seems “reasonable” to someone like you or me is nowhere near what seems “reasonable” to a law enforcement officer. For instance, behold the […]

Several sources familiar with the nomination process tell me that the Biden Administration is not only planning to re-nominate Gigi Sohn to the FCC in 2023, but that Sohn still has the full support of the Administration and of Biden personally. At points in 2022 it wasn’t entirely clear that team Biden had the political […]

In one of Mike’s recent posts about the radical reshaping of the social media landscape currently underway, he noted that Mastodon/ActivityPub might have a “Gmail moment“, when bigger players enter and boost the sector. Although that could be good in terms of broadening the appeal of Mastodon, the emergence of huge, dominating “instances” (Mastodon servers) […]

Very few issues have generated as much ridiculous legislation as preventing minors from accessing pornography. Almost everyone agrees something must be done. And most seem to agree that doing anything — no matter how stupid — is better than doing nothing. Extremely stupid versions of “something” have cropped up around the nation, most of them […]

A new Congress has begun, but in the waning days of the last one, we got one final bipartisan bill to “amend” Section 230. It officially died with the last Congress, but it sure is a sign of what to expect from this new one (introducing it at the very end of the session with […]

Start.Me is the modern homepage for your browser that you wish you had known before. Manage your bookmarks, notes, tasks, and news sources all from a beautiful homepage, which you can easily access from any device or browser. It’s on sale for $39. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A […]

Oh, man. This is just dumb as fuck. There’s no way around it. The New York Times seems extremely willing to suffer fools (especially its own!) Here’s yet another fool given prime internet/printed real estate to push bad ideas, worse arguments, and absurd conclusions. This time it’s Reid Blackman, a self-described “ethicist” who focuses on […]

We’ve noted for decades how, despite all the political lip service paid toward “bridging the digital divide,” the U.S. doesn’t actually have any idea where broadband is or isn’t available. The FCC’s past broadband maps, which cost $350 million to develop, have long been accused of all but hallucinating competitors, making up available speeds, and excluding a key […]

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io » A new year has begun, and with it, a new edition of our annual public domain game jam! This year, it’s Gaming Like It’s 1927! There’s a host of exciting new works that just entered the public domain in the US, and we’re calling on […]

Happy new year, everyone! 2022 has ended, and that means it’s time for a look at the funniest and most insightful comments of the year at Techdirt. As usual, we’ll be honoring the top three winners in both categories, as well as taking a rare look at the list of comments that performed best when […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2017, people were still discovering that their dead loved ones had been used for fake comments supporting the death of net neutrality, while New York State was considering its own net neutrality law, and we wondered if Verizon would give back the taxpayer subsidies it got under Title II. […]

Long term readers of Techdirt know that, since 2008, I’ve written a final post of the year on reasons to remain optimistic. It started when some people kept telling me that when they read what I wrote I sounded angry and frustrated, but when they’d meet me in person, I always seemed optimistic about the […]

New York State has finally passed a landmark “right to repair” bill proving American consumers some additional protection from repair monopolies. After some annoying delays created by lobbyists, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed the legislation on December 29. The legislation gives New York consumers the right to fix their electronic devices themselves or […]

Pretending that you’re actually fixing the world’s privacy and national security issues by banning TikTok is just so very hot right now. Numerous states have passed new rules banning TikTok on government employee devices. And Marco Rubio has proposed a federal law that would ban TikTok unless ByteDance is willing to sell the popular app […]

NSO Group isn’t the only phone malware firm to draw international attention. Sure, NSO’s decision to sell to human rights abusers and aid/abet surveillance of journalists, lawyers, government critics, and political leaders drew the most attention, but there were others. And all of these malware purveyors seem to have sprung from the same source: spies […]

It’s been interesting to watch over the last few months as tons of people have migrated from Twitter to Mastodon (or similar compatible ActivityPub-based social media platforms). I’ve noticed, however, that some people keep running into the same issues and challenges as they discover that Mastodon is different than what they’re used to with Twitter. […]

Sam’s Club is a membership warehouse club, a limited-item business model that offers members quality products at an exceptional value unmatched by traditional retail. From groceries and kitchen supplies to electronics and furniture, Sam’s Club has great deals on the items you want! By redeeming and signing up as a member, you’ll be paying just […]

Telecom and media giants are running a sleazy year-long smear campaign against Biden FCC nominee Gigi Sohn aimed at miring the agency in perpetual consumer protection gridlock. The attacks have been carefully seeded across the US press through various think tanks and nonprofits, and falsely accuse Sohn of everything from hating police to being an enemy of rural […]

I know, I know. Some of the more angry commenters around here keep insisting that I should stop talking about Elon Musk and Twitter, and I want to do exactly that. I planned to do exactly that and not write another post about it all until next week. And then… Twitter crashed hard last night. […]

Rikers Island doesn’t just house the convicted. It also houses those merely accused of crimes who are awaiting trial. The difference between the two doesn’t matter much to those staffing Rikers. If you’re there, you’re no longer a human being. For years, the jail has been mismanaged, which is a really kind word for a […]

Amazon’s home security tech acquisition, Ring, has become a dominant player in this industry sector. Some of that is due to Amazon’s backing. A lot of this is due to extremely inappropriate relationships with law enforcement, which convert cops to Ring proselytizers whose public statements are subject to review by the company’s PR wing. Ubiquity […]

A few months ago, I attended a wonderful conference put on by the “Global Freedom of Expression” program at Columbia University discussing decentralized social media and regulations around social media. One of the speakers, Alison McCauley from Unfinished Labs, gave a very interesting presentation on the first day of the conference, October 3rd, (which kindly […]

Meet Bittle, the palm-sized open-source bionic robot dog. Have fun watching it play tricks like a real animal, moving with 4 legs rather than wheels. Legged motion gives it more freedom to navigate unstructured terrains. Bittle is an open platform to fuse multiple makers’ gadgets into one organic system. With a customized Arduino board coordinating […]

Careful, kids. The FBI is recommending something useful. The same entity that thinks encryption is the enemy has delivered a message suggesting it may still care about the safety and security of internet users… at least those it doesn’t consider to be persons of interest. Here’s Daniel Sims of Techspot with more details. The FBI issued a […]

Back in August, password storage app LastPass vaguely admitted that hackers had accessed the company’s systems. In the company’s original August reveal, the company generally tap danced around the subject, claiming that while they had identified some “unusual activity,” consumer data had not been accessed. By November, LastPass had begun shifting its story a bit, […]

It’s not often a cop gets criminally charged for killing someone. In most cases, cops are cleared of wrongdoing. Even when they aren’t, their employers and overseers aren’t interested in establishing deterrents to bad police behavior or holding bad cops accountable for their wrongdoing. There are notable exceptions, of course. The most recent notable case […]

It’s been many, many years since we were regularly covering what we referred to as the ITC loophole in patent enforcement. The issue was that patent holders could get two totally separate at bats to try to force a company that was actually innovating to pay up over dubious patents. They could go to court, […]

As a publicly traded company, it’s simply not good enough to provide an affordable service that people genuinely like. The pressure to deliver quarter over quarter growth often takes on a tendency toward auto-cannibalism; price hikes, customer support cuts, dumb ideas justified through greed, all designed to goose short-term growth, but often at the cost […]

The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to take you from beginner to expert in Python, and learn how to apply that knowledge to AI. You’ll learn about data visualization, deep learning, artificial neural networks, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by […]

Colleen Huber M.D. thinks she can cure cancer by altering patients’ sugar intake. She also believes baking soda is better than chemotherapy when it comes to fighting this disease. Rational people think she’s endangering people’s lives and have said as much. Repeatedly. In response, Colleen Huber has filed lawsuits. Repeatedly. She feels she speaks from […]

[INT: Midwestern living room, Christmas morning 2022]: Children: Thanks for all of these consumer goods, Daddy. We know you mean well. But we just want to know whether we’ll ever see free access to federal courtroom documents in our lifetime. Me: [long pause while stroking my magnificent beard] I don’t know, kids. I just don’t […]

Hopefully, you already know who Tom Lehrer is, and are already familiar with his music, but if you’re somehow in the dark, I suggest you read this excellent profile, or visit his unofficial official YouTube channel. Or, visit his website where you can download everything for free (he even begs you not to send him […]

Back in June we wrote about a blockbuster article in Buzzfeed by Emily Baker-White detailing how ByteDance engineers in China were still accessing data on US TikTok users. That was notable, given that ByteDance had signed this big deal with Oracle, while former President Trump held a proverbial gun to its head, to try to […]

A private company can legally declare it has the right to refuse service to anyone (with a very small number of limitations under the law, mostly around discrimination against protected classes). The application of facial recognition tech makes it much easier to do. Rather than post photos and bad checks on the back wall to […]

The 2023 Ultimate Cybersecurity Analyst Bundle has 8 courses to help you become a cybersecurity expert. You’ll learn about social engineering, working with enterprise architecture, bug hunting, penetration testing, ethical hacking, and more. The bundle is on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all […]

Soon after Elon took over Twitter and fired everyone, we wondered (somewhat jokingly) if there was anyone left at the company who was aware of the FTC’s consent decree with the company, signed originally in 2011, but which runs for 30 years, and which was updated back in May of 2022. These documents have some […]

The UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office published new piracy guidance this week claiming that Netflix password sharing is illegal. Back when Netflix was a pesky upstart trying to claw subscribers away from entrenched cable providers, the company had a pretty lax approach to users who shared streaming passwords. At one point CEO Reed Hastings went so far […]

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io » It’s that time of year! Ever since works in the US finally started entering the public domain again, we’ve been hosting an annual game jam for designers to create games based on the year’s newly copyright-free works. This year, it’s Gaming Like It’s 1927! There […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is rinzewind (shout out for the Discworld reference!) with a simple comment about the Twitter Files: The most disappointing thing of this whole Twitter Files fiasco, for me, has been Taibbi. He had made some questionable editorial decisions as of late, but this has already […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2017, the chips started to fall in the wake of the net neutrality appeal. A tonedeaf video starring Ajit Pai led to one of those internet situations where everyone is wrong, while Pai was insisting net neutrality supporters were wrong about everything since Twitter hadn’t immediately died. Comcast began […]

You will hopefully recall our ongoing discussions about one of the strangest trademark disputes I’ve ever encountered between Iceland Foods, a grocer in the EU, and Iceland, the country. Way back in 2016, Iceland petitioned to remove a trademark Iceland Foods had for its company name, arguing that the trademark had allowed the company to […]

The deliberate “failure” of a Vallejo, California police officer to respect the rights of a Marine veteran filming him from his own porch will cost city residents $300,000. And that’s on top of the money the city spent defending Officer David McLaughlin from the lawsuit filed by the victim of his brutality, Adrian Burrell. Here’s […]

Elon Musk keeps trying to tell people that he’s saving Twitter. But, he may have just accidentally admitted how much he’s screwed it up. In yet another Twitter Spaces where he spoke about things happening at the site, he actually provided some numerical details, as covered by the Financial Times. He said that the platform […]