Techdirt

Between COVID relief and the recently passed infrastructure bill, there’s an historic influx of more than $60 billion being thrown at this country’s substandard broadband networks. And, as you might expect, there’s a lot of heavy lobbying and maneuvering by various parties to obtain that money, and/or ensure that it’s actually utilized for the greater […]

We’ve been following the entire saga of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard for some time now. The whole thing has been decidedly messy, for various reasons. For starters, there are three main regulatory bodies that most of us have been waiting to hear from: the UK’s CMA, the USA’s FTC, and the EU. And […]

As you may have noticed, headlines are full of the wonders of chatbots and generative AI these days. Although often presented as huge breakthroughs, in many ways they build on machine learning techniques that have been around for years. These older systems have been deployed in real-life situations for some time, which means they provide […]

I’ve been criticizing the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) approach to internet regulations, because they’re doing this “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” bit in which they insist that the DSA is not regulating speech, but then they admit that the point of the DSA is to see less “bad” speech on the internet. But, whether we […]

A few years ago AT&T, a company that tried to cheap out on upgrading its broadband lines to fiber, effectively stopped selling DSL. While that’s understandable given the dated copper-based tech, the problem is that thanks to concentrated telecom monopolization, many of these customers were left without any replacement options due to a lack of […]

Bring the luxuriously soft touch of cashmere to your wardrobe with a Lavisha Cashmere Shawl. Made of warm and elegant cashmere wool, this shawl will feel superbly comfortable draped over your shoulders. Its soft fringe enhances any outfit, and with an impressive six feet of length, you can bundle up and stay warm no matter […]

Senator Brian Schatz is one of the more thoughtful Senators we have, and he and his staff have actually spent time talking to lots of experts in trying to craft bills regarding the internet. Unfortunately, it still seems like he still falls under the seductive sway of this or that moral panic, so when the […]

There’s an historic $50 billion in broadband subsidies currently heading to the states courtesy of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). There are plenty of potential hiccups on stuff like mapping that could screw things up, but, any way you slice it, this money should still have […]

Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the company behind both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic The Gathering has been on our pages recently and not for good reasons. Most recently, the company kicked up a completely unnecessary shitstorm for itself by changing the OGL license under which it released D&D Fifth Edition in such a way […]

Last fall, we wrote about Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan (who seems to have won out over brother James in the Succession-style fight to lead his father’s nonsense peddling media outfit) lost his shit over an opinion piece in the Australian independent media organization Crikey and sued them for defamation in Australia. At the time, we […]

Who doesn’t love the wisdom of the crowds? Hey, it’s a great thing if you’re seeking comment from the oft-disrespected “stakeholders” known as the people who pay your salaries. Comment periods for proposed regulation ensures a healthy mix of intelligent commentary and unhinged partisanship. You know, like pretty much any congressional hearing. On the other […]

Twitter 1.0 had one of the most complete and thorough transparency reporting operations around. It was incredibly useful to anyone studying issues, especially regarding the all important information on government demands on the company, and Twitter’s compliance rate. Indeed, as we reported, while basically all of the other big tech companies folded when the government […]

MagStack is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a floating stand for smartphone 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, […]

You may recall the Social Dilemma, which used incredible levels of misinformation and manipulation in an attempt to warn about others using misinformation to manipulate. On April 13, a new YouTube video called the AI Dilemma was shared by Social Dilemma leading character, Tristan Harris. He encouraged his followers to “share it widely” in order […]

For the last few years, press and policy circles were absolutely dominated by talk about how there was an amazing “new, bipartisan coalition” of folks interested in “reining in ‘Big Tech’,” meaningfully checking corporate power, and finally embracing competent “antitrust reform.” The problem: it was largely all bullshit. The GOP in particular, which has, for […]

You might be a little surprised how many Techdirt posts have been done that involve donuts. I know, right? What a sentence! Still, we’ve got square donut trademarks, we’ve got donuts made to look like college sports teams, and we even have donut crumbs that some Joe Friday out there thought for sure was meth. […]

Nearly five years ago, California resident Susan Porter sued local law enforcement for deciding her honk in support of anti-Rep. Darrell Issa protesters was worth citing her for. When she expressed her support for the protesters in a way people have always considered to be an appropriate display of support, she was pulled over by […]

We’re hard at work on a very cool new project that will be released very soon, so I didn’t have time to record a podcast this week. However, there were two recent (much more well known) podcast episodes that I heard that Techdirt readers might really like. Rather than do longer posts about each, I […]

As we noted two and a half years ago when Epic filed its antitrust lawsuit against Apple, it seemed like a pretty big uphill climb legally speaking. The whole thing seemed more like “contract negotiation via antitrust judicial battle” rather than a legitimate antitrust claim. And, so far, it looks like we were correct. The […]

Back in 2016, around the time that both Theranos and Zenefits were engulfed in scandals that involved their superstar founders/CEOs being caught lying to investors, we had a podcast discussing the issues around innovation and the marketing mantra of “fake it ‘til you make it” for startups. One of the points raised is that there […]

Using advanced noise-reduction technology, Flux 7 TWS earphones have been designed to reduce unwanted noise during exercise. With an onboard 2,000mAh polymer lithium battery that offers 4 hours of music play time, the sweatproof Flux 7 TWS earbuds are ideal for fitness enthusiasts who want to pack light and move fast. The earphones are on […]

A worldwide pandemic in 2020 altered the contours of pretty much everything. Entire cities shut down. Retailers shrunk hours to time periods normally only witnessed prior to the introduction of the 24-hour clock. Shit got exceedingly weird. The good news is most of the world understood the new normal would be anything but normal. The […]

The great TikTok moral panic of 2023 shows no sign of slowing down. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has spent the few years getting oodles of free press attention for hyperventilating about TikTok. It doesn’t matter that Carr doesn’t have regulatory authority over TikTok, or that his proposed ban wouldn’t actually fix the problems he claims […]

The DEA has always been ridiculous when it comes to drugs. It overplays the downside, refuses to acknowledge any upside, and has been instrumental in ensuring people suffering from mental health issues are unable to access the drugs that might help them most. It’s a vindictive agency that acts like a Jack Chick religious tract […]

I think I can state the following without controversy: video games are, by and large, a path for escaping the real world for the sake of entertainment. The idea is that the real world can be a place that we want to get away from, diving into some fantasy world where the same rules don’t […]

Perhaps you may have heard the DOJ recently arrested Chinese nationals and shuttered “Chinese police stations” located in New York following an investigation into the sort of foreign national work our government tends to find repulsive, even as it does the same thing elsewhere in the world. It made all the papers, including the British […]

It’s “protect the children” season in Congress with the return of KOSA and EARN IT, two terrible bills that attack the internet, and rely on people’s ignorance of how things actually work to pretend they’re making the internet safer, when they’re not. Added to this is Senator Dick Durbin’s STOP CSAM Act, which he’s been […]

In 2020, the New York State legislature finally took a tool of opacity out of law enforcement’s hands. For forty years, law enforcement agencies had the option of rejecting officer misconduct records requests by citing 50-a, the law that said these records could be considered exempt from the state’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Notably, […]

The Ableton Music Production Mastery Bundle has 7 courses that will help you learn all about producing your own music. Courses cover recording, warping, editing, audio effects, DJing techniques and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals […]

Let’s start this post out by noting that a key reason Elon Musk said he was getting rid of the legacy Twitter verification system was that it was arbitrary and unfair and created a “lords and peasants” scenario. Keep that in mind, because you’re going to want to remember that by the end of this […]

We’ve noted a few times how there’s an absolutely historic infusion of more than $60 billion in broadband subsidies on the way thanks to both COVID relief (American Rescue Plan Act) and the recent infrastructure bill (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). We also noted how there’s no limit of obstacles that could meaningfully screw up […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Anathema Device responding to the notion that Elon Musk’s behavior can be explained by his claim that he has Asperger’s Syndrome: Asperger’s is an outdated diagnosis I doubt he’s been anywhere near a psychiatrist or psychologist for a proper assessment since like all narcissists, […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, Trump was being weird about the TPP, Apple was not doing so great in its attempts to prevent leaks, and another vendor appeared selling tools to crack iPhones. The MPAA silently shut down its legal movie search engine, the music industry was looking at moving past site-blocking into […]

QuaDream, an NSO-alike with links to Israeli intelligence services, first made international headlines last year. And for the worst reasons. An investigation found QuaDream (much like NSO Group) sold iPhone-targeting malware to human rights violators. These sales were given a layer of plausible deniability, handled by a Cyprus-based company on behalf of QuaDream as it […]

It’s no secret that Nintendo is extremely draconian when it comes to all things intellectual property concerning its assets. You can simply follow that backlink for a list of tons and tons of posts on Nintendo doing Nintendo things, which mostly amount to shutting down any use of its property, no matter how small, no […]

Redaction isn’t terribly difficult to do correctly. And yet, it often seems to be beyond the grasp of government officials who really, really want to withhold information, but just can’t seem to do it. For instance, litigants asked the court to redact information in an FTC suit against Amazon. The court clerk apparently thought utilizing […]

Earlier this year you may have heard that there were a few lawsuits filed over generative AI platforms, with two big cases targeting Stability AI, makers of Stable Diffusion, in particular. I’d been meaning to write about these cases, and why they’re so problematic, but things have been busy and I didn’t get a chance. […]

Germany’s awkward relationship with the internet continues. On one hand, the German government has told the EU government it’s not willing to follow orders that involve criminalizing encryption or mandating client-side scanning. On the other hand, it does things like blacklist Techdirt (this happened in 2012) for supposedly offering up too much porn and violence. […]

The All-in-One American Sign Language Bundle has 13 courses to help you learn ASL. Courses cover the origins of the language, the alphabet and finger-spelling, colors, animals, foods and drinks, family signs, feelings, verbs, and key nouns. It’s on sale for $19.97. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion […]

Rep. George Santos remains a fascinating study in how far you can get if you have zero shame about just making shit up constantly. By now you must know his backstory (er… stories) and how basically nothing he seems to say checks out. And now he’s actually trying to get legislation passed. Specifically he’s announced […]

Netflix executives this week announced that they would finally be putting their traditional DVD rental service out to pasture starting on September 25 after 25 years of little, red envelopes. From a blog post by Netflix co-CEO Ted Serandos’ intern: Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members but as […]

It’s been quite some time since we’ve talked about Denuvo and its once-vaunted anti-piracy DRM for video games. If I’m being totally honest, I had thought that part of the company’s business was simply gone, so poorly did the DRM perform. By the end, cracking groups were getting around Denuvo-protected games in days, sometimes a […]

We just wrote about Substack’s issue with content moderation and the Nazi bar problem. As I highlighted in that piece, any centralized service is going to be defined by their moderation choices. If you cater to terrible, abusive people, you become “the site that caters to terrible abusive people.” That’s not a comment on “free […]

Starting next year, Colorado farmers will have a much easier time repairing their equipment thanks to a new state law protecting their “right to repair.” Colorado’s new bill, the Consumer Right to Repair Agricultural Equipment Act, requires that agricultural equipment giants like John Deere provide consumers and independent repair shops the “parts, embedded software, firmware, […]

Elon Musk seems to take a personal affront to anyone who says “dude, we’re not going to pay your crazy prices for stuff.” For example, he pulled the NY Times “verified” badge weeks before everyone else was set to lose it after they announced they wouldn’t pay. Now, Microsoft has announced that it is dropping […]

A number of stupid lawmakers have attempted to basically outlaw filming cops by proposing imaginative legislation that would prevent all but the most ineffective documentation of public employees performing their public duties. You can’t outlaw filming police. The First Amendment pretty much prevents that, even if case law in judicial circuits is still not completely […]

The benefits of learning to speak a second language (or third) are immeasurable! 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 […]

Elon Musk has been on a tear of late, attacking the “mainstream media” at every turn. It’s true that this started about five years ago, when Tesla started getting some negative press (after about a decade of extremely positive press), and Musk seemed to absolutely lose his shit. It kinda comes with the territory, though, […]

We’ve long noted how entrenched broadband providers have historically refused to upgrade areas that don’t deliver immediate, favorable returns (quite often poor, minority, and low income neighborhoods). That, combined with a monopoly assault on competition and regulatory oversight in most markets, has left the U.S. with patchy, substandard broadband networks we’re still struggling to track […]

It’s nothing new that famous and recognizable sports figures have gotten into the business of filing all kinds of trademarks around their names, nicknames, and other terms and phrases associated with them. Anthony Davis trademarked “Fear The Brow” as a result of his identifiable unibrow, for instance. Remember Jeremy Lin? You might not if you’re […]