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Some politicians get elected and think they’re heading up the musical equivalent of vaporware. Just a heads up: you may have more power than you’re used to but it’s constrained by the Constitution: both the one ratified by the nascent US federal government and the one adopted by individual states, which are required to use […]

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’ve already talked about Montana’s extraordinarily unconstitutional “ban TikTok” bill that raises a huge number of constitutional issues. Lots of individuals and organizations pointed this out to governor Greg Gianforte (who came to office as a former tech exec of an internet company, and was supposed to be someone who understand the internet). Gianforte has […]

We’ve noted repeatedly how Netflix’s password sharing crackdown is a stupid cash grab that alienates and annoys loyal customers, duplicates existing efforts to restrict “freeloaders,” won’t give the company the financial windfall it thinks, and just generally represents how the company has inevitably shifted from innovative disruptor to the kind of tone deaf cable giants […]

A few weeks back, we talked about a lawsuit Chipotle filed against Sweetgreen, a restaurant chain dedicated mostly to serving salads and grain bowls. The suit centered on Sweetgreen announcing a new menu item: a “Chipotle Burrito Bowl.” We found the entire suit quite odd, given that Sweetgreen’s menu item is named in a way […]

Only people can get patents. There’s a good reason for that, which is that the patent grant—a temporary monopoly granted by the government—is supposed to be given out only to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Just like monkeys can’t get a copyright on a photo, because it doesn’t incentivize the monkey to take more photos, […]

The GOP is currently trying to hold the global economy hostage by using the debt ceiling debate as a bludgeon. Mostly to implement budget cuts nobody likes (like major budget cuts at the VA, or cuts to vast swaths of the country’s already faltering social safety net). If it goes badly, economists warn the net […]

Recently, I wrote for Lawfare about Sen. Dick Durbin’s new STOP CSAM Act bill, S.1199. The bill text is available here. There are a lot of moving parts in this bill, which is 133 pages long. (Mike valiantly tries to cover them here.) I am far from done with reading and analyzing the bill language, […]

There are few things I enjoy writing about more than cops who feel waving around a piece of paper will ensure they can get what they want. I’ve handled a few of these stories before, most of them centered on Signal, the little messaging service that could — one that does not collect user data […]

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To hear Elon and his biggest fans tell the story, pre-Elon Twitter was a hellhole of censorship often driven by government demands, and he had to take over the company to “bring free speech back.” As astute observers not easily misled by nonsense peddlers knew, however, in actuality, old Twitter was actually one of the […]

For decades, academics have been trying to warn anybody who’d listen that the death of your local newspaper and the steady consolidation of local TV broadcasters has created either “news deserts,” or local news reporting that’s mostly just low-calorie puffery and simulacrum. Despite claims that the “internet would fix this,” fixing local news just wasn’t […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone responding to the allegation that we have been inconsistent about whether or not Twitter blue checks have value: The value of the blue check under Old Twitter was “verification”⁠—i.e., “this person is who they say they are”. Was the system perfect? […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, we announced one of our most exciting and unusual projects: a Kickstarter to fund the production and release of a training card game developed by the CIA and uncovered via FOIA. We were blown away by the response when we hit our goal in 40 hours, and we’re […]

Phew. We’ve written a bunch about Stephen Thaler’s quixotic and dangerous quest to allow AI created works and inventions to receive copyrights and patents. It’s repeatedly failed to convince people, especially US judges, that Congress intended anyone other than human beings as the creators and inventors to receive such monopolies. Thankfully, Thaler’s loss streak continues. […]

Law enforcement loves cheap drug tests. First, they’re cheap, around $2/per. Second, they can turn a whole host of legal substances into probable cause for searches and arrests. Field drugs tests have converted everything from a deceased child’s ashes to bird poop (on a car hood, no less) into illicit substances justifying the removal of […]

We’ve noted for decades how telecom monopolies convinced corrupt state legislatures to pass counterproductive bans on creative community broadband networks. The bills are protectionist crap that are ghost written by telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast, and designed to protect their regional broadband monopolies from grass roots competitive disruption on a town by town level. […]

Today is six months since Elon took over Twitter and began this bizarre speedrun of the content moderation learning curve in which he seems to repeatedly… not learn a damn thing. Over and over again he makes ridiculous choices that have made the entire platform less welcoming for speech, more willing to obey government demands, […]

Grope. Grope. Grope grope grope. Grope. Andddddddd… some humiliating of people with rare medical conditions just because. That’s just how the Transportation Security Administration (est. one-month-post-9/11 2001) operates. Americans are forced to subject themselves to groping, humiliation, unjustified questioning/searches, seizures of explosive breast milk, etc. just because the federal government thought the only way to […]

Surprise Mom with a farmer’s choice bouquet: 24 exquisite long-stem roses or 12-14 daylillies handpicked by farmers for their vibrant colors and beauty. For $44.99, you’ll get these dozens delivered anywhere in the continental US. Whether you’re near or far, these roses are the perfect way to let her know that she is loved and […]

Almost exactly a year ago, we pointed out that Ron DeSantis deliberately trying to punish Disney for making some mild criticism of an (obviously unconstitutional) bill that he was endorsing was, itself, a 1st Amendment problem. And that was true even if the underlying idea to get rid of Disney’s control over the land in […]

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, […]

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