The Trump administration’s war on vaccines continues, it seems. We’ve already written extensively about all the bullshit RFK Jr. is pulling when it comes to public health around vaccines. From his dismantling the CDC’s ACIP committee and rebuilding it full of anti-vaxxer allies, pulling public funding for research on new and better RNA vaccines, to […]
One of the most common refrains we hear from age verification proponents is that online ID checks are nothing new. After all, you show your ID at bars and liquor stores all the time, right? And it’s true that many places age-restrict access in-person to various goods and services, such as tobacco, alcohol, firearms, lottery […]
I’ve criticized Chuck Schumer plenty over the years, generally for being bad on tech policy, but also for not understanding the moment we’re living through. Yes, he’s the leader of a minority party with zero power, but that doesn’t mean he’s powerless. Yet he acts as if he is. And if he can’t figure that […]
Donald Trump and his authoritarian friends have successfully destroyed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the closest this country has gotten to having a useful and effective publicly-funded media. The CPB this week voted to officially shut down, just months after Republicans passed a massive billionaire tax cut plan that stripped the organization of more […]
The 2026 Microsoft Office Pro Bundle has 8 courses to help you master essential Office skills. Courses cover Access, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and more. It’s on sale for $25. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do […]
Given the recent Supreme Court ruling that (surprisingly!) said Trump did not have the executive power to commandeer National Guard troops to aid and abet law enforcement/deportation efforts in Illinois, this ruling [PDF] from the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court was, perhaps, inevitable. If it’s illegal to do it in Illinois, it’s equally illegal in California […]
American right wing propaganda companies are beginning to fight among themselves as a shrinking number of dodgy media companies vie for domination of the Trump-coddled U.S. propaganda market. Newsmax, a right wing propaganda organization pretending to be a cable news company, is upset at the fact that Nexstar Media Group and TEGNA, two right wing […]
I’ve come to really appreciate the term “Trump derangement syndrome.” I’ve found it incredibly useful, primarily because whenever I hear someone use the phrase unironically, I am comfortable assessing that the conversation with that person will be unproductive and can be ended. It’s a rhetorical device, and not a particularly good one, that is trotted […]
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. It was a chilly afternoon in January, just a week after President Donald Trump returned to the White House, when I met Yineska, a Venezuelan mother who had been living in the United States for nearly two years. Trump’s election, she told me, had put her […]
New York Governor Kathy Hochul just signed a law that’s going to get expensive fast. The state’s new social media labeling requirement—S4505, courtesy of state Senator Andrew Gounardes—forces websites to slap unscientific warnings on their services claiming that features like algorithmic feeds and push notifications cause addiction. It’s compelled speech based on contested science, which […]
It’s hilarious that a single Salvadoran migrant has made the Trump administration look so pitiful. During one of its first purge efforts, the administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and another 100-plus migrants to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison. Since then, the administration has done nothing but lose when it comes to Abrego Garcia. He not […]
By now it’s pretty clear that right wing, billionaire, Trump ally Larry Ellison bought CBS to convert what was left of the news division into lazy agitprop that blows smoke up the ass of wealth and power. Leading the charge is CBS News boss Bari Weiss, an unqualified contrarian Substack troll who recently vividly demonstrated […]
Learn Raspberry Pi and start building Amazon Alexa projects with The Complete Raspberry Pi and Alexa A-Z Bundle. Catered for all levels, these project-based courses will get you up and running with the basics of Pi, before escalating to full projects. Before you know it, you’ll be building a gaming system to play old Nintendo, […]
If you needed proof that Trump’s “war on drugs” is pure theatrical bullshit designed to justify geopolitical adventurism and the transactional nature of how he views absolutely everything, look no further than the past two months of his foreign policy. Two months ago, Donald Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras who […]
For the past month, we’ve been running our fundraising drive to support Techdirt’s reporting as we move into this new year — a year we believe is going to need our uncompromising coverage more than ever. Now that drive is coming to a close: today is the last day that you can get your hands […]
It’s that time again! Instead of our usual look at the top comments of the week, it’s time to celebrate the most highly voted comments of the year at Techdirt. As usual we’ll be looking at the top three winners in the Insightful and Funny categories, as well as some outliers that rose to the […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2020-2021, we published a series of posts on Trump’s Presidential Commission On Law Enforcement, starting with a look at its tone that everyone but cops are to blame for the terrible state of policing, followed by its repeated calls for anti-encryption legislation, and its conclusion that doing the same […]
At the beginning of the month, we kicked off a fundraising drive to help sustain the independent, uncompromising coverage that we always try to offer at Techdirt. We also decided to try a new experiment that we hope to turn into an annual tradition: offering up a limited edition commemorative coin for our biggest supporters. […]
As you hopefully know by now, we are once again hosting our annual game jam celebrating the works that enter the public domain in 2026, a.k.a. today! This year, that means we enter a new decade, as works originally published in 1930 finally exit copyright protection and become free to remix, repurpose, and build on. […]
Look, I get it. The world is a mess. Important institutions are crumbling. It feels like both the tech and political worlds are collaborating to squeeze all remaining humanity out of all of us. Cynicism is ascendant. Nihilism is the new black. And yet: I remain optimistic. Not the naive, everything-will-work-out-fine kind of optimism. The […]
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