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Originally published as an op-ed in The Mercury News. Republished here with permission from the author. Meta’s settlement with the state attorneys general (currently awaiting court approval) has been touted as industry-redefining. Indeed, Meta desperately hopes it will be. Although Meta was the only industry player to negotiate its terms, the settlement agreement is structured […]

You may recall that after he had won the 2024 Presidential election, the sorest winner in the history of sore winners, Donald Trump sued retiring pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for… having reported the — admittedly surprising and, in retrospect, wildly off — poll results suggesting that Kamala Harris actually had a […]

LabsDigest is built for those who learn best by doing. Whether you’re preparing for a CompTIA certification or diving into Python development, our platform offers interactive labs that simulate real-world tasks—no passive watching or reading, just real experience. Work through performance-based exercises for CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, and more, or sharpen your coding skills with […]

Guantanamo Bay has always been shorthand for disappearing people. It’s a place where people cease to exist, along with any rights they may have been afforded if they’d been imprisoned inside the United States. Its name is synonymous with torture and indefinite detention. And the excuse has always been the same: it’s impossible to secure […]

After burning $80 billion on the failed metaverse pivot — and billions more on desperate “me too” offerings in the AI space — Meta is looking to leverage its massive ad dominance to colonize the agentic AI (or personal assistant) market. So they recently introduced Muse, an AI agent represented by cutesy and personalized avatars, […]

What if all this time, we have completely misunderstood RFK Jr.’s obsession with keeping children from being vaccinated? What if the notion that he was a true anti-vaxxer, or was ignorant and confused on how this whole science things works, was completely wrong? What if he just hates children, particularly black and brown children, and […]

In what was a severely belated response to acts of violence by immigration enforcement officers, “Border Czar” (who seems far more interested in raiding inland cities than patrolling the border) Tom Homan assured the nation that all ICE officers would soon be wearing body cameras. The only holdup, he said, was a lack of funding. […]

You may have seen the headlines about a Microsoft employee calling AI scraping “the largest theft of labor in human history.” It made the rounds on social media, with plenty of people insisting it was a slam dunk admission of criminality. I think I saw this gif applied to it multiple times: It certainly doesn’t […]

This story was originally published by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C. For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger […]

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The true nature of hastily erected ICE detention facilities — especially the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” erected in Trump buddy Ron DeSantis’s home state — was called out by Mike Masnick shortly after its debut last June: There’s no way to look at what the US government is doing here and not think of it more […]

Earlier this week we noted how California Democrats fecklessly folded to Paramount’s demands and settled the 12-state antitrust lawsuit against Paramount’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. We also noted how the conditions affixed to the deal are largely pathetic, and generally consist of a lot of performative fluff Paramount itself recommended and California AG […]

A theme going on many years here at Techdirt has been the idea that separating content and advertising, as was the traditional model, makes far less sense in the modern era. Audiences are no longer captive in the way they used to be, with many ways to skip advertising. Entertainment vectors are far more plentiful […]

Since its integration into our digital world, social media has played a pivotal role in youth organizing and social mobilization. Yet, people’s access to these platforms is increasingly coming under threat from courts and legislatures under the guise of protecting young people online—presenting a significant hindrance to youth organizing.   In a major recent example, Meta settled in a lawsuit with 52 states and territories regarding the use of Instagram and Facebook by young people. The settlement will require Meta, and […]

Ever since Trump’s return to office, almost every federal law enforcement agency has been ordered to treat illegal immigration as their first priority. This is why the administration is gutting FEMA to direct more dollars to detention and removal efforts. And that’s why ICE is now the administration’s largest law enforcement budget line item. To […]

When Elon first took over Twitter with grand plans to “bring back free speech,” I tried to help him run through the standard content moderation learning curve that basically every site created by a clueless tech bro runs through. They all start with “we’re the free speech site, we allow everything!” and very quickly someone […]

The Soundfreaq Sound Spot II combines wireless audio performance, ambient lighting, and relaxing sound features in a compact design built for modern lifestyles. Featuring a Bamboo and White finish with eco-friendly materials, this Bluetooth speaker complements bedrooms, offices, living rooms, and personal spaces while delivering both style and functionality. Engineered with a custom-designed audio driver, […]

I love everything about this. I love the way this ICE officer was picked up. I love the fact that his lawyer claims an arrest is the same thing as “surrendering.” And I especially love the fact that this officer is in state custody only a day prior to scheduled court appearance to face federal […]

There was a four year span where Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr simply couldn’t stop hyperventilating about the fact that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was Chinese. Carr would appear on cable news pretty much every week to endlessly rant about the potential propaganda, privacy, and NatSec impact of what was (at best) fairly murky Chinese […]

Amazon recently debuted a new feature for its Ring cameras that the company is calling Throw Away the Key Encryption (TAKE). The idea is to cut back on the amount of video content available to the company, and thus potentially available to law enforcement. But while it might technically add a speed bump to accessing full video […]