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In December 2025, the world crossed a threshold. For the first time ever, access to the major social media platforms was no longer guaranteed by interest, connection, or curiosity — but by a birth date. A new law in Australia decrees that people under 16 may no longer legally hold accounts on major social-media services. […]

Trump was always going to target Minnesota and, specifically, the home of its most liberal residents, Minneapolis. Trump hates the state’s governor, Tim Walz. He also hates one of the state’s congressional reps, Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia. This is only part of Trump’s recent hateful statements targeting Somalians, Tim Walz, and Rep. […]

Mastering a new language has never been this fun or effective. Whether you are learning for travel, school, career, or family, Duolingo is the ultimate tool to get you there. Super Duolingo gives you uninterrupted, ad-free learning, unlimited hearts to keep practicing without limits, tailored mistake reviews, access to the toughest legendary levels, and offline […]

Yesterday, Rep. Harriet Hageman released her bill to repeal Section 230. She’s calling it “reform,” but make no mistake—it’s a repeal, and I’ll explain why below. The law turns 30 in February, and there’s a very real chance this could be its last anniversary. Which is why we’re running Techdirt’s fundraising campaign right now, offering […]

We’ve noted how Republicans are rewriting the 2021 infrastructure bill (they voted against) to ensure that billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded broadband grants wind up in the back pocket of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (and their low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband ventures, Starlink and Project Kuiper). This is billions of taxpayer dollars being paid to billionaires […]

There are lots of good reasons to call for the impeachment or ouster or RFK Jr. He’s flatly unqualified for the role. He’s introducing all kinds of health risks for diseases we shouldn’t even have to worry about any longer because he’s an anti-vaxxer con-artist. He’s so bad at his job that high level administrators […]

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. After years of struggling to find enough workers for some of the nation’s toughest lockups, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is facing a new challenge: Corrections officers are jumping ship for more lucrative jobs at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  This is one of the unintended consequences […]

Support us on Patreon » The relationship between journalism and AI has been off to an antagonistic start, with multiple court cases underway and plenty of discourse about what should happen next. There are various proposed approaches to setting up a better interplay between the two, but one person with an especially unique idea is Professor […]

Although the field of artificial intelligence (AI) goes back more than half century, its latest incarnation — generative AI — is still very new: ChatGPT was launched just three years ago. During that time a wide variety of issues have been raised, ranging from concerns about the impact of AI on copyright, people’s ability to […]

The President of the United States is currently promising to spend the same pot of money on at least nine different things. The pot in question: revenue from all the random and fluctuating tariff duties that are almost certainly unconstitutional, which means he’s likely going to have to pay some or all of it back. […]

The 2025 AI Super Skills Bundle has 8 courses to help you get familiar with how to use some of the latest and coolest artificial intelligence tools out there. Courses cover ChatGPT, DALL-E 3, Leonardo AI, Quillbot, and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. […]

There is no doubt that fentanyl is a dangerous drug. It has long since surpassed heroin on the list of drugs people only do once. That its prevalence has more to do with pharma companies irresponsibly pushing opioids than drug pushers pushing a new drug often goes ignored during this heated, ongoing debate that is […]

We’ve already explored at length how Bari Weiss was hired by the billionaire Ellison family to make CBS even more friendly to billionaires and authoritarians after their embarrassing capitulation to (and bribery of) U.S. autocrats. This isn’t really a pivot real people were actually asking for, it’s simply extension of the right wing extraction class’s […]

On the topic of artificial intelligence, like far too many topics these days, it seems that the vast majority of opinions out there are highly polarized. Either you’re all about making fun of AI not living up to the hype surrounding it, and there are admittedly a zillion examples of this, or you’re an AI […]

In late September, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his government’s plans to introduce a new digital ID scheme in the country to take effect before the end of the Parliament (no later than August 2029). The scheme will, according to the Prime Minister, “cut the faff” in proving people’s identities by creating a virtual ID on personal […]

When Hollywood legend Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner were murdered Sunday evening—allegedly by their son, who was arrested—you might (had you been living in another time with a different President) have expected the President of the United States to either stay silent or offer condolences. Instead, Donald Trump saw an opportunity to […]

The Trump Administration’s murder-in-international-waters program debuted far ahead of its legal rationale. Many people inside the administration were blindsided by this sudden escalation. Those expected to stay on top of these things — military oversight, congressional committees, etc. — found they were even further behind the curve than the late-arriving “justification” for extrajudicial killings of […]

The Complete Big Data and Power BI Bundle has 5 courses to help you learn how to effectively sort, analyze, and visualize all of your data. Courses cover Power BI, Power Query, Excel, and Access. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all […]

We’ve talked about the Australian social media ban that went into effect last week, how dumb it is, and why it’s already a mess. But late last week, some additional news broke that makes the whole thing even more grotesque: turns out the campaign pushing hardest for the ban was run by an ad agency […]

In the enshittification era, companies rushing to profit off the gold mine of mass commercial surveillance are routinely intent on pushing their luck. Automakers spy on your driving habits (without telling you) to sell that data to insurance companies that raise your rates. Your ISP, phone, and even electrical meter all report on your every […]