Quick test: should saying “Hitler, not a good guy” cause you to be banned from your social media account? Seems simple enough. But apparently not for Meta, the largest social media company on the planet. I’ve talked about the Masnick Impossibility Theorem and the idea that content moderation is impossible to do well at scale. […]
Very few states laws can be considered to be “famous.” Almost any state law immediately recognized by people in other states can only be described as “infamous.” The Wiretap Law enacted in Massachusetts is definitely infamous. For years, this statute was abused by law enforcement officers and other state employees to punish or prosecute residents […]
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As we head into next week’s election, it is worth taking a step back and realizing how absolutely ridiculous it is that we spent five or six years with people insisting that Facebook and Twitter absolutely needed to be punished for supposedly engaging in biased content moderation (something they did not do). While any private […]
A new U.S. News And World Report survey of 2,500 Americans across the five most populous U.S. states (PA, TX, NY, CA, and FL) found that U.S. broadband prices continue to soar for most users. Most of the survey’s findings aren’t surprising; broadband access costs are reaching $100 for most users, and Americans continue to […]
This lawsuit could not be more impeccably timed. Whether or not this timing is more fortuitous than impeccable remains to be seen, but there’s no denying the bang-bang-bang effect on display here, even if it may just be coincidental. Last week, a Virginia federal court ruled three hits from Flock ALPR cameras wasn’t enough to […]
Here are two things that are not secrets, but play into this story. First, it’s known that Google and Russia have had an acrimonious relationship for some time. Between various threats from the Russian government to ban Google and/or YouTube here and there, typically because the country doesn’t like Google’s decisions over what content to […]
According to some people (you know the people I mean…), our biggest “crisis” is border security. This one guy — a supposed billionaire with multiple bankruptcies under his belt — claimed he could solve the problem if he ever got elected. He would “build the wall” and make Mexico pay for it. This is stuff […]
Sometimes I love a good “mashup” story hitting on two of the different themes we cover here at Techdirt. This one is especially good: Alaska legislators relying on fake stats generated by an AI system to justify banning phones in schools, courtesy of the Alaska Beacon. It’s a mashup of the various stories about mobile […]
This is something that should have happened years ago, but I guess we can be grateful it’s happening now. And part of the reason it’s finally happening is because of the warrant requirement for obtaining historical cell site location info created by the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision. One of the many ways the government obtains […]
We’ve noted repeatedly that in the wake of the Sprint T-Mobile merger, wireless carriers immediately stopped trying to compete on price (exactly what deal critics had warned the Trump administration would happen when you reduce sector competition). Recently, T-Mobile imposed another $3-$5 per month price hike on most of its plans — including customers who believed they were under […]
Another lobbyist win over common sense, it seems. Earlier this year, we discussed a group of video game preservationists, led by the Video Game History Foundation, seeking DMCA exemptions that would allow groups to curate, preserve, and make available for streaming antiquated video games for purposes of study. The chief opposition to the request came […]
When the government shuts down a protest because both protesters and counter-protesters are physically attacking each other, it’s not a “heckler’s veto.” It’s just common sense, even though there was very little of that on display during the protest, nor during law enforcement’s belated response to the violent confrontation. But Warren Balogh thinks only his […]
The open access movement has been trying for over 20 years to promote the widest access to knowledge. Sadly, as numerous Walled Culture posts have chronicled, what should be a matter of social justice has been subverted by clever and cynical moves from the academic publishing industry in order to retain their fabulous profit margins. As a […]
What are the odds. Evolv, a gun detection tech firm contracted by the city of New York to handle fare jumping by scanning for guns, told everyone — including its investors — that deploying its tech in NYC subways wasn’t exactly a great idea. It made this statement even as Mayor Adams was telling people […]
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You may recall last December when we wrote about the somewhat shocking news that an Indian court had ordered Reuters to take down an entire article investigating a company, Appin and its founder Rajat Khare, that were accused of running a giant “hacking for hire” operation. Ten months later, that article is back online with […]
To be very clear: SpaceX’s Starlink service can be a game changer for those completely out of range of broadband access. Getting several hundred megabits per second in the middle of nowhere is a decidedly good thing, assuming you can afford the $120 a month subscription and up front hardware costs. But contrary to what […]
It’s that time of the year in the Midwest, when the skies darken early and the temperature drops. And that means it’s pho season. As a lover of pho, allow me to educate anyone that hasn’t heard of it. It’s a soup of sorts, with rice noodles, spices, and meat. And it’s considered the national […]
Well, a wrong has been righted. Kind of. And for how long, no one really knows. Texas is on the leading edge of book censorship in the United States — you know, the land most famous for its freedoms, one of which is the famous/infamous (depending on who you ask) First Amendment. It’s only second […]
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