a Better Bubble™

TechDirt 🕸

Daily Deal: 6-in-1 Wireless Charger Stand with Time Clock & Alarm

1 year 1 month ago
Charge all of your devices this innovative 6-in-1 Wireless Charger. It’s easy to use with its touch buttons and Qi wireless charging for Qi-enabled devices. Beautifully made with a modern look, it can quickly charge your devices, is touch-sensitive allowing you to show the digital clock and calendar, and has an alarm setting. For your […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Elon Musk’s Vision Of Trust & Safety: Neither Safe Nor Trustworthy

1 year 1 month ago
Even as Elon first made his bid for Twitter, we highlighted just how little he understood about content moderation and trust & safety. And, that really matters, because, as Nilay Patel pointed out, managing trust & safety basically is the core business of a social media company: “The essential truth of every social network is […]
Mike Masnick

Netflix Fights Big Telecom Plan To Impose ‘Big Tech Tax’ In EU

1 year 1 month ago
Big Telecom lobbyists have been working overtime in both the US and EU, trying to get policymakers to force Big Tech to pay them billions in additional subsidies for no coherent reason. We’ve noted for several years how the push is self-serving bullshit by anti-competitive telecom giants, yet thanks to their lobbying influence, the effort shows no sign […]
Karl Bode

Predictive Policing Makes Everyone A Suspect, Even EU Officials

1 year 1 month ago
We’ve long known so-called “predictive policing” is garbage. It’s the same old biased policing, except shinier and more expensive. Every system in place relies on data generated by policework — data instantly tainted by the things cops do, like hassling minorities, engaging in very selective enforcement, and treating people as inherently suspicious just because of […]
Tim Cushing

When Given The Choice, Most Authors Reject Excessively Long Copyright Terms

1 year 1 month ago
Recently, Walled Culture mentioned the problem of orphan works. These are creations, typically books, that are still covered by copyright, but unavailable because the original publisher or distributor has gone out of business, or simply isn’t interested in keeping them in circulation. The problem is that without any obvious point of contact, it’s not possible to […]
Mike Masnick

Ford Submits A Patent That Would Allow Cars To Repossess Themselves

1 year 1 month ago
The automotive industry is entering into its own subprime crisis. Even before the COVID pandemic led to supply chain issues that vastly inflated car prices, lenders were starting to extend loan periods to make things easier for underfunded purchasers, moving on from the industry standard 3-5 year loans to 84-month baselines that ensure people could […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The Ultimate Programming Bundle

1 year 1 month ago
The Ultimate Programming Bundle has three courses to help you learn the basics. The courses cover Python, JavaScript, and databases. The bundle is on sale for $21. 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 not reflect endorsements by […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

1 year 2 months ago
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Rocky with a lengthy, structured response to a complaint about our coverage of Twitter: “Trolling!? You must mean like gossiping about one minute service outages, and leading the readers to infer that the collapse of Twitter is imminent.” A quick search for “twitter outage” […]
Leigh Beadon

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Lucia

1 year 2 months ago
On Tuesday, we announced the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927. Now, as in past years, we’ll be spending the next few weeks taking a closer look at each of the winning games (in no particular order). First up, it’s the winner of the […]
Leigh Beadon

Kenyan Court First To Tell Meta It Can’t Walk Away From A Lawsuit Just By Claiming It’s Not From Around Here

1 year 2 months ago
A lawsuit filed over exploitation of content moderators will be allowed to continue, according to a recent ruling by a Kenyan court. Former employees of Meta sued the company in the Kenya Employment and Labour Relations Court last year, alleging being subjected to a “toxic work environment” while performing the often unpleasant task for removing […]
Tim Cushing

Appeals Court Dumps Another Coal Company CEO’s Defamation Suit, Says Mislabeling Convicted CEO Not Actually Libelous

1 year 2 months ago
This isn’t about Bob Murray. I mean, it sure seems like it is. It involves a baseless defamation lawsuit against journalists, a West Virginia coal company CEO, and court losses for a litigious coal boss. This isn’t about “Eat Shit” Bob Murray, the head of (the now-bankrupted) Murray Energy who sued John Oliver for saying […]
Tim Cushing

Another Day, Another Blatant Attack On The 1st Amendment From The Florida GOP

1 year 2 months ago
I keep hearing people pretend that the GOP in general, and Florida GOPers more specifically, and Governor Ron DeSantis most specifically, are fighting for “free speech,” when they continually seem to push blatantly unconstitutional legislation designed to attack free speech and the 1st Amendment in a way that keeps getting Florida shot down in court […]
Mike Masnick

Facial Recognition Pitches In To Help Cops Arrest A Maryland Man For A Crime He Didn’t Commit

1 year 2 months ago
Facial recognition tech needs more work. It’s not great. Even when it’s good, it’s still pretty bad. While it performs well when identifying people not often considered to be criminal suspects (middle-aged white men), it’s far less accurate when identifying everyone else (minorities, women). Cops don’t often see what the problem is. Their job usually […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The Complete Award-Winning Luminar AI Bundle

1 year 2 months ago
The Complete Award-Winning Luminar AI Bundle comes with the photo editing software, 3 template packs, and a photography ecourse. Luminar AI is an intelligent photo editor with an intuitive workflow and one-click solutions for complex tasks. With more than 100 tools powered by artificial intelligence, Luminar AI helps you make complex edits fast. Retouch portraits and create […]
Gretchen Heckmann