I wasn’t going to write about Elon changing Twitter’s name and branding to X, because… who cares? I’m not sure what the point is. But, a lot of people have been asking me my thoughts, and the more I was trying to parse it all out, the more confused I became. It basically only makes […]
Police officers are quick to argue that anything people do in public doesn’t have an expectation of privacy. They have also been quick to argue (until precedent made it mostly futile) that anything they do in public shouldn’t be documented, recorded, and disseminated. These cops are, of course, wrong. But that doesn’t stop them from […]
As the name suggests, classification algorithms are what allow computers to well… classify new observations, like how your inbox decides which incoming emails are spam or how Siri recognizes your voice. The Essential MATLAB Training Bundle will show you how to implement classification algorithms using MATLAB, one of the most powerful tools inside a data […]
Elon Musk seems infatuated with bots and scrapers as the root of all his problems at Twitter. Given his propensity to fire engineers who tell him things he doesn’t want to hear, it’s not difficult to believe that engineers afraid to tell Musk the truth are conveniently blaming “scraping” on the variety of problems that […]
Last February, a report in Politico found that Crisis Text Line, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit support options for the suicidal, had been monetizing user data. More specifically, the nonprofit was collecting all sorts of data on “customer interactions” (ranging from the frequency certain words are used, to the type of distress users are […]
This week, both our winners on the insightful side are responses to tiresome comments from some… prolific commenters. In first place, it’s Rocky tackling some platform/publisher nonsense: “Fox News and the NY Post are publishers, not platforms. We don’t care to control what they publish.” The 1A doesn’t care if a private company is a […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, Ajit Pai was pretending to care about the identity fraud that plagued the net neutrality repeal, Netflix’s CEO was proclaiming the death of net neutrality to be no big deal, while the government in India was moving in the opposite direction and embracing full net neutrality (though the […]
The Supreme Court made it clear in 2018 with its Carpenter decision: gathering historical cell site location info in bulk was impermissible under the Fourth Amendment. If law enforcement wanted to engage in third-party-enabled long term tracking of suspects via this info, it needed to get a warrant first. That ruling seemed to make everything […]
While the telecom industry did manage to successfully defang U.S. consumer protection regulators for the better part of the last decade, they’re still facing some notable headwinds. Broadband growth has dramatically slowed, their cable TV customers are leaving in droves, and while they are getting a ton of new subsidies via the infrastructure bill, a […]
Apparently, Elon Musk has little to no interest in paying ex-employees the $500 million in severance he owes them (which was included in the purchase agreement he signed, but which it’s unclear if he ever read), but he (and the close friends and family he stuffed the Tesla board with) need to pay back $735 […]
Apple fought the law and — contrary to the song lyrics — it won. Years later, Apple decided it would get ahead of the law enforcement curve by attempting to engage in client-side scanning of iPhone users’ content. That worked out less well for Apple, which (at least momentarily) decided making governments happy was more […]
The HomeSpot Rugged Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker was built to keep up with your adventures. It deflects dust, dirt, and water – and is coated with a rubberized surface that you’ll feel comfortable bringing camping, rafting, and beyond. Best of all, this speaker truly delivers powerful sound that will fill even outdoor spaces with impressive audio. […]
It seems to happen over and over again, and the mainstream media always makes it worse. The mainstream media hears about a “TikTok challenge,” reports on it like crazy, and people freak out that TikTok is destroying the children or some such. And every single time, it turns out that the media got the story […]
In just the last five years, the “right to repair” movement has shifted from nerdy niche to the mainstream, thanks in part to significant support from the Biden FTC and efforts in states like Minnesota and New York to pass new right to repair laws, making it easier and less expensive for consumers and independent repair […]
So much of what is considered [cough] bulletproof evidence in criminal cases is nothing more than pseudoscience dressed in a lab coat. For years, prosecutors have presented science-y sounding “evidence” derived from lab techniques that had never undergone any sort of peer review or blind testing. The government — especially the DOJ — has also […]
Reading through the increasing number of Techdirt articles about AI, the overwhelming impression is that many people think AI is bad, and needs to be reined in before it destroys journalism/creativity/society/humanity (delete as applicable). To see an interesting new phase of an old technology attacked in this way is rather depressing, since it seems to […]
Protests ignited by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of an unarmed black man (George Floyd) spread across the nation following that horrific event. And these protests against police violence went on for months, prompting a federal response from an irked president, who declared Portland, Oregon one of many “anarchy jurisdictions.” The Portland police had […]
One thing that should be evident by now is that every online community eventually learns the need for some level of “trust & safety” or basic moderation to take place. And they quickly find that things are a lot more complex than they seem from the outside. Just try to moderate a medium sized Facebook […]
Because cops are the frailest of creatures and are actively harmed by people, you know, looking at them, legislators have made sure they’re ultra-protected by enacting super shitty laws that elevate cops above the people they serve. “Blue Lives” laws insist cops’ lives are worth more than anyone else’s lives. They add years to sentences […]
The Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 8 courses to help you learn how to get the most out of your data. Courses cover subjects like basic terminology and processes for beginners, Tensorflow, regression analysis, Kersa, and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. […]
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