Here we go again. It was only a month ago that Karl Bode wrote about Disney’s absolutely and totally cool process of removing a bunch of content from its Disney Plus streaming platform not because the content sucks and nobody liked it, but because it gets to play accounting tricks as to its assets in […]
As you’ll recall, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman whined about what he called the “landed gentry” among moderators of subreddits that were protesting his ridiculous extractive API changes. He insisted that perhaps things should be more democratic. In response, many subreddits took a vote on how subscribers to those subreddits wanted the mods to handle things, […]
People are finding cool new (probably illegal) ways to unmask people they want to sue. In this case, it’s a guy who didn’t like some things said about him. But in order to get a libel lawsuit going, the plaintiff needs to have a defendant to sue. Here’s where all the bad faith begins, as […]
End the frustration of carrying tangled cables and the bulkiness of multiple accessories forever with this WonderCube Pro. This is the smallest all-in-one mobile solution that carries 8 smartphone essentials right at your fingertips. This device features a 1″ foldout flexible USB cord that measures 3″ when extended. It has a built-in gold-plated connector that […]
Back in January there was some hope that the panel of judges hearing the latest version of the challenge to FOSTA’s constitutionality had recognized the problems with the law. That’s because during oral arguments they seemed to express skepticism about its constitutionality, noting that it appeared to criminalize any efforts to legalize prostitution. But as […]
During peak pandemic, the FCC launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB program), giving lower income Americans a $50 ($75 for those in tribal lands) discount off of their broadband bill. Under the program, the government gave money to ISPs, which then doled out discounts to users if they qualified. But (and I’m sure this will […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Cdevon2 with a response to the notion that it’s somehow ironic for people who wanted to leave Twitter to be complaining about not being able to read tweets: You assume that the same people who are actively leaving the site are the ones complaining […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, the latest text of the EU Copyright Directive showed it to be even more disastrous than expected. Thus, its defenders and apologists were busy responding variously with substance-free denial, vague defenses lacking any understanding of the issues, accidental revelations of the true scope of their internet-destroying goals, and […]
The ongoing saga that is Microsoft’s attempt to purchase Activision Blizzard continues! As a brief review of the scoreboard will show: the EU has approved the purchase, the UK’s CMA has blocked it and Microsoft has appealed that decision, and the lawsuit brought by the FTC in the States is currently in the pretrial phase. […]
NetChoice has been quite busy the last few years suing to stop a wide variety of terrible state laws designed to mess up parts of the internet. It took on Florida’s social media content moderation law and won (twice). It took on Texas’ social media content moderation law and won at the district court, and […]
The Internet is amazing, but it’s not perfect. There are many aspects that are unsatisfactory – its protocols are inefficient, and it is far from resilient. The InterPlanetary File System, created in 2014, aims to address some of these deficiencies. On its main site it is described as: A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol designed to preserve and grow humanity’s […]
It appears the race is on to see whether it will be the EU or the US in promulgating worse regulations around generative AI tools. The EU (as has been its MO over the last few years) is taking the lead. A few weeks back the EU Parliament passed a draft regulation for AI. There’s […]
Late last year, Senator Josh Hawley — the fist-pumping supporter of Trump-approved insurrection — generated the last bit of his Missouri state government legacy. Having been successfully sued for violating state public records laws while acting as the state attorney general, Hawley was ordered to pay $12,000 by Judge Jon Beetem. The total bill included […]
Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators, and more. Scrivener won’t tell you how to write—it simply provides everything you need to start writing and keep writing. Scrivener makes it easy to structure ideas, write a first draft, […]
There have been a bunch of attempts over the last few years to try to get around Section 230, and to sue various websites under a “negligence” theory under the law, arguing that the online service was somehow negligent in failing to protect a user, and therefore Section 230 shouldn’t apply. Some cases have been […]
While recent evolutions in “AI” have netted some profoundly interesting advancements in creativity and productivity, its early implementation in journalism has been a sloppy mess thanks to some decidedly human-based problems: namely greed and laziness. If you remember, the cheapskates over at Red Ventures implemented AI over at CNET without telling anybody. The result: articles […]
The depressing tale of how the European Union passed copyright’s worst new law, the EU Copyright Directive, occupies some 36 pages in Walled Culture the book (digital versions available free). The main legislation was finalized over four years ago, but countries are still grappling with the problem of implementing its sometimes contradictory requirements in national laws. […]
Just fucking fight it out already. The whole stupid “cage match” brawl thing was started when Meta execs made some (accurate) cracks about Elon’s management of Twitter, and Elon couldn’t handle it. But, now with the launch of Meta’s Threads, Elon feels the need to send a ridiculously laughable legal threat to Meta. Elon’s legal […]
Never mind fitting the description, even though that, too, has its own problems. In Texas, it apparently only matters how your name is spelled. If you share a name with a criminal suspect, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has said you have no recourse if you’re wrongly arrested and detained for multiple days. That […]
As you may have heard, yesterday Meta finally launched Threads, its Twitter-like microblogging service, built on ActivityPub, but using Instagram account credentials for login. The reaction from across the internet has been fascinating. I’ve seen everything from people insisting that this will clearly finally be the one single “Twitter killer” everyone’s been waiting for, to […]
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