This week, Elon Musk’s Grok AI started spewing extreme antisemitism, responding with conspiracy theories about Jewish people, and for a brief period telling people to call it “MechaHitler.” The incident perfectly illustrates why Alex Komoroske’s manifesto about the dangers of centralized AI, which we ran less than a month ago, has been making waves. When […]
Lawmakers seem to think they’re capable of solving every perceivable social media problem via legislation. Sometimes, the intents are pure but the execution is lacking. In many more cases — especially recently — the intent is to harm social media companies with legislation, all while pretending it’s about protecting “free speech” or the “children” or […]
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For months, the DOJ has insisted to US courts that it has no jurisdiction over the people it rendered to Salvadoran detention facilities. But when the UN came asking, El Salvador told a very different story: these detainees are “exclusively” under US jurisdiction and legal responsibility. The contradiction is so blatant it’s almost insulting to […]
Trump recently launched a “wireless phone service,” which as we mentioned, isn’t so much a real phone service as it is a quick licensing agreement and a lazy rebranding of other services. He’s also exploiting the presidency by launching a vast array of new, clumsily branded Trump home goods, including a new Trump-branded Instantpot. If […]
Nestle certainly hasn’t been shy about engaging in aggressive trademark enforcement in the past, but this one is something different. We’ve already covered several stories in which a person or company has attempted to trademark the name of a city for a particular market designator. Not use the name of the city in a larger […]
In Trump’s eyes, anything that doesn’t make white people appear to be the saviors of the world is something that should be buried. Whatever the phrase “fake news” won’t make go away is subject to seemingly daily government edicts that declare any recognition of racial diversity or America’s racist past (and present) to be un-American […]
Support us on Patreon » We’ve got one more cross-post episode for you this week! A few weeks ago, Mike joined host Aaron Ross Powell on the ReImagining Liberty podcast for a discussion that digs into the the philosophy and principles underlying the push for internet decentralization and protocols over platforms, and why this shift is […]
The New York Times has had a rough few decades when it comes to being manipulated by bad actors. But their latest embarrassment—a complete non-story about NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s college application to Columbia University from 2009—represents a new low in journalistic malpractice that combines hacked materials, racist sources, and a breathtaking willingness to […]
Trump advisor/subhuman ghoul Stephen Miller wants ICE to be arresting 3,000 people a day. So far, ICE has only managed to top out at 2,200 arrests in a single day, despite going full black ops in neighborhoods and businesses, driving unmarked cars, and leaving nothing exposed on officers’ bodies but their lifeless eyes. Stephen Miller […]
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With apologies to Dorothy Thompson, whose 1941 essay in Harper’s, “Who Goes Nazi?” remains a worthwhile read on the cultural archetypes of who is drawn to fascism, and who would never go down such a path. It felt like it could use a modern updating, however. Update: Just after I finished writing this, it occurred […]
However terrible telecom monopolies are in the free world, they’re arguably worse in prisons. For decades, journalists and researchers have outlined how a select number of prison telecom giants like Securus have enjoyed a cozy, government-kickback based monopoly over prison phone and teleconferencing services, resulting sky high rates (upwards of $14 per minute at some prisons) for inmate families. Most of […]
The conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled 6-3 in favor of upholding an age verification measure targeting adult content platforms on the internet that the state legislature of Texas adopted during the 2023 legislative session. As a quick reminder, the case is Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton and featured the parent companies of […]
The Trump Administration’s constant escalation of its mass deportation programs now means ICE, CBP, and other federal agencies must come up with thousands of arrests a day. This never had anything to do with removing criminals from the country and, even if you once believed that might be the case, an unending string of raids […]
Both New York and Minnesota just passed laws requiring social media platforms to slap warning labels on their sites—warning labels based on zero scientific evidence, likely to be struck down as unconstitutional compelled speech, and designed solely to let politicians pretend they’re “protecting children” while actually making their lives worse. You’d think lawmakers would learn. […]
Men in masks kidnapping people off streets or turning businesses into ghost towns is now nothing more than an everyday occurrence in the United States. The Trump administration never actually cared whether or not the people it ejected from the country due to their race, color, or creed were, in fact, criminals. All it ever […]
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On Thursday, literally the day before flash flooding devastated Texas, the Texas Observer published an article warning that “Trump’s DOGE Cuts Are a Texas-Sized Disaster,” explaining how cuts to both the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would likely lead to disaster for Texas. Twenty-four hours later, those […]
You might recall that about half a decade ago news outlets began to whine endlessly about the poor old news comment section. Editors at many outlets didn’t like the way the comment section was used to prominently point out errors in stories and challenge newsrooms. They were also often too cheap to invest in moderating […]