Much of the federal government is shuttered, but that’s not preventing the Trump administration from finding new ways to screw over struggling Americans. Last week, the Trump FCC under Brendan Carr voted to indefinitely suspend efforts to impose new, lower price caps on predatory U.S. prison monopolies that would have prevented them from over-billing inmate […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment on our post about how “neutrality” and “free speech” become excuses for bigotry: You can’t be neutral about bigotry “Neutrality” is for elements of policy, like “What should be the top tax rate” or “should we build a new interstate highway” […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, the RIAA tossed out a bogus DMCA claim to get a YouTube downloading tool pulled from Github, and was still flooding Twitch with takedowns that the company was responding to by freaking out and courting a lot of outrage from the users it failed to defend. Meanwhile, YouTuber […]
Both Google and Apple are cramming new AI features into their phones and other devices, and neither company has offered clear ways to control which apps those AI systems can access. Recent issues around WhatsApp on both Android and iPhone demonstrate how these interactions can go sideways, risking revealing chat conversations beyond what you intend. […]
ICE can generate multiple horrible stories a day but it still can’t seem to find enough brown people to deport daily to satisfy White House advisor Stephen Miller’s demands for 3,000 arrests per day. Trump and the GOP threw a lot of money at this problem with the Big Beautiful Bill. A lot of money: […]
When it comes to RFK Jr., I tend not to find much humor in the chaos he creates. The man’s work involves American health and illness, life and death, so it’s just generally not funny. And that holds true to Kennedy’s wielding of incomplete, inaccurate, and unsettled science to go before all of America and […]
As anyone who has read Techdirt for any length of time knows full well, there’s been a years-long campaign to demonize kids and social media. Never mind that actual experts have said the data doesn’t support the claims of inherent harm, politicians around the globe are rushing to ban kids from social media as fast […]
The Ultimate Unity Game Development Bundle has 4 courses are designed to designed to teach about game dev and how to create your own games using the Unity engine. You’ll learn about the fundamentals of C# programming, 2D and 3D game development, mobile game development, how to build amazing cutscenes, and more. It’s on sale […]
It surprises absolutely no one that the Trump administration lies. Trump himself has been lying constantly ever since his first spin in the resolute desk chair. His new administration is right there with him this time around, ensuring we see nothing but a flood of falsehoods all the time. The administration knows it’s lying. We […]
While “AI” certainly has some useful applications, a lot of the folks in charge of the trajectory of LLMs clearly want to use it to build a giant, badly automated ouroboros of lazy internet slop that shits out ad money without the need for pesky labor. You see this most profoundly in media, where a […]
As of this moment, the National Guard is indefinitely prevented from deploying within the Chicagoland area. The court order was issued pending the Supreme Court’s decision to rule on the matter. And because this administration is a walking, talking clown show, the information that SCOTUS is getting on the matter is hilariously stratified depending on […]
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online […]
Going forward, the only thing you’ll hear reported from the Pentagon will be delivered by subservient, right-wing stenographers. The War Department has its own Ministry of Truth, staffed by people whose organizations have seen their fortunes rise along with Trump’s. The bootlicking was always there. The only change is that it’s now officially state-sanctioned. The […]
A wave of proposed social media bans for young people has swept the globe recently, fuelled by mounting concern about the apparent harm the likes of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat can cause to vulnerable minds. Australia was the first to announce restrictions on people under 16 having a social media account. New Zealand may soon follow, and Denmark’s […]
A couple weeks ago, as millions of Americans took to the streets in what may have been the largest single day of protest in U.S. history, the President of the United States responded by… posting a video of himself literally dumping shit on citizens. Not a policy response. Not an attempt at dialogue. Not even […]
The 2025 AI Super Skills Bundle has 8 courses to help you get familiar with how to use some of the latest and coolest artificial intelligence tools out there. Courses cover ChatGPT, DALL-E 3, Leonardo AI, Quillbot, and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. […]
Like far too many people in the Trump administration — including the 79-year-old child currently sitting in the Oval Office — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth thinks he’s owed respect simply because of the position he holds. While a certain amount of deference is expected when you’re the boss, it’s much more difficult to earn […]
As promised, the Trump FCC under Brendan Carr this week voted to begin dismantling rules requiring that your ISP offer clear and transparent details on the cost and limitations of your broadband connection. The rules, originally mandated by Congress as part of the infrastructure bill, required that ISPs affix a sort of “nutrition label” to […]
It’s sort of funny in a way to see how ownership culture has specifically invaded the realm of the culinary arts. If ever there was a place for cultural fusion and an openness culture, it surely should be in cooking. And, yet, we have seen many instances of businesses and/or people attempting to trademark generic […]
You’re just a commodity in Trump’s marketplace of horrific ideas. Sure, criminal informants are seldom the trustworthiest of people, what with their stay-out-of-jail free cards being reliant on their steady production of evidence against other people. But the government does make promises to criminal informants that it’s expected to keep, not only to fulfill its […]
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