Both troubled teens and government agencies are asking, “How thin is thin enough?” The teens are thinking about how thin they want to look, while the government is thinking about what’s too thin to post online. The refrain is always the same: the platforms need to do more—never mind the difficult details. Platforms need to […]
The Freedom of Information Act does its best to free information, but it can only do so much when the same government that’s supposed to follow it figures it shouldn’t abide by a law another branch crafted. Simple refusals are never welcome, but at least they say something: that the government does have these documents. […]
You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let’s focus on the app. Right off the bat, let’s be clear about one thing: When we say “app” we don’t mean that you’re limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across […]
You know that line, “every accusation is a confession?” For no reason at all, that’s coming to mind all of a sudden. No reason. Anyway, a decade ago, Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore wrote a fantastic piece for Foreign Affairs on “The End of Hypocrisy” (which we also wrote about here at Techdirt). They argued […]
For decades, U.S. broadband providers have struck cozy deals with landlords effectively elbowing out competitors and allowing them to create building-by-building broadband monopolies. That stifled competition results in higher costs, slow speeds, and worse overall service. And while the FCC passed rules in 2007 trying to ban the practice, they were so full of loopholes […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Pixelation with a comment about banning TikTok: Banning TikTok will open the door to the real threat, government control of communication platforms. I would say it’s a republican wet dream, but it’s also a democrat one as well. In second place, it’s That One […]
It’s time for another entry in our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of the sixth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928! We’ve already featured Best Visuals winner Flight from Podunk Station and Best Adaptation winner Mickey Party, and today we’re taking a closer look at the winner of Best […]
We haven’t talked a great deal about SXSW in some time, but they are back in the news and not for good reasons! The conference and festival kicked off in March as planned, but less planned were the protests that organized against the conference as a result of its affiliations with defense contractors and the […]
A gentleman’s agreement with the UK following years of colonialism has given rise to another form of oppression. China took over Hong Kong in 1997, promising to stay out of the day-to-day business of governing Hong Kong for 50 years. Not even halfway through this promised period of relative autonomy, the Chinese government began imposing […]
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, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. In this week’s round-up of news about online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: The […]
On Monday, the Supreme Court will be hearing the Murthy v. Missouri case, which we’ve been following for ages. As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, the record on the case is full of blatant falsehoods. If the US government was actually doing everything that the lawsuit (and some judges!) claims it did, I would be in […]
What a day. Texas is now the most populated U.S. state to be geo-blocked by Aylo, the parent company of the popular adult tube site Pornhub.com. With a population of barely over 29.5 million people, residents of the Lone Star State must use a VPN to view porn on Aylo’s network of free and premium […]
The Complete Python Programmer Bundle has nine courses to help you learn more about programming. This bundle starts with fundamental Python functionality such as arithmetic, conditional statements, and working with basic data structures. It then expands upon your working knowledge of data structures to work with full-blown datasets in the Pandas package. You’ll learn all […]
Last month, we wrote about Nevada’s Attorney General filing an absolutely preposterous, but extremely dangerous, legal filing, demanding that a court bar Meta from offering end-to-end encryption for its messaging apps. Almost everything about this request was crazy. First, Nevada sued Meta, with vague, unsubstantiated claims of “harm to children,” and then it filed a […]
As you probably noticed, the House just passed the controversial ban on TikTok, with 352 Representatives in favor, and 65 opposed. The bill is now likely to be slow-walked to the Senate where its chance of passing is murky, but possible. Biden (which has been using the purportedly “dangerous national security threat” to campaign with) […]
It’s been a long and incredibly frustrating road to get here, but the IRS’ free Direct File pilot program is now live this tax season in 12 states. We have had a list of posts we have done on the topic of tax filings, most of which revolve around Intuit and some other tax-prep organizations’ […]
While countless lawmakers looking to get on cable TV spent much of the last few years freaking out about TikTok privacy issues, none of those same folks seem bothered by the parade of nasty vulnerabilities in the nation’s telecom networks. Hackers are still happily exploiting the SS7 flaw that lets governments and bad actors spy on […]
Last year, we wrote about a very silly lawsuit that some big music publishers had filed against ExTwitter, making some silly claims about how copyright law works. It basically ignored the existence of the DMCA, which was designed to prevent lawsuits like this one, where there is some infringement happening on the platform, but no […]
As the debate over Section 702 continues, more weird stuff keeps happening. For once, there’s serious opposition to a clean renewal, and it’s coming from both sides of the legislature. Then there are things like this, which is one of the stranger incidents to accompany a surveillance fight, as reported by Dell Cameron for Wired. […]
The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to help you take your Python and AI knowledge to the next level. You’ll learn about data pre-processing and visualization, artificial neural networks, how to use the Keras framework, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated […]
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