When tragedy strikes, it’s human nature to search for answers. But when you’re Fox News, it seems that the answer is always the same: blame video games, social media, or anything else that fits your preconceived notions, facts be damned. In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, I idly wondered how long […]
You might just start to detect a theme here. Consumer Reports’ latest survey of the most popular ISPs in America is once again dominated by smaller providers and community-owned and operated broadband networks. Networks often built by locals that were tired of being ripped off by local monopolies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, or Charter. According […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment about Silicon Valley VCs lining up to back Trump and our supposition that it’s because they cynically welcome chaos: ‘Look, we put BBQ sauce on our faces and everything, so no snacking alright?’ Either that or in the […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2019, an opportunistic IBM sold out Section 230 while the Third Circuit joined the Ninth in denying its protections to e-commerce platforms, soon followed by the Sixth Circuit making a mess of it as well, so we wrote more about how Section 230 is not exceptional and is not […]
Earlier this year, I brought to you an absolute bonkers trademark lawsuit filed in Turkey by Hermes, the luxury brand, against Hermes Sahaf, an itty bitty bookstore. There was never a reason to file this lawsuit, but it’s an especially bad PR look for a massive company like Hermes to be going after an independent […]
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 […]
Apparently, exceptions apply. The “Thin Blue Line” is the supposedly united front of law enforcement that protects society against evil. But it’s not unconditional. If you’re a good cop, you get frozen out. And, if you’re a woman, you get treated like most cops treat most women. The “Blue Line” often seems to be the […]
I’m curious how Republicans would react if AOC suddenly sought to hold a hearing questioning Elon Musk’s bias in endorsing and promoting Donald Trump on ExTwitter. I imagine there would be apocalyptic outrage and nonstop cries of tyranny over such a blatant abuse of power to punish someone for their political views. And they’d be […]
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This is not great news, even if the law pretty much aligns with case law. Nonetheless, this is concerning. Tennessee law enforcement agencies will continue to be able to use drones without a search warrant in various investigations following the approval of a bill earlier this year. In 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly approved a […]
We’ve noted a few times that states will soon receive more than $42.5 billion in taxpayer funded broadband subsidies courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill. A lot of that money will go to big giant monopolies with terrible track records on subsidy fraud. But a lot of it is also poised to go toward super […]
Terms of Service are a reality we deal with all the time with digital goods and services. And by “deal with”, I mostly mean we don’t read them and simply agree to whatever they say instead, assuming there is nothing crazy in them. But that also causes a lot of problems, with customers of these […]
Last year both Gannett and Sports Illustrated were caught creating fake, “AI” generated journalists to create fake, plagiarism and mistake-prone “journalism.” In both instances the kind of brunchlord executives that fail upward at these kind of dying media companies thought it would be great to replace real human journalism with automated junk — without informing their actual human employees. “AI” (not […]
The city of Chicago’s Inspector General is back at it, pointing out things are very, very wrong with the Chicago Police Department. Not that anyone needed any reminders. A long history of disinterest in disciplining misbehaving officers has led to everything from an off-the-books black site operation to more than 100 misconduct charges being racked […]
It’s pretty rare to see a judge disqualify a law firm from taking on a case. But Judge William Alsup has done just that, disqualifying the litigation powerhouse law firm Quinn Emanuel from representing ExTwitter in a big data scraping case. We wrote about this case back in May, highlighting both the importance and complexities […]
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Back in 2022, a federal court responded to a challenge of a geofence warrant with some good questions. But its ultimate ruling was a shrug. A geofence warrant obtained by investigators searching for a bank robbery suspect covered a whole lot of ground, subjecting hundreds of innocent people to a search of their geolocation records. […]
A few years ago you might recall there was a three year news cycle about how the modern Trump GOP was somehow “serious about antitrust reform this time.” The party, which has never met a consolidated monopoly it didn’t adore (see: airlines, telecom, pharma, health, energy), was suddenly getting credited in the press for being […]
While the vast majority of what I get to read about when it comes to intellectual property law generally, and trademark law specifically, makes me roll my eyes, the concept of geographic indicator trademarks actually isn’t one of them. The application of GI marks certainly does get my fur up often times, but the concept […]
New York’s finest just don’t want to have to do the work that comes with being a cop. They’ve really never wanted to do it. A new law requires officers to collect more data during more encounters with New York residents, which has kicked off a new wave of bitching from those who think they […]
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