Back in the fall we were among the first to highlight that Elon Musk might face a pretty big FTC problem. Twitter, of course, is under a 20 year FTC consent decree over some of its privacy failings. And, less than a year ago (while still under old management), Twitter was hit with a $150 […]
The relentless push to make every last feature in every tech device you own part of a subscription service shows no sign of slowing down. Fitness companies like Fitbit have increasingly shoveled basic health monitoring features into their subscription plan. Companies like BMW have increasingly tried to make basic concepts like heated seats a subscription-only […]
On Monday, I saw Elon Musk tweet the following, and initially thought that he might have actually made a good policy decision for once, and planned to write up something about Elon doing something right (contrary to the opinion of some, I’m happy to give him credit when it’s due): Punching back against DMCA abusers […]
Telecom and media giants (News Corporation, AT&T, and Comcast, mostly) have spent big bucks to scuttle the FCC nomination of popular reformer Gigi Sohn. That’s involved seeding all kinds of bullshit claims in the press (with the GOP’s help) about how Sohn hates rural America, police, puppies, and freedom. Some of the most recent attacks […]
Last week, we announced the winners of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927! We strongly encourage everyone to go check out all the submissions, but as in past years, I sat down with Mike and our game design partner Randy Lubin for an episode of the podcast all about the […]
Bear with me here, because this is going to take some explaining as a matter of throat-clearing for this post, which is actually the entire problem. Back in 2021, several film studios filed a lawsuit against ISP RCN, accusing it of ignoring piracy conducted by its customers. That suit mostly followed the same bullshit playbook […]
The DMCA lends itself to abuse. The intent of the law was to limit copyright infringement on services hosting user-generated content by providing safe harbors for service providers who made good faith efforts to respond to DMCA complaints. In practice, the law has forced providers to side with complainants and do very little in the […]
Charge all of your devices this innovative 6-in-1 Wireless Charger. It’s easy to use with its touch buttons and Qi wireless charging for Qi-enabled devices. Beautifully made with a modern look, it can quickly charge your devices, is touch-sensitive allowing you to show the digital clock and calendar, and has an alarm setting. For your […]
Even as Elon first made his bid for Twitter, we highlighted just how little he understood about content moderation and trust & safety. And, that really matters, because, as Nilay Patel pointed out, managing trust & safety basically is the core business of a social media company: “The essential truth of every social network is […]
Big Telecom lobbyists have been working overtime in both the US and EU, trying to get policymakers to force Big Tech to pay them billions in additional subsidies for no coherent reason. We’ve noted for several years how the push is self-serving bullshit by anti-competitive telecom giants, yet thanks to their lobbying influence, the effort shows no sign […]
We’ve long known so-called “predictive policing” is garbage. It’s the same old biased policing, except shinier and more expensive. Every system in place relies on data generated by policework — data instantly tainted by the things cops do, like hassling minorities, engaging in very selective enforcement, and treating people as inherently suspicious just because of […]
Recently, Walled Culture mentioned the problem of orphan works. These are creations, typically books, that are still covered by copyright, but unavailable because the original publisher or distributor has gone out of business, or simply isn’t interested in keeping them in circulation. The problem is that without any obvious point of contact, it’s not possible to […]
The automotive industry is entering into its own subprime crisis. Even before the COVID pandemic led to supply chain issues that vastly inflated car prices, lenders were starting to extend loan periods to make things easier for underfunded purchasers, moving on from the industry standard 3-5 year loans to 84-month baselines that ensure people could […]
Over the last few years, we’ve written a number of stories about a (somewhat silly) trademark dispute between Jack Daniels, makers of whiskey, and VIP Products, makers of doggy chew toys, including one for “Bad Spaniels” that is a pretty clear parody of Jack Daniels. When we had last mentioned the case it was in […]
We’ve known for a while that the Fifth Circuit is staunchly pro-cop. But, in recent months, it’s also shown itself to be no friend of the First Amendment. In September, it suddenly decided the First Amendment doesn’t have anything to do with online speech. It refused to block a Texas law targeting social media services […]
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I know, I know, there are no room for facts in the modern GOP, just feelings. But, still, it’s kind of remarkable just how much they seem committed to the bit that Twitter was actively trying to suppress Republicans to help Joe Biden. There remains zero proof of this. Zero. Over the course of the […]
For much of the last year, European telecom giants have been pushing for a tax on Big Tech company profits. They’ve tried desperately to dress it up as a reasonable adult policy proposal, but it’s effectively just the same thing we saw during the U.S. net neutrality wars: telecom monopolies demanding other people pay them an additional […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Rocky with a lengthy, structured response to a complaint about our coverage of Twitter: “Trolling!? You must mean like gossiping about one minute service outages, and leading the readers to infer that the collapse of Twitter is imminent.” A quick search for “twitter outage” […]
On Tuesday, we announced the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927. Now, as in past years, we’ll be spending the next few weeks taking a closer look at each of the winning games (in no particular order). First up, it’s the winner of the […]
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