The FBI’s shift from law enforcement to counter-terrorism began shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, but really took off about a decade later, when it got into the business of radicalizing internet randos to turn them into “terrorists” worth hitting with material support charges. While the FBI continued to pretend it was making the […]
As we’ve long noted, the Trump era attack on net neutrality was one of the more grotesque examples of regulatory capture and corruption in Internet policy history. The rules, which imposed some very modest restrictions on giant telecom monopolies to prevent them from abusing market power, were very popular among consumers of all political stripes. […]
Beyond the overproduced marketing videos and janky product prototypes closely associated today with “the metaverse” lies a bright and boundless future. In a pandemic-stricken world that imposes more and stronger barriers at every turn—whether they be medical, social, legal, economic, or geopolitical—there is magic in transposing the spirit of a global free and open internet […]
A lawsuit filed by four protesters against three Boston police officers can move forward, following a federal judge’s determination that the cops’ counterarguments were too ridiculous to be granted credence. The plaintiffs were participating in one of thousands of protests that erupted following the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white […]
I guess it’s only natural that the UK’s Online Safety Bill — brilliantly dubbed the bill to Brexit the internet by Heather Burns — is getting delayed, just like the regular Brexit. And, no surprise, Boris Johnson is part of the issue again. As you’ll have likely heard, if you haven’t been under a rock, […]
Welcome back to the negative news cycle, Ring! It’s been awhile. Ring has spent years cultivating so-close-they’re-incestuous relationships with law enforcement agencies. Ring hands out free/cheap cameras to cop shops, asking in return that they hand them out to the townsfolk and nudge them towards sharing footage via Ring’s own highly problematic social media platform, […]
Last week, I wrote about Twitter’s opening legal salvo in its case to try to force Elon Musk to pay the $44 billion he agreed to pay for Twitter (or, more likely, to try to force him to pay a very large settlement to walk away). As we noted, it was a very strongly argued […]
Get started in the exciting world of electronics with this complete Arduino Uno compatible starter kit. It’s specifically designed for those new to electronics and the Arduino Uno ecosystem. It has everything you need to learn about electronics and comes with FUN projects you can build right out of the box. It’s on sale for […]
Read our new report on broadband competition in America » We’re excited today to release the Copia Institute’s latest report, written by Karl Bode, on the benefits of an open access fiber model to enable much more widespread competition in the broadband space. As I’m sure you know, for huge parts of the US, there […]
One of the reasons that propaganda mills like Fox News don’t take a bigger hit from advertising boycotts is because U.S. consumers pay billions of dollars annually for the channel, even if they don’t watch it. More specifically, Fox rakes in $1.8 billion in carriage fees to include the channel in bloated cable bundles, despite […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Toom1275 with a comment about the GOP’s push to force Google to stop filtering political spam: This sounds like great idea if you’re a malware spammer – just dress up your payload delivery like a political email to get straight in everyone’s inbox, and […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2017, as a new study shed more light on America’s terrible broadband access situation, many people were gearing up for a day of protest in support of net neutrality. After long being holdouts, Facebook and Google finally joined, followed by the laughable move of AT&T getting on board, though […]
Another school has learned it can’t discipline students for off-campus behavior, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s “fuck cheer” decision. Teens do stupid things. Sometimes they do them at school and the school is free to punish them. Sometimes they do them elsewhere and that’s where the limits kick in. That’s what the Cherry […]
It’s no secret that Techdirt believes YouTube’s copyright enforcement program is an absolute mess. On the one hand, it’s difficult to be too hard on the company. After all, it is trying to figure out how to enforce draconian copyright laws in countries like America at a scale that is absolutely absurd. On the other […]
Just a few weeks back we talked about how the US’s unwillingness to fix the way the NSA collects internet data could basically mean that most of the big US internet services cannot work in the EU. That article was about Google, and it goes through the background and history of the various US/EU privacy […]
Over the last few months we’ve been covering this bizarre story of how Republican politicians, pushed by their preferred spamming provider (which misrepresented a study on how email providers treat political spam), have been falsely claiming that Google is “censoring” their political emails. They’ve also been pushing a law that would require email providers not […]
We’ve long noted how U.S. broadband maps are a bit of a dumpster fire. U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $350 million for FCC broadband maps that overstate broadband availability and speeds, downplay widespread monopolization and consolidation, and can’t even be bothered to measure affordability, one of the biggest obstacles to widespread adoption. You only […]
Charge your device or illuminate your desk with 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 device and is touch-sensitive allowing you to show the digital clock and calendar. For your convenience, […]
Courts (with the rare exception) are in agreement: there’s a First Amendment right to film cops. With every citizen carrying a camera these days, there’s a lot more filming happening. And those recordings have often proven key when cops face criminal charges for violating rights or, you know, murdering people. It’s little wonder cops aren’t […]
When last we checked in with right-wing propaganda network One America News (OAN), it was suffering some kind of embolism for being kicked off of DirecTV. Despite a lot of attention, not that many people actually watch the channel, so DirecTV finally kicked it aside. This was distorted by OAN and numerous key Republicans into […]
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