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The 404 Awards: Honoring The Worst Of The Worst Tech Policy Ideas

2 years 5 months ago
Today is April 4th, or 04/04 no matter which direction you use for showing dates (and, look, while it’s ingrained in my head, I think we can all admit that the US version of month/day/year is kinda weird.). But, error code 404 is (somewhat famously) the HTML code for “page not found.” In the early […]
Mike Masnick

Techdirt Podcast Episode 349: Link Taxes Are Bad, Canada Edition

2 years 5 months ago
Legacy media operations really, really want tech companies that send them traffic to pay them as well. From Rupert Murdoch’s link tax in Australia to the very bad JCPA in America, these requirements are nonsensical and run directly counter to the core functioning of the internet. Currently, one of the biggest pushes for such a […]
Leigh Beadon

Without Verification, What Is The Point Of Elon Musk’s Twitter?

2 years 5 months ago
Elon Musk’s Twitter fundamentally misunderstands what made Twitter useful in the first place. In an attempt to wring blood from a stone, Twitter’s announced that all the original “blue checks”—initially created as a way to verify that someone was who they said they were—will disappear on April 1st. Instead, blue checks will once again be […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: PlayStation Plus Essential 12-Month Subscription

2 years 5 months ago
Unleash the power of PlayStation and explore hundreds of incredible games with a new choice of membership plan. With PlayStation Plus Essential, you’ll get to enjoy all the core PlayStation Plus benefits: join your friends in online multiplayer, add new games to your collection every month, get incredible deals from PlayStation Store, and more. Relive some […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Google Fiber Returns From The Dead To Deliver Actual Broadband Competition To Iowa

2 years 5 months ago
Back in 2016, Alphabet executives made it pretty clear they had grown tired of trying to disrupt the U.S. broadband industry with Google Fiber. Executives were fired, hundreds of employees were laid off, and any real expansion in the project was effectively frozen. Alphabet and Google Fiber executives then just pretended none of this had happened […]
Karl Bode

Canada Follows U.S. Lead On Mindless Consolidation With Rogers, Shaw Merger Approval

2 years 5 months ago
In both Canada and the U.S., there’s no shortage of evidence that consolidation in telecom and media hasn’t been great for telecom and media — or employers, competition, or consumers. That’s not really stopping regulators in either country, who continue to approve massive harmful megadeals with only the pretense of meaningful review. Canada’s just approved […]
Karl Bode

Far Right Troll ‘Ricky Vaughn’ Convicted Of Election Interference For Tricking People Into Voting By Phone

2 years 5 months ago
Earlier this year, a federal court dismissed almost all of a far right troll’s challenge to the criminal case brought against him by the DOJ. “Ricky Vaughn” is a notorious social media presence — one who’s been repeatedly suspended and banned for his never-ending string of shitheelishness. I don’t sympathize with Douglass Mackey, better known […]
Tim Cushing

The DEA Has Added Apple’s AirTags To Its Surveillance Arsenal

2 years 5 months ago
Apple tried to create something useful and ended up empowering awful people. Meant to help its users keep an eye on things that were important to them, the small tracking devices known as AirTags were soon exploited by stalkers to track and harass their targets, leading to a class action lawsuit against the company by […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: Deepstash Bite-Sized Knowledge

2 years 5 months ago
Deepstash is a platform for finding and organizing the ideas that matter to you. It helps you become more inspired and productive through bite-sized ideas. In Deepstash, you find ideas on topics like personal development, art and culture, mindfulness, and more. These ideas are represented as little cards you can read at a glance. All […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

2 years 5 months ago
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is weevie833 bringing some facts to the conversation about the perception of Conservative bias in Twitter content moderation: Here is a research study (like, actual research) that provides nuance to the perception of Conservative bias in Twitter account deplatforming. Keep in mind that (as obvious […]
Leigh Beadon

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Escape From 1927

2 years 5 months ago
We’re nearing the end of our series of posts showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927. So far we’ve featured Best Remix winner Lucia, Best Visuals winner Urbanity, Best Adaptation winner To And Again, and Best Deep Cut winner The Pigeon Wager. Today, […]
Leigh Beadon

Stupid Patent Of The Month: Traxcell Tech Gets Ordered To Pay Attorneys’ Fees 

2 years 5 months ago
If someone loses a patent lawsuit very badly—to the point where they face orders to pay attorneys’ fees—you wouldn’t think they would be eager to come back to court with a nearly identical lawsuit. But that’s what has happened with this month’s patent. What’s more, the lawyer representing the patent owner, William Ramey, has been […]
Mike Masnick