We’ve frequently noted how stupid it is that we’ve ceded a major communications platform to robocalling scammers and scumbags. We’ve noted for just as long that many regulatory “solutions” to the robocall problem have been dumb and half-hearted. Every six months the FCC will announce some new plan they promise will demolish robocalls, and every […]
I love this story so much I want it to find other similar vulgar stories so that those stories can have little baby vulgar stories for me to read. You may recall the saga of Erik Brunetti, founder of FUCT, a fashion brand with a name supposedly standing for Friends U Can’t Trust. We wrote […]
We have discussed at great lengths the many problems of the UK’s Online Safety Bill, in particular how it will be a disaster for the open internet. Unfortunately, it appears that important politicians seem to think that the Online Safety Bill will be a sort of magic wand that will make the “bad stuff” online […]
Lie down with dogs, get put in the position of producing potentially damning evidence. That’s the lesson NSO is going to learn if this lawsuit goes any further. Israeli tech firm NSO Group has sold its malware to plenty of questionable customers and, thanks to an endless stream of revelations about misuse of its phone […]
I really don’t have time for this kind of thing, but I wanted to pass along that it appears that the California legislature is very, very close to passing AB 2273, “The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act.” As far as I can tell, it has strong support in the legislature and very little opposition. And […]
There’s a vast difference between what the government thinks it should know vs. what it’s actually entitled to know. And when the government decides more surveillance is needed, the most frequent targets are non-citizens (even if they’re legal residents) and children. Children are vulnerable. In the name of protecting children, the government often exploits the […]
The 2022 FullStack Web Developer Bundle has 11 courses to help you step up your game as a developer. You’ll learn frontend and backend web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL, and PHP. You’ll also learn how to use Git and GitHub, Vuex, Docker, Ramda, and more. The bundle is on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt […]
We already wrote a long story looking at many of the eye-opening claims from Peiter “Mudge” Zatko in his whistleblower report regarding Twitter’s security operations, and the possibility that the company both has shit security practices and violated its FTC consent decree regarding those security practices. As I noted, the report is a mixed bag […]
If you recall, AT&T spent nearly $200 billion on megamergers thinking it was going to dominate the online video advertising space. But after spending a fortune on DirecTV and Time Warner, laying off 50,000 people, killing off popular properties like Mad Magazine and DC’s Vertigo imprint, it quickly became clear that AT&T executives had absolutely […]
I guess I shouldn’t be shocked, but the trademark and publicity rights dispute between Disney and K&K Promotions, the company that manages the rights for the late stuntman Evel Knievel, was still ongoing until recently. If you’re not aware of what I’m talking about, the movie Toy Story 4 included a character named Duke Caboom, […]
So, look, I’ve been pretty clear that for as much as Elon Musk refers to himself as a “free speech absolutist,” his actions suggest otherwise. He has regularly punished people for their speech, he recently embraced the EU’s highly censorial plans for social media regulation, and his filings in the Twitter case suggest that he […]
Let’s get this out of the way immediately: the FBI is not a trustworthy agency. It has a long history of civil rights abuses, national security power abuses, and has spent more than four years refusing to be honest about the effect device encryption has on investigations. But to pretend the recent raid on Donald […]
Both CNN and the Washington Post are running stories today about Peiter Zatko, better known as Mudge, filing whistleblower reports on Twitter’s security practices, including a few shocking claims. Twitter is denying many of the claims and, frankly, at this point it’s difficult to tell who’s correct. However, I will note that Mudge is widely […]
The Florida Politics site has a report on what appears to a be truly despicable individual running for the Florida state house with horrifically dangerous ideas — who has now been banned from Twitter. The article notes that he’s still on Instagram and Facebook, though it looks like the same message that got him banned […]
The Duex Max + Mini Mouse Bundle is the perfect companion for your laptop. The Duex Max features landscape mode, portrait mode, presentation mode, eye care mode, and kickstand mode. You can easily pair your Duex Max with any laptop or device, including a Nintendo Switch and select Android phones, via USB-C or USB-A connection. […]
On August 23rd, 1997, I sent out this emailed newsletter — which was then called Up-To-Date — to various business school colleagues. That was exactly 25 years ago, and that began dragging me down the path of what became Techdirt early the following year (when I realized it might be nice to have a website […]
The writing has been on the wall for a while, but streaming TV has finally surpassed traditional cable in terms of overall viewership numbers for the first time ever. According to viewership tracking firm Nielsen (who once upon a time called the cord cutting revolution “purely fiction“) streaming saw a 34.8 percent overall viewership in […]
Why do bad cops stay employed for years while good cops find themselves out of their jobs? The answer will not surprise you. The answer is not so complicated as it is filled with infuriating details. Cops drive fast because they have tacit permission to do so. Almost any reason will do. A deputy who […]
For many years now, Tesla has referred to its various driver assistance tools as “full self-driving” and then acted shocked and surprised when people point out that it’s nowhere near what any normal human being would consider “full self-driving.” That, of course, hasn’t stopped Tesla boss Elon Musk from repeatedly promoting Full Self-Driving and insisting […]
All aboard the schadenfreude train! It’s always a pleasure to see denizens of the various Islands of Misfit Social Media Users get bent out of shape when their platform of choice (and by that I mean the options they had left after getting excommunicated by actually popular social media services) does regular-ass things that are […]
stLouIST