In 2018, Laredo (TX) police officers arrested independent journalist Priscilla Villarreal after she published the name of a Border Patrol agent who had committed suicide. The alleged crime was “misuse of official information.” But all Villarreal had done was perform an act of journalism: she had asked Laredo police officer Barbara Goodman to verify information […]
For all the misleading claims about “free speech under attack” in place where it is definitively not under attack (i.e., on social media sites, or via “cancel culture”), there are many areas in which free speech absolutely is under attack, and there may be no bigger one than the (relatively new!) movement to overturn the […]
This week, both our winners on the insightful side come in response to our post about Elon Musk’s new API pricing plan for Twitter. The first place winner is actually a response to the second place winner, so we’ll present them in reverse order. First off, in second place, it’s James Burkhardt responding to Twitter’s […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, while Theresa May was repeating her demands that tech companies control more speech on social media, we hosted a series of posts about content moderation surrounding an event at Santa Clara University, with essays by Eric Goldman, Mike Godwin, Kate Klonick, and more. A UK appeals court said […]
There are plenty of valid reasons to seek a search warrant. Investigating a crime you can’t punish anyone for (because you’ve killed them) isn’t one of them. That’s the upshot of this recent federal court decision — one that will no doubt be appealed to the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court to see if the cop-friendly […]
Roughly a year ago, we discussed Russia’s response to some of the sanctions the West was placing upon it, including its plan to simply legalize copyright infringement, so as to keep the country running despite the crippling sanctions. That blanket legalization plan morphed somewhat months later, when Russia instead pivoted to a plan to create […]
As we noted recently in reporting on the FEC dismissing the Republican’s laughably ridiculous complaint that Google was dumping their fundraising emails into the spam folder as an “in-kind contribution” to Democrats, there was still the GOP’s even more ridiculous lawsuit. Last week, Google filed its response, and it’s… worth reading to see how thoroughly […]
Geofence warrants get all the hype. But Google also stores other data of interest to law enforcement: Google searches. With these warrants, law enforcement asks Google to search its repositories for certain searches performed by users. Once the government has this data in hand, it will start asking Google to narrow things down. And, once […]
People keep claiming that Mastodon isn’t scaring Elon Musk, but it’s pretty clear that he’s worried about the exodus of people from Twitter. With his bizarrely short-sighted decision to end free access to the Twitter API, driving developers over to Mastodon, some people realized that the various tools that people use to find their Twitter […]
Aspiring filmmakers, YouTubers, bloggers, and business owners alike can find something to love about the Complete Video Production Super Bundle. Video content is fast changing from the future marketing tool to the present, and in these 10 courses you’ll learn how to make professional videos on any budget. From the absolute basics to the advanced shooting […]
The evidence-free moral panic over social media keeps getting stupider, and when things get particularly stupid about the internet, you can pretty much rely on Utah politicians being there to proudly embrace the terrible ideas. The latest are a pair of bills that seem to be on the fast track, even in Utah’s short legislative […]
Last August, cable giant Charter Communications (Spectrum) was slapped with a $7 billion lawsuit after one of the company’s cable technicians murdered an 83-year-old customer after hours. The lawsuit (pdf) claims that Charter had eliminated a more rigorous screening process when they merged with Time Warner Cable, letting the employee and his history slip through the cracks. […]
Back in August last year, Techdirt covered a major announcement by the US government that all taxpayer-supported research should be immediately available to the public at no cost. As Mike wrote at the time, this is really big, not least for the following key element mentioned in the press release: This policy guidance will end […]
With the rise of ChatGPT over the past few months, the inevitable moral panics have begun. We’ve seen a bunch of people freaking out about how ChatGPT will be used by students to do their homework, how it will replace certain jobs, and other claims. Most of these are totally overblown. While some cooler heads […]
Last November, The Verge discovered that Anker, the maker of popular USB chargers and the Eufy line of “smart” cameras, had a bit of a security issue. Despite the fact the company advertised its Eufy cameras as having “end-to-end” military-grade encryption, security researcher Paul Moore and a hacker named Wasabi found it was pretty easy to intercept […]
Huh. It had actually felt like quite some time since Elon Musk had last done something so stupid as to send a new bunch of users to Mastodon. But, apparently he can’t go that long without helping to do so. Last night, I had actually started working on a story about how developers were increasingly […]
If you’re a good company, you try to make customers happy and deal honestly with their complaints. If you’re Liberty Bell Moving and Storage, Inc., you threaten unhappy customers with lawsuits and steadily escalating fees for expressing their displeasure with your service. It seems only the worst entities insist on tucking non-disparagement clauses into their […]
The Complete Excel, VBA, and Data Science Training Bundle has 13 courses to introduce you to the basics of data science. You’ll start with beginner courses on Excel, Python, Machine Learning, and VBA. You’ll move on to more advanced skills like automating spreadsheets, working with Pivot Tables, creating financial models, and more. It’s on sale […]
Believe it or not, there are some interesting, if confusing, unsettled copyright law questions regarding interviews. A few times in the past we’ve written about the subjects of interviews claiming copyright over those interviews (or the estate’s of deceased individuals making such claims). There was even a law journal article a few years back exploring […]
For a while there, everybody’s least favorite cable company, Comcast, was weathering the cord cutting revolution fairly well. The company’s losses on the cable TV side could simply be recouped over on its broadband side, where a monopoly protected it from having to actually, you know, try. Things have shifted. Last year, Comcast saw a […]
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