The moral high ground is almost impossible to hold. The United States has portrayed itself as the world ideal for personal freedom and government accountability, despite those holding power working tirelessly to undermine both of those ideals. It’s not that other world governments aren’t as bad or worse. It’s that “whataboutism” isn’t an excuse for […]
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Get access to our special online anniversary event » Techdirt began in 1997 as a simple newsletter about the latest technology news. Now, over 75,000 posts and nearly 2-million comments later, we’re celebrating our 25th anniversary! To mark the occasion, we’re holding a special online event on September 9th, 2022 at 11am PT / 2pm ET, where […]
Donald Trump has spent much of this week raging over on Truth Social and passing on nonsense QAnon conspiracy theory bullshit. And now it comes out that Google has so far refused to approve the Android app of Truth Social for the Google Play store, in large part over Truth Social’s failure to moderate violent […]
As a publicly traded company, it’s simply not good enough to provide an affordable service that people genuinely like. The pressure to deliver quarter over quarter growth often takes on a tendency toward auto-cannibalism; price hikes, customer support cuts, dumb ideas justified through greed, all designed to goose growth, but often at the cost of […]
As humanity marches on towards the expansion of artificial intelligence, we are finding many ways to use this technology while waiting for it to get smart enough to kill us all and bring on the Age of the Robot. Platforms have attempted to solve the impossibility of moderation at scale by employing AI, with no […]
Were you ever so terrible at your job that your entire place of employment was put out of business? Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that none of you are that inept or unprofessional. But it only takes one bad apple to result in the tossing of the whole bunch, provided that the […]
Chattanooga, Tennessee is one of a growing number of U.S. cities to build its own broadband network. The ISP, tacked on to the city’s existing EPB electricity utility, has routinely delivered speeds faster and more affordable than the services provided by regional utilities like Comcast. While community-run broadband is portrayed as boondoggle socialism by telecom […]
Israeli exploit developer NSO Group has drawn a lot of heat over the past several months after it was revealed its malware had been deployed by its customers to target dissidents, journalists, opposition leaders, and other people governments don’t like but aren’t normally considered to be terrorists or criminals. The sleek, award-winning Pegasus malware developed […]
You may have heard last week that Moderna is suing Pfizer, claiming that Pfizer’s COVID vaccine violates Moderna’s patents. You can read the legal complaint which is full of bluster about how brilliant Moderna is and how it saved the world and blah blah blah. While it does mention that Moderna teamed up with the […]
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More than nine years of news cycles ago, the initial Snowden leak dropped. The next few years were filled with lawsuits, extensive news coverage, reform efforts (some better than others), the unplanned retirement of one bulk collection program, and an uptick in public outcry against large-scale government surveillance programs. Nearly a decade later, the NSA’s […]
The reversal of Roe is resulting in dramatic new pressures on privacy reform, given how easily consumer location data can be weaponized against abortion seekers and those helping them. Not just by authoritarian-leaning state governments, but potentially by vigilantes who’ll find little trouble buying such data on the cheap from a wide array of irresponsible […]
Denuvo is back! While the company only got a single mention in 8 months thus far in 2022, the once-vaunted antipiracy DRM company made quite the splash in the years prior. If you don’t want to go through tens and tens of posts about Denuvo, I can give you a quick breakdown. Denuvo DRM was […]
Police accountability has been a hot topic for years now. Recent events have increased demands for accountability. And, as demands have increased, so have legislative efforts to shield cops from accountability. Arizona lawmakers have been doing what they can for cops for a few years now. With plenty of court precedent upholding a First Amendment […]
We’ve got a cross-post episode for you this week! Recently, Mike appeared on the Walled Culture podcast to discuss a wide range of topics including reflections on the SOPA/PIPA fight, ways to support creators, and the world of NFTs. You can listen to the entire interview on this week’s episode of the Techdirt Podcast. Follow […]
The pattern is pretty common: young companies innovate, older companies litigate. When you can’t keep up and you can’t succeed by beating the market, you turn to the courts to try to squeeze cash out of those more successful than you. Often this involves patent lawsuits or handing your unused patents off to patent trolls […]
While this ruling [PDF] is likely correct under current Fourth Amendment case law, it does raise questions about the propriety of mass data grabs that aren’t particularized to suspected criminals or investigation targets. (h/t Orin Kerr) Tennessee resident Matthew Bledsoe was recently convicted during a jury trial for his participation in the January 6, 2021 […]
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Next Friday, September 9th, we’ll be hosting our 25th anniversary event. We’ll post the actual details later this week, but the best way to make sure you can attend is to be a regular paying subscriber to Techdirt. You can back us via the qualifying Techdirt Insider packages (Crystal Ball, Watercooler, or Behind the Curtain — or the equivalent […]
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