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In what was a severely belated response to acts of violence by immigration enforcement officers, “Border Czar” (who seems far more interested in raiding inland cities than patrolling the border) Tom Homan assured the nation that all ICE officers would soon be wearing body cameras. The only holdup, he said, was a lack of funding. […]

You may have seen the headlines about a Microsoft employee calling AI scraping “the largest theft of labor in human history.” It made the rounds on social media, with plenty of people insisting it was a slam dunk admission of criminality. I think I saw this gif applied to it multiple times: It certainly doesn’t […]

This story was originally published by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C. For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger […]

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The true nature of hastily erected ICE detention facilities — especially the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” erected in Trump buddy Ron DeSantis’s home state — was called out by Mike Masnick shortly after its debut last June: There’s no way to look at what the US government is doing here and not think of it more […]

Earlier this week we noted how California Democrats fecklessly folded to Paramount’s demands and settled the 12-state antitrust lawsuit against Paramount’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. We also noted how the conditions affixed to the deal are largely pathetic, and generally consist of a lot of performative fluff Paramount itself recommended and California AG […]

A theme going on many years here at Techdirt has been the idea that separating content and advertising, as was the traditional model, makes far less sense in the modern era. Audiences are no longer captive in the way they used to be, with many ways to skip advertising. Entertainment vectors are far more plentiful […]

Since its integration into our digital world, social media has played a pivotal role in youth organizing and social mobilization. Yet, people’s access to these platforms is increasingly coming under threat from courts and legislatures under the guise of protecting young people online—presenting a significant hindrance to youth organizing.   In a major recent example, Meta settled in a lawsuit with 52 states and territories regarding the use of Instagram and Facebook by young people. The settlement will require Meta, and […]

Ever since Trump’s return to office, almost every federal law enforcement agency has been ordered to treat illegal immigration as their first priority. This is why the administration is gutting FEMA to direct more dollars to detention and removal efforts. And that’s why ICE is now the administration’s largest law enforcement budget line item. To […]

When Elon first took over Twitter with grand plans to “bring back free speech,” I tried to help him run through the standard content moderation learning curve that basically every site created by a clueless tech bro runs through. They all start with “we’re the free speech site, we allow everything!” and very quickly someone […]

The Soundfreaq Sound Spot II combines wireless audio performance, ambient lighting, and relaxing sound features in a compact design built for modern lifestyles. Featuring a Bamboo and White finish with eco-friendly materials, this Bluetooth speaker complements bedrooms, offices, living rooms, and personal spaces while delivering both style and functionality. Engineered with a custom-designed audio driver, […]

I love everything about this. I love the way this ICE officer was picked up. I love the fact that his lawyer claims an arrest is the same thing as “surrendering.” And I especially love the fact that this officer is in state custody only a day prior to scheduled court appearance to face federal […]

There was a four year span where Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr simply couldn’t stop hyperventilating about the fact that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was Chinese. Carr would appear on cable news pretty much every week to endlessly rant about the potential propaganda, privacy, and NatSec impact of what was (at best) fairly murky Chinese […]

Amazon recently debuted a new feature for its Ring cameras that the company is calling Throw Away the Key Encryption (TAKE). The idea is to cut back on the amount of video content available to the company, and thus potentially available to law enforcement. But while it might technically add a speed bump to accessing full video […]

The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions around […]

Satire is dead. But it’s been dead since the first Trump administration, back when people were “owning the libs” with a combination of horse dewormers and willfully contracting COVID. Bleach consumption was discussed. It was a whole thing. Not enough of those people died, apparently. We somehow got a second season of Trump and at […]

California AG Rob Bonta has caved to what was a relentless, bipartisan pressure campaign to settle the 12 state antitrust lawsuit against Paramount. The AGs sued Paramount last July, arguing (correctly) that the $111 billion deal would largely be anti-competitive, resulting in mass layoffs as the even bigger Larry Ellison-owned company forces labor and consumers […]

Apparently autumn is when President Donald Trump feels free to admit to his anti-free speech, anti-free press ways. For a guy who constantly lied about being in support of free speech, despite regularly suing people and news organizations for their speech, he’s been remarkably willing to admit to wanting to abuse power to suppress speech […]

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When we picture the end of the world, the first thing that springs to mind is typically the cinematic version of “things going wrong.” We picture the musical score rising to a crescendo as the climactic events take place.  Our heroes are fighting to stop some big giant, unstoppable threat. Even if they are ultimately […]