What do EFF staffers Sarah Chen, Javier Morales, Caitlin Chin, Emma Rodriguez, and Mikko Kopponen have in common? For one thing, they don’t exist. For another, all have been quoted as EFF experts in articles published in the past two months on a site called News-USA Today, which describes itself as “an independent news publisher focused on clear, accurate, and useful journalism.” Uh… (Please […]
In mid-May, the Todd Blanche-run DOJ agreed to “settle” the fake case Donald Trump had brought against his own IRS. The “settlement”? A $1.776 billion fund to pay reparations to the MAGA faithful. Much of that money was expected to flow to January 6th insurrectionists — many of them convicted of actual crimes that Trump […]
The Trump Organization still hasn’t shipped their promised Trump “made in America” phone to most of the customers who laid down a $100 deposit a year ago. But they did recently start to ship early review copies to a handful of outlets and preferred cultists. What outlets generally found wasn’t surprising: it’s a pretty substandard […]
MagStack is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a floating stand for smartphone FaceTime or video playback while charging. This 3-in-1 foldable design featuring 3 wireless charging spots, enables charging for up to 3 devices simultaneously, including iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, other Qi-compatible Android phones, […]
The Sixth Circuit just handed Ohio a win on its social media law restricting minors, and reading the majority opinion, it’s immediately obvious why: the court fell hook, line, and sinker for the moral panic that social media is inherently poisonous to children. The first few pages of the decision are nothing but cherry-picked, out-of-context […]
It’s no secret ICE officers are using their phones and their tech toys to do way more than they’ll openly admit to doing. Tech tools that can be abused will be abused. And ICE has plenty of those, including an app that’s supposed to be used for “verification” of migrant status, but is just facial […]
This week, MrWilson takers both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, it’s a comment about the growing global threat of internet age gates: One of the biggest benefits of the internet is the ability to talk to people outside your personal sphere. It’s similar to the exposure to diversity that a lot […]
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on […]
I can’t say I know for sure that Stephen Colbert is a Techdirt reader, but I very much believe he is. His interests align somewhat with ours, he often comments on some of the same topics we do, and, it turns out, he decided to troll his previous employer during his last show in a […]
In a voice vote last week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6028, the “Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act.” The legislation is presented as a technical reorganization of some government agencies, but it’s much more than that. H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office, and not in a good way. The bill removes the […]
Senators Ron Wyden and Ted Cruz have released the JAWBONE Act (“Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression Act”) as a way to prevent government suppression of speech. While some of the premises behind it are silly and nonsensical, the actual law is not bad. Of course, if it became law, the Trump admin […]
Here it is: the dumbest defense of automatic license plate readers I’ve ever read. While we can subtract some points because the person writing it has no power to install/un-install/cover in garbage bags surveillance tech, he’s a regular contributor to a long-running newspaper in a major city. And since this paper is still willing to […]
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If there’s one thing that Donald Trump has shown over the years, it’s that he will get his most sycophantic MAGA loyalists to insist there are perfectly obvious reasons why whatever he’s about to do is absolutely necessary… and then Trump will do the opposite, and all those hangers-on will magically change their story within […]
For a long time organizations like the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) have noted how Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Memphis disproportionately pollutes the air in minority neighborhoods. A joint lawsuit by SELC, Earthjustice, and the NAACP filed last April argued that Musk and friends didn’t even bother to get the necessary permits to […]
We were just talking about how angry RFK Jr. was at a report that he’s been out to lunch on most of what HHS’ work entails, choosing instead to focus his time and attention on his own pet interests, like curtailing vaccine programs in America, chasing chemtrails, and a newfound love for snake-handling. Kennedy denied […]
The internet is an essential resource for young people and adults to access information, explore community, and find themselves—both inside countries and across continents. Yet governments around the world continue to introduce and implement legislation requiring all online users to verify their ages before accessing the digital space. In some cases, politicians are going further, putting forth […]
You have less than a week to weigh in on Brendan Carr’s obviously bullshit retaliatory censorial attack on Disney. While it’s quite clear that Carr is likely to ignore the comments, they still very much matter. It needs to be in the public record that the public is against this attack on free speech and […]
The US military has engaged in extrajudicial killings via drone strikes since it was first shown this tech could be used to murder people. The War on Terror has given us more than two decades of drone strikes — all of which have used war-related justifications to excuse them without the actual authorization of Congress. […]
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