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Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Putting Some Meat On The Bans

1 week 5 days ago
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 […]
Mike Masnick

JK Rowling Threatens To Sue Amnesty International Into Oblivion For Expressing An Opinion About A Charity She Funds

1 week 5 days ago
JK Rowling has spoken about how she wrote the first Harry Potter book while she was employed at Amnesty International and how much that experience influenced her writing, and how she learned “the power of human empathy” from working there. Rowling was also, you’ll recall, one of the high profile signers of the infamous Harper’s […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: 6-in-1 Magstand Mini Magnetic Charge Station + Bedside Lamp

1 week 5 days ago
Simplify your daily charging experience and replace most of the chargers and cables on your desktop, with this one mini station that does it all. The 6-in-1 Magstand Mini Magnetic Charge Station is a mini charging station that gives you full control over how much your favorite gadgets get charged. It features 3 wireless charging […]
Daily Deal

The Documents Trump Declassified To Blame China For The 2020 Election… Actually Show Russia Was The One Meddling For Him

1 week 5 days ago
You might have heard that Donald Trump gave a weird, rambling, nonsense speech last night full of misinformation and lies, trying to spread distrust in our electoral process ahead of the 2026 midterms — so that when Republicans likely lose some of the power they currently wield across the government, Trump and his allies can […]
Mike Masnick

Trump Just Made It Easier For Your ISP To Rip You Off With Bogus Fees

1 week 5 days ago
Here’s a short crash course in U.S. telecom policy. Giant and very unpopular companies like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Charter created regional monopolies that work tirelessly to erode all meaningful competition and oversight, resulting in high prices, spotty service, slower speeds, and abysmal customer service. They also pay a bunch of dodgy pseudo-academic “free market” […]
Karl Bode

FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount As The Company Needed Approval For Billion-Dollar Deals

1 week 6 days ago
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. The rich and famous who filed into the Kennedy Center’s opera house in December were there to enjoy one of the nation’s most exclusive celebrations of the performing arts: the center’s annual honors gala. The black-tie event, hosted by President Donald Trump, prioritized tickets to people […]
Corey G. Johnson

Cops Continue To Prove They Can’t Be Trusted With Surveillance Tech

1 week 6 days ago
This is probably nothing more than another data point in a deluge, but it’s worth pointing out because it’s instructive. Cops are using a whole lot of surveillance tech these days. Flock Safety has been especially aggressive in pursuing the law enforcement market, offering cops access to a nationwide network of cameras, including many owned […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The 2026 Microsoft Azure Architect & Administrator Exam Prep Bundle

1 week 6 days ago
The 2026 Microsoft Azure Architect & Administrator Exam Prep Bundle has 9 courses covering a wide range of Azure skills designed to help you pass your certification exams. Courses also include hands-on sections to help you put into practice what the lessons have covered. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is […]
Daily Deal

Florida’s Stop WOKE Act Shut Down (Again) By Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court

1 week 6 days ago
Florida Republicans’ bigoted little piece of speech policing — the former “Stop WOKE Act” — has already been terminated multiple times by federal courts. Two lawsuits with two sets of plaintiffs have generated the same results: a ruling declaring the law unconstitutional and an injunction blocking the state from enforcing it. The law aims to […]
Tim Cushing

Writers Guild Of America Also Sues Paramount, Citing Looming Merger Layoff Bloodbath

1 week 6 days ago
Not long after twelve states sued Paramount claiming its $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers would harm market competition, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) filed their own lawsuit, warning that the massive debt load from the media industry’s latest megamerger will result in an ocean of layoffs for an already reeling U.S. entertainment industry. […]
Karl Bode

A Troubling Milestone: Most Supreme Court Rulings Are Secretive Votes With Little Justification

2 weeks ago
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. In its term that ended last October, the Supreme Court passed an important milestone that went unnoticed: For the first time, it decided more cases by secret ballot, and with few signed opinions, than it did for cases argued in open court. These decisions, which make […]
Ken B. Morales

Rubio Wanted To Ban ‘Censors’ From Entering The US. A Court Says He’s The One Censoring.

2 weeks ago
Last year, the Marco Rubio-run State Department announced that it would start denying visas to people who worked in misinformation/disinformation research, content moderation, fact-checking, or other compliance and trust & safety roles. So, yeah, if you were an EU-based person who worked on preventing child sexual abuse material from appearing online, the US government decided […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: Opusonix Pro Subscription

2 weeks ago
Opusonix is the workflow-first platform built for music producers and engineers who are tired of endless email chains and scattered files. By centralizing feedback, versions, and tasks in one structured workspace, it helps you cut email traffic by up to 90% so you can focus more on creating and less on chasing approvals. From time-coded […]
Daily Deal

Kash Patel Continues To Draw Heat For His Exorbitant Spending Habits

2 weeks ago
Donald Trump believes that being elected president means he should never be challenged, never be asked to justify his actions, and never be given less than absolute loyalty and deference. He also clearly believes the office is there to serve him, rather than there for him to serve the public. He’s going to make bank […]
Tim Cushing

NYC Passes Click To Cancel Rules As Lina Khan Lives On

2 weeks ago
In late 2024 the Biden FTC under Lina Khan passed new “click to cancel” rules that made it easier to cancel subscriptions and services, promising to punish the worst offenders. It was a direct response to decades of sleazy behavior from companies (from AOL to the Wall Street Journal) that made cancelling services an overly […]
Karl Bode