After years of saying password sharing wasn’t really a big deal and was akin to free advertising, Netflix recently announced it would be cracking down on password sharing. It started with a new trial in the global south where users were nagged until they paid an additional fee if they shared their password with users outside of […]
We’ve written a few stories lately about DoNotPay, the “robot lawyer” service whose gimmick of an automated AI-driven tool that would help users deal with challenges like getting out of parking tickets or cancelling subscription services that are difficult to get out of sounds like a really enticing idea. But there have long been questions […]
I just want to share some back-of-the-envelope math. I’m increasingly convinced that Twitter (or at least the network neighborhoods that comprise my Twitter experience) is becoming a ghost town. Here’s why: A couple months ago, I spoke with Nancy Scola for her story about why DC-types can’t seem to quit Twitter. One of my comments […]
There have been a bunch of stories about how one of Elon’s big “cost saving” techniques was to stop paying for basically anything, including rent. To cut costs, Twitter has not paid rent for its San Francisco headquarters or any of its global offices for weeks, three people close to the company said. Twitter has […]
It’s rare to see a cop charged with murder. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was not only charged but convicted (!) of murder after kneeling on the neck of George Floyd for nearly 10 minutes, and for three minutes after another officer told Chauvin he could no longer detect Floyd’s pulse. Officer Chavin — an […]
If it can conceivably be considered a “third party record,” the government is going to seek warrantless access to it. The Third Party Doctrine — ushered into existence by the Supreme Court in 1979 — says there’s no expectation of privacy in information shared with third parties. That case dealt with phone records. People may […]
ByteBoi is an open-source retro game console that you can assemble and code yourself. It can be coded in Make Code Arcade – an awesome online coding interface with a bunch of examples and tutorials. You can even use your ByteBoi for remote controlling your Wheelson because of the built-in Wi-Fi chipset. Build your own […]
We knew that Elon Musk had driven away tons of top advertisers, which is kind of a big deal, as the company has been desperate for revenue, if only to cover the interest payments Elon loaded the company with by using a $13 billion loan as part of his $44 billion purchase. Elon keeps talking […]
Apple has never looked too kindly upon users actually repairing their own devices. The company’s ham-fisted efforts to shut down, sue, or otherwise imperil third-party repair shops are legendary. As are the company’s efforts to force recycling shops to shred Apple products (so they can’t be refurbished and re-used). That’s before you get to Apple’s often comical attacks on […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is PaulT with a comment about just one of the many problematic details about the DoNotPay “AI lawyer”: “Josh added a clause to the TOS prohibiting users from testing the website prior to using it in a live dispute.” Because if there’s anything a software […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, the FCC was backing off its plans to weaken the definition of broadband, but still couldn’t admit that limited competition is a problem, and was apparently hoping that some phony dedication to rural broadband would distract people from how it just killed net neutrality. The State of Montana […]
You will recall that we spent a great deal of words and posts in 2021 discussing the problems Twitch created for itself by deciding to suddenly change the way it enforces copyright infringement claims for its streaming community, mostly without informing that community of those changes and remaining extremely opaque and vague about the standards […]
Well, a lot has happened since I first started looking into the “World’s First Robot Lawyer,” from DoNotPay. First, Joshua Browder, DoNotPay’s CEO, reached out to me via direct message (DM) and told me he would get me access to my documents by 2 PM the next day – Tuesday, January 24th – saying that […]
About a half-decade ago, major social media companies finally did something to prevent their platforms from being used to engage in mass surveillance. Prompted by revelations in public records, Twitter and Facebook began cutting off API access to certain data scrapers that sold their services to government agencies. Twitter blocked both Dataminr and Geofeedia from […]
It’s impossible to be the “aggressor” of the free world. Those words just don’t make sense together. “Defender of the free world,” maybe. If you’re going on the offensive, it seems unlikely you’re there to protect anyone’s freedoms. But that appears to be where America is heading: the aggressor that somehow protects rights and freedoms […]
We’ve explained how telecom and media giants have pulled out all the stops trying to block Gigi Sohn from being seated at the FCC. That has involved a sleazy smear campaign, seeded in the press by non-profits linked to companies like News Corporation, AT&T, and Comcast, falsely accusing Sohn of being a radical extremist who […]
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There have been a whole bunch of antitrust lawsuits filed against Google over the last few years. The DOJ filed one in October of 2020 that was pathetically weak. That one seemed like it was Attorney General Bill Barr appeasing then President Trump with what Trump hoped would be an election-boosting attack on “evil woke […]
We’ve already noted how HBO and Discovery executives keep demonstrating the immense, pointless harm of media megamergers. You’ll recall AT&T’s $200 billion acquisition of Time Warner and DirecTV wound up being a hot mess, forcing AT&T to take a huge loss and run for the exits after laying off more than 50,000 employees. The subsequent […]
In a move that shouldn’t really surprise anyone, Meta has said that both Facebook and Instagram will be restoring Donald Trump’s accounts, which it had “indefinitely” suspended in the wake of the January 6th insurrection two years ago. As you’ll recall, after that suspension, the Oversight Board had agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of the […]
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