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Back in 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided there was nothing wrong with the indefinite gag orders the government slapped on its (extremely plentiful) National Security Letters (NSL). It told Cloudflare, Credo Mobile, and other parties challenging these gag orders that the Constitution remains untroubled by the government’s demands for silence, which could […]
Back when Netflix was a pesky upstart trying to claw subscribers away from entrenched cable providers, the company had a pretty lax approach to users who shared streaming passwords. At one point CEO Reed Hastings went so far as to say he “loved” password sharing, seeing it as akin to free advertising. The idea was that as […]
For the past couple of years, we have been tracking Sony’s long overdue foray into making its first party titles available to the PC gaming market. Sony, famous for walling off these titles and making them Playstation exclusives, began loosening that grip in 2020. MLB: The Show suddenly appeared on other consoles (though not on […]
Exhale. Just a little while ago, the Supreme Court put Texas’s ridiculous content moderation law back on hold. Specifically, it granted NetChoice and CCIA’s emergency application to put the law on hold, following the 5th Circuit’s decision to reinstate the law without any explanation (which came about in response to a district court’s lengthy explanation […]
In discussions about content moderation, it’s easy to get stuck in the mindset that there are only a few simple ways it could possibly work — but in fact there is plenty of room for exploring creative alternatives. One such idea examined in a recent paper by Aviv Ovadya, Technology and Public Purpose Fellow at […]
Two years ago we wrote about how the Wikimedia Foundation was blocked from gaining observer status at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) after China objected, over some bizarre nonsense because there happens to be a volunteer-led Wikimedia Taiwan chapter. Obviously, it makes sense for Wikimedia to have observer status at WIPO, as excessive copyright can […]
Whenever cops discover a new means or method of tracking people that seems to run afoul of the letter (if not the spirit) of the Fourth Amendment, they’re quick to defend these actions by claiming they’re necessary to hunt down the most dangerous of criminals: terrorists, sexual exploiters of children, kidnappers, homicide suspects, etc. When […]
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The Supreme Court has taken two swings at this issue: whether or not artistic expression can also be evidence of criminal activity. Two cases with obviously serious First Amendment implications and yet the nation’s top court felt there was no need for it to establish a bright line that might deter future prosecutions based on […]
We’ve noted more than a few times how net neutrality rules were just some stopgap rules to prevent telecom monopolies from being assholes in the absence of real competition. They were modest protections (by international standards) attempting to protect consumers and competitors from giant unchecked monopolies we’ve let run amok for the better part of […]
This week, both our winners on the insightful side are anonymous responses to commenters trotting out the same old, boring, easily dismissed arguments about content moderation on our post about how very little content moderation has anything to do with politics. In first place, it’s a response to someone basically just saying “nuh-uh, of course […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2017, the FCC was still working hard to ignore support for net neutrality and also ignore how fake much of the opposition was, while Apple and Verizon were joining forces to lobby against the right to repair. We learned more about how little it takes to be branded a […]
This report, by Aaron Gordon for Motherboard, looks like a hypothetical dreamed up by a particularly cruel constitutional law professor: For the last five years, driverless car companies have been testing their vehicles on public roads. These vehicles constantly roam neighborhoods while laden with a variety of sensors including video cameras capturing everything going on […]
There are lots of ways content makers can respond to copyright infringement. From going fully legal and suing, to attempting to threaten to sue to scare the hell out of the “pirates”, to seeking government intervention that would negatively impact all kinds of innocent folks, to trying (and failing) to curb piracy using DRM, none […]
It’s 2022 and yet we still haven’t received a nationwide blessing from the country’s top court that recognizes a First Amendment right to record public officials carrying out their public duties. In most cases, this involves cops, whose public activities are far more public than those of most other public servants. For whatever reason, the […]
The recent mass murders in Buffalo and Uvalde are sickening, horrifying, and extraordinarily frustrating. And part of that is because, as The Onion keeps having to point out, we live in a world where the underlying message is: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens. And that is the most […]
It’s not just the private sector leaking data at alarming rates! Well, it is still the private sector, but it’s leaking data on behalf of the government! So… somewhat different. But still alarming. According to this report from Caroline Haskins for Business Insider, an ICE contractor harvesting facial recognition and GPS data on behalf of […]
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Look: there are very real issues with the state of the internet today, including the amount of power a few companies have. But that doesn’t mean any solution is a good solution. Unfortunately, Senator Amy Klobuchar, whenever given the option, seems to put forth the worst possible plan. It’s mind boggling. For a while now, […]
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