NSO Group may be on the ropes but its flagship product continues to satisfy its customers — customers that include some of the worst human rights abusers in the world. Sure, recent developments have managed to land the company on US blacklists and forced the Israeli government to limit who the home team can sell […]
As part of our final push to get our Kickstarter campaign for our new card game over the line, we’ve added a new limited tier for backers who want to show their support while getting more involved. We’re inviting 5 superbackers to work with us to co-design new cards that will be included in the […]
On Tuesday, Trump announced Andrew Ferguson as the next chair of the Federal Trade Commission, elevating him from his current commissioner role. Ferguson’s plans for the agency, laid out in a leaked one-page memo, make clear that he intends to use antitrust and consumer protection authority not to protect competition and consumers, but to punish […]
Way back during the battle during net neutrality, you might recall all the sleazy shit telecom giants did to tip the scales in their favor. Like making up dead and fake people to stuff regulatory websites with phony support for telecom giants. Or creating fake consumer groups to oppose net neutrality. Or hiring dodgy companies […]
It was almost exactly a year ago that we discussed a trademark dispute in the UK between Oatly, the sometimes IP bully and maker of oat-based milk products, and Dairy UK, a British trade association for dairy farmers. At issue was the trademark application of Oatly’s for its “Post Milk Generation” slogan. In its opposition […]
The Memphis (TN) police department is the latest law enforcement agency to be the subject of DOJ civil rights investigation. Prompted by the brutal killing of Tyre Nichols by five “SCORPION” (Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, and no I am not making that up) unit members in early 2023, the DOJ […]
While “AI” (language learning models) certainly could help journalism, the fail upward brunchlords in charge of most modern media outlets instead see the technology as a way to cut corners, undermine labor, badly automate low-quality, ultra-low effort, SEO-chasing clickbait, and rush undercooked solutions to nonexistent problems to market under the pretense of progress. For example, The Washington […]
Thanks to government-mandated backdoors in US telecom/broadband services, the FBI — at least in the form of an official who refused to identify themself — has had to recommend (albeit extremely half-heartedly) that encrypted communications are perhaps the only thing keeping phone owners from being actively surveilled by Chinese hackers. The news of a massive […]
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Over at MSNBC, I have a new piece debunking the false claims from many that Donald Trump’s pick to run the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, is somehow taking over the government agency that he believes coordinated “censorship” of his views on social media. Bhattacharya and his supporters have been making that claim for […]
Academics have spent generations warning about what happens when you let journalism and media consolidate in the hands of rich people and corporations. As this season’s election coverage demonstrated, the end result is usually a lazy simulacrum of journalism that looks like real reporting, but tends to reflect ownership interests and (usually) lacks the courage […]
The war on stream-ripping sites waged by the music industry continues. And, as with any war, there is collateral damage. Now, as we’ve said for some time, this is an entirely unnecessary war to begin with. There are a host of absolutely legitimate uses for sites like this, none of which would be infringing upon […]
For a few years now, New Jersey cops have enjoyed additional privacy protections that aren’t made available to other residents of the state. The reason is “Daniel’s Law.” This law went into effect in 2021, placing cops, judges, and certain other government employees above the people they serve by forbidding the dissemination of their personal […]
The following is republished from the excellent Pessimist’s Archive, with permission. The Oxford Dictionary just added “brainrot” as its newest official word—a cynical, but tongue-in-cheek term for consuming too much short-form social media content. However, the word isn’t actually new – in the archives we found examples going back as far as a century and […]
Kash Patel — Trump’s pick to head the FBI — is not the sort of person who should be allowed to head the FBI. While he does have some experience as a federal prosecutor, he’s mostly known for helping Republicans thwart the Russian election interference probe that began during Trump’s first term and for filling […]
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The censors are making a big push on the new version of “KOSPA,” which is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) merged with a problematic privacy bill (hence the “P”). Over the weekend, Senator Marsha Blackburn — who directly admitted the point of the bill was to “protect minor children from the transgender [sic] in […]
SpaceX’s Starlink service can be an absolute game changer for those completely out of range of broadband access. Getting several hundred megabits per second in the middle of nowhere is a decidedly good thing, assuming you can afford the $120 a monthly subscription, $375 (or more) hardware fee, and occasional $100 “congestion surcharges.” But contrary to […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side Thad with a comment about the news that the owner of the LA Times will be personally reviewing opinion headlines: If anybody’s got some money to spare, consider donating to news sources that aren’t owned by billionaires, like PBS, ProPublica, 404 Media, or, you know, […]
We’re past the halfway point of our Kickstarter campaign for One Billion Users, a new competitive card game about building the biggest and best social media network. We’re very excited to get this game into people’s hands, but we won’t be able to do it without your support! If you want to try your hand […]
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