Five Years Ago This week in 2018, the Australian government passed a law forcing tech companies to break encryption, Hollywood and record labels were quietly asking congress to bring back SOPA, and the UK intelligence community said it was moving on from bulk data collection in favor of bulk equipment interference. The latest EU copyright […]
It’s that time… Get ready for the Gaming Like It’s 1928! public domain game jam! The game jam, like all our public domain game jams, runs from January 1st through January 31st, and we’re eager to see what kinds of games, both digital and analog, you’ll make by building on newly public domain works. As […]
While not super common, we have seen issues surrounding copyright claims or negative reactions to so-called “reaction videos.” These videos essentially take content that is out there, typically on the internet, and then react to them in a video providing either additional context for the content or a reaction to it. Sometimes those reaction videos […]
Traditional newspapers have been complaining about the rise of the digital world for decades. Their discontent derives from the fact that they failed to recognize opportunities early on, leaving the field open for a new generation of born-digital companies to meet the demand for alternative ways to access the news. Rather than trying to understand […]
Last month, Sports Illustrated found itself at the center of a firestorm after it was busted using fake computer-generated authors and (shitty) computer-generated content — without telling employees and readers. The scandal came shortly after Gannett (which likely owns whatever’s left of your hometown newspaper) was busted doing the exact same thing. We’ve noted how […]
The Italians are the new Israelis… at least in terms of hawking phone exploits and other spyware. NSO Group crashed hard following leaks showing its customers (many of which were, shall we say, questionable) were targeting political rivals, dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers, and religious leaders with powerful exploits that completely exposed the contents […]
The Complete Python Programmer Bundle has nine courses to help you learn more about programming. This bundle starts with fundamental Python functionality such as arithmetic, conditional statements, and working with basic data structures. It then expands upon your working knowledge of data structures to work with full-blown datasets in the Pandas package. You’ll learn all […]
It seems like the only “bipartisan” support around regulations and the internet these days is… over the false, widely debunked moral panic that the internet is inherently harmful to children. Study after study has said it’s simply not true. Here’s the latest list (and I have one more to write up soon): And yet, if […]
We just got done noting how 2023 was finally the year that streaming fully surpassed traditional TV in terms of overall paying subscribers. A very obvious “cord cutting” trend that executives spent years claiming was fake or a fad is now the majority norm. But what’s left of traditional cable TV isn’t doing so well. Broadcast […]
I will admit, after my last post on Russian game developer Fntastic shutting down operations days after the release of the much-hyped The Day Before, I really thought it would be my last post on the this whole fiasco. But, no, it turns out that the developer has given us more to write about. If […]
We took a few weeks off in our Error 402 series on the history of web monetization, but we’re back. If you’re just catching up, we’ve talked about the earliest monetary transactions online, the rise of e-commerce, the initial failed attempts at paywalls for content, and the rise of internet ads followed quickly by the […]
Well, this was a bit of a surprise. Over the past couple of weeks I wrote about how Senator Josh Hawley was planning to try to hotline his terrible No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act. As we have explained multiple times, the bill is so poorly drafted that it would make a mess of […]
We’ve repeatedly noted how the Republican quest to ban TikTok is both stupid and performative. Stupid, in that banning TikTok doesn’t fix the deeper privacy rot caused by a corrupt Congress’ ongoing refusal to pass a privacy law or regulate data brokers (who do much worse, at much greater scale). Dumb, in that the “ban” […]
You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let’s focus on the app. Right off the bat, let’s be clear about one thing: When we say “app” we don’t mean that you’re limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across […]
We just wrote up a story about Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and his bullshit censorial investigation into Media Matters, and I think we just got a preview of what he should expect. Back in November, Texas’ (still criminally indicted, still waiting for trial) Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a similar investigation to buddy up […]
You might recall that Elon Musk claims to hate taxpayer subsidies. They should all be “deleted.” Except for the subsidies given to his companies (often for doing nothing), of course. Back in 2020, Musk’s satellite broadband venture, Starlink, gamed a Trump-era FCC subsidy program to try and grab $886 million in taxpayer dollars. It was […]
It’s not like cops needed any more help being intolerant. It seems to come with the job. A badge, a gun, and a sense of superiority tends to turn even marginal cops into people who spend their entire careers adding to the “us vs. them” chip on their shoulders. But even cops with the best […]
As the old saying goes, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it’s probably a scammy game developer you shouldn’t trust. Here at Techdirt, we started paying attention to The Day Before, pitched as an ambitious MMO survival game by Russian developer Fntastic nearly five years ago, when the company […]
There’s plenty of discussion right now about what approach, regulatory or otherwise, could rein in the potential harms of AI systems. This week, we’re joined by professor and researcher Chinmayi Sharma to discuss her brand new article that offers an interesting idea: professionalizing the AI field with engineer licensing and a malpractice standard. Follow the […]
When Epic went after both Apple and Google a few years ago with antitrust claims regarding the need to go through their app stores to get on phones, we noted that it seemed more like negotiation-by-lawsuit. Both Apple and Google have cut some deals with larger companies to lower the 30% cut the companies take […]
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