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Surprise: Minnesota Killer Used Data Brokers To Target And Murder Politicians

5 months 3 weeks ago
For years we’ve noted how this country’s corrupt inability to protect consumer security, regulate data brokers, or pass even a baseline privacy law was going to have increasingly deadly consequences. Endless signs have been there; from stalkers abusing app and cell phone data to pursue their victims, to right wing extremists using data broker data […]
Karl Bode

Techdirt Podcast Episode 422: The Political Power Of Mockery

5 months 3 weeks ago
Support us on Patreon » In a world awash with misinformation and disinformation, those who spread and benefit from the chaos have worked hard to brand fact-checking and counterspeech as a form of censorship — and it’s a worryingly effective tactic. But there’s one type of counterspeech that is very hard to evade: mockery and satire. […]
Leigh Beadon

How The Republican Party Became A Party That Believes The Constitution Only Applies To Its Enemies

5 months 3 weeks ago
Let’s talk about constitutional hypocrisy so brazen, so comprehensive, so morally bankrupt that it would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous to the republic. I’ve learned something about modern Republicans that crystallizes everything wrong with our current political moment: they care more about the constitutionality of Biden’s student debt forgiveness than they do about […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: Rosetta Stone (All Languages)

5 months 3 weeks ago
Embark on the journey of language learning with the Rosetta Stone lifetime subscription for all languages. Trusted by top-tier organizations like NASA, Calvin Klein, and TripAdvisor, Rosetta Stone has been the go-to software for language learning for the past 27 years. With its immersive and intuitive training method, you might be reading, writing, and speaking […]
Daily Deal

Agent Mulder Was Right! (Sort Of)

5 months 3 weeks ago
It’s one of those things I don’t discuss on main. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it was my strict religious upbringing, which made discussing anything outside of preferred interpretations of the Bible sacrilegious, if not actually blasphemous. Or maybe it was a concern about being a bit outside of the mainstream, which might result […]
Tim Cushing

In The Vax Wars, RFK Jr. Predictably Wields Misinformation As A Weapon

5 months 3 weeks ago
The second most frustrating aspect of RFK Jr.’s performance as the head of Health and Human Services has been just how predictable the actions he’s taken are. When you start with a simple premise, that Kennedy is a vehement anti-vaxxer, the view that measles is less harmful than the MMR vaccine makes sense. The appointment […]
Dark Helmet

Why Centralized AI Is Not Our Inevitable Future

5 months 3 weeks ago
Sam Altman’s vision of a “gentle singularity” where AI gradually transforms society presents an alluring future of abundance and human flourishing. His optimism about AI’s potential to solve humanity’s greatest challenges is compelling, and his call for thoughtful deployment resonates. Altman’s essay focuses primarily on the research and development side of AI, painting an inspiring […]
Mike Masnick

Trump’s FTC Turns Consumer Protection Into MAGA Protection Racket

5 months 3 weeks ago
When Andrew Ferguson made his pitch to Donald Trump to take over the organization, his one-page “pick me” plea talked about “ending” former FTC Chair Lina Khan’s “politically motivated investigations.” We pointed out at the time how hilarious it was that he then made it clear he fully intended to abuse the power of the […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: The 2025 Embedded Systems Engineer Mastery Bundle

5 months 3 weeks ago
Embedded systems are at the heart of modern innovation, powering everything from smart devices to automotive technology. This Embedded Systems Engineer Mastery Bundle has 10 courses to help equip you with the skills to design, program, and implement microcontroller-based solutions. Gain hands-on experience with Arduino, PIC, and ESP32, master C programming for embedded applications, and […]
Daily Deal

LA Law Enforcement Agencies Rioted So Hard They Ended Up Shooting Each Other

5 months 3 weeks ago
While Donald Trump was trying (and failing) to cheer himself up with a self-congratulatory birthday parade — I mean, just look at this sad boy: — the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriffs Department were busy turning peaceful protests in violent protests. Throughout the nation, millions gathered peacefully to protest Trump’s military parade. […]
Tim Cushing

The Trump Admin’s Dish Network Con Reaches Its Ultimate Conclusion: Failure, Bankruptcy, And Rich New Spectrum Holdings For Elon Musk

5 months 3 weeks ago
Back in 2019, the Trump DOJ and FCC cobbled together a dumb plan to try and hide the problems created by their rubber stamping of the competition-eroding T-Mobile and Sprint merger: they’d pretend they were helping satellite TV company Dish Network create a new 5G wireless network out of vibes and twine. As we noted back in 2019, […]
Karl Bode

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

5 months 4 weeks ago
This week, our winners on the insightful side are a comment-and-reply combo regarding Trump ordering the National Guard into California. In first place, it’s huskcummerbund with a question: Hey, remember when Kristi Neom tweeted “If Joe Biden federalizes the National Guard, that would be a direct attack on states’ rights. Over the last several years, […]
Leigh Beadon

This Week In Techdirt History: June 8th – 14th

5 months 4 weeks ago
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, Don Henley was using TikTok as a reason to push for stronger copyright laws, while some Senators were asking the FCC to reinterpret Section 230 in a ridiculous manner, and Ron Wyden was explaining how Trump and many others were totally wrong about 230. Meanwhile, we continued to […]
Leigh Beadon

Senior English Judge Warns That Lawyers Who Use AI Must Check Their Legal Citations Thoroughly – Or Face ‘Severe Sanction’

6 months ago
One of the legitimate criticisms of large language models, generative AI, and chatbots is that they produce hallucinations –- output that is plausible but wrong. That’s a problem in all domains, but arguably it’s a particularly serious one in the field of law. Hallucinated citations undermine the entire edifice of common law, which is based […]
Glyn Moody