The First Amendment has won again, this time against another pretend “free speech absolutist” (Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton) in his attempt to punish someone for their free speech. Perhaps Ken Paxton will have to learn about the First Amendment in these remedial legal ethics education classes he’s required to take as part of closing […]
For decades, academics have been trying to warn anybody who’d listen that the death of your local newspaper and the steady consolidation of local TV broadcasters was creating either “news deserts,” or local news that’s mostly just low-calorie puffery and simulacrum. Despite claims that the “internet would fix this,” fixing local journalism just wasn’t profitable […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Bloof, responding to a complaint that our negative coverage of Elon Musk prevents us covering other completely made-up transphobic stuff: The difference is that the things Elon does is actually happeni9ng, while the things you feel we -should- be concerned about are just 4chan […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2019, Colorado’s net neutrality bill was heading to the governor’s desk while Mitch McConnell was promising a House net neutrality bill would never get past the Senate. The UK proposed a ridiculous plan to fine internet companies for vaguely defined “harmful content” while the European Parliament was moving forward […]
A couple of years back, Mike wrote about a lawsuit brought against Paramount Pictures over its Top Gun movies. There were several things that colluded to make this lawsuit a thing, as Mike laid out. First was the mess that is copyright termination rights and the second is movie studios’ habit for licensing factual articles […]
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online […]
I’m not sure we should welcome in our new AI-powered robot overlords determining how elections come about just yet. The media keeps telling me that deep fakes and generative AI are going to throw all of the important elections this year into upheaval. And maybe it’s true, but to date, we’ve seen very little evidence […]
It often seems that anything not immediately comprehensible to a law enforcement officer must be responded to with violence. Sure, we get to hear plenty about officers’ “training and expertise,” but the tool set seems extremely limited when it comes to dealing with unforeseen circumstances. Whatever can’t be handled with a gun can probably be […]
This 2-in-1 Keychain Wireless Charger with 2,500mAh battery will charge your Apple Watch 3-5 times on a full charge. Its magnetic design ensures perfect alignment and it works seamlessly with all Apple Watch series. It features Type-C port for versatile charging options for other devices. It’s on sale for $19. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store […]
Just a few weeks ago, we pointed out that the purpose of a trust & safety team is not, as Elon Musk falsely claims, to “censor” users, but rather to make sure they’re safe on the site. We were highlighting this in the context of Elon’s site disguising posted links in a manner that made […]
For the better part of the last decade, the FCC had been pondering the idea of requiring a sort of “nutrition label” for broadband access. The idea is to make ISPs — which routinely mislead consumers about pricing, speeds, restrictions, usage caps, and everything else — be more transparent with the end user at the […]
Ah, the good old days of the internet – a utopian paradise where everyone was kind, respectful, and definitely not arguing about Hitler. Or was it? A recent study published in Nature has some surprising findings that might just shatter your rose-tinted glasses about this past internet that never actually existed. Brace yourself for a […]
For years and years, Apple has done its best to prevent emulators from appearing in its App Store. Given Apple’s walled-garden approach, not to mention console manufacturers never-ending hatred for emulators generally, it wasn’t a huge shock that Apple went this route. Even when the occasional workaround has been discovered to allow people to get […]
In Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” he satirized politicians who were out of touch and were treating the poor as an inconvenience, rather than a sign of human suffering and misery. So, he took what seemed like two big problems, according to those politicians, and came up with an obviously barbaric solution to solve both […]
I’ve been watching this story since late last week. A lot of what I saw then showed this was going to end in embarrassment and exoneration for Albuquerque (NM) police chief Harold Medina. But I still held out hope the city might find something to criticize about the chain of events that left city resident […]
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Elon Musk’s favorite lawyer, Alex Spiro, isn’t having a great week. Sure, sure, he just signed up embattled NYC mayor Eric Adams as a new client, but he seems to have royally fucked up in defending Elon. One of Elon’s many legal fights currently is a defamation lawsuit filed by a California man, Ben Brody. […]
So you might recall that both Gannett and Sports Illustrated were caught recently creating fake, “AI” generated journalists to create fake, plagiarism-prone “journalism.” In both instances the kind of brunchlord executives that fail upward at these kind of companies thought it would be great to replace real human journalism with automated junk — without informing […]
Back when Vladimir Putin launched his aggressive war on Ukraine, even before western government sanctions began rolling out, the video game industry started its own mini warfront on Russia. Companies began suspending sales in Russia entirely and otherwise disallowing Russian citizens to participate in global gaming culture. Groups like Itch.io began selling game bundles with […]
Oregon recently became the seventh state to pass “right to repair” legislation making it easier, cheaper, and more convenient to repair technology you own. The bill’s passage came on the heels of legislation passed in Massachusetts (in 2012 and 2020), Colorado (in 2022 and 2023), New York, Minnesota, Maine and California. U.S. consumer protection has […]
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