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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 […]

Valve’s Steam PC gaming storefront appears to be on a bit of a pro-consumer kick as of late and I like it. We recently discussed the platform’s update to its purchase process, which now specifically includes explicit language around how the purchase is that of a revokable license to play the game, rather than any […]

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 […]

To anyone who listened to the oral arguments in the DC Circuit regarding the TikTok ban bill, it perhaps wasn’t a huge surprise that the DC Circuit today ruled to uphold the ban, but the resulting opinion is incredibly troubling. In a stunning and dangerous decision, the court argued that banning TikTok somehow vindicates and […]

Civil asset forfeiture has never been about dismantling criminal operations. It has always been about immediately enriching those who directly benefit from every dollar seized under the pretense that taking cash away from random people somehow cripples multi-national drug operations that have both the personnel and the cash on hand to survive these small-ish seizures. […]

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In a disturbing (if unsurprising) trend, Republican FCC and FTC commissioners are deliberately misusing “free speech” rhetoric in an Orwellian attempt to justify government intervention to control and suppress online speech. Last week, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr pushed censorial policies in the name of “free speech.” This week, GOP FTC Commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew […]

We’ve noted for decades how the U.S. broadband sector is a mess thanks to corruption and unchecked monopoly power working tirelessly to undermine U.S. telecom competition. The result is high prices, spotty access, slow speeds, and comically terrible customer service. Another way to put it is market failure. Caused by regulatory capture. In direct response, […]

It was only a few weeks ago that we discussed Good Old Games’ (GOG) return to its roots with the site’s “GOG Preservation Program”. While GOG never stopped selling, you know, good old games, the site also expanded over the years to be a storefront for new releases and AAA games as well. But with […]