The latest generation of AI systems, based on large language models (LLMs), is perceived as the biggest threat in decades to the established copyright order. The scale of that threat can be gauged by the flurry of AI lawsuits that publishers and others have launched against generative AI companies. Since the first of these, reported here […]
Back in April, RFK Jr. committed publicly to firmly knowing the cause of autism by September of this year. In May, Donald Trump himself weighed in with the already baked conclusion that autism doesn’t “occur naturally” and therefore must have some environmental cause. Both statements were absurd at the time. Autism causes have been studied […]
Support us on Patreon » Last week, we published three separate posts that looked at the FTC’s recent settlement with Aylo, the parent company of multiple adult websites including, most famously, Pornhub. Those posts, written by Stanford HAI policy fellow Riana Pfefferkorn, examined the legally complicated but very important issues that arise from the settlement forcing […]
ICE made the bed and now California law enforcement officers have to lie in it. The flashpoint of ICE backlash occurred in Los Angeles, as Trump’s mass deportation desires manifested itself in the form of masked officers chasing day laborers through Home Depot parking lots. As protests ensued, ICE officers continued to operate without face […]
Trump supporters cycled through increasingly desperate explanations for why the Jimmy Kimmel situation was totally legitimate. First came the absurd “low ratings” defense—because sure, networks routinely cancel shows minutes before taping due to sudden ratings revelations and just hours after the chair of the FCC threatens them with “we can do this the easy way […]
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To suggest that Donald Trump simply doesn’t care about constitutional rights, political norms, or anyone other than himself is to suggest that he actually understands any of these concepts. That’s giving him far too much credit. What Trump does is pure id, completely unaffected by anything someone his age should have learned long before entering […]
You might recall that back when Brendan Carr was an ordinary FCC Commissioner, he was super worried about government overreach. He was so worried, that he would attack literally any effort previous incarnations of the FCC took to hold giant shitty telecom monopolies accountable (net neutrality, basic pricing transparency, efforts to stop racism in broadband […]
Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it, as the old saying goes. And those who choose not to teach that history, to continue this to its logical conclusion, are actively attempting to repeat it. It’s within that logical framework that I have viewed our many posts on Trump Administration 2.0’s attempt […]
Updating the updating: I started writing this post last Tuesday, but put it on hold when everything happened last Wednesday, and rewrote it this weekend to post today, only now as I was getting ready to post it, seeing that Disney has reinstated Jimmy Kimmel, so… yeah. I’m only making a minor update to deal […]
It’s a story as old as law enforcement itself: when protesters start protesting, it’s often the cops who decide it’s time for everything to get violent, rather than those engaged in protests. We saw a LOT of this during the protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin. Whatever […]
In the shadow of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, something remarkable seems to be happening that Trump’s movement seems completely unable to see. Trapped within their own epistemic bubble, MAGA appears to have fundamentally misread the political moment, interpreting tragedy as total victory over their opponents. The miscalculation is breathtaking in its scope. The White House seems […]
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In what may be a first in American legal history, a sitting president just had his lawsuit struck down by a federal judge before the defendants even had a chance to respond. Judge Steven Merryday didn’t wait for a motion to dismiss. He didn’t wait for the defendants to file an answer. Four days after […]
So look, I’m not one of these people who thinks “AI” has no useful applications. Just this week I had an efficient conversation with a Gemini chatbot when trying to cancel a Google subscription. I used ChatGPT to help me fact check my own work debunking false claims made by a different AI (an aggregation […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Heart of Dawn with a comment about Disney pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show: Conservatives absolutely hate “cancel culture” right up to the point they are the ones doing it. Hypocrisy is dead to these people. In second place, it’s Thad with a comment about Trump […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, the first phase of the TikTok fight resolved with Oracle getting a lucrative hosting deal instead of buying the company in a deal driven by Trump-world insiders, while a court refused to block Trump’s executive order. At the same time, users were fighting to block the less-discussed part […]
We’ve talked a lot about Ryan Walters recently, mostly because he keeps forgetting that the United States Constitution applies to him and his state. Between his attempt to inject Christian theocracy into the public school system while enriching Dear Leader Trump or his fight with his own board members in the wake of some mild […]
It’s been a good while since we’ve had an old-fashioned copyright troll nonsense story around here, and boy do we have a doozy for you today. Regular Techdirt readers know that we’ve covered Paul Levy’s work for years—the man who the Washingtonian once dubbed “the web bully’s worst enemy” has been taking down copyright trolls […]
Techdirt has long lamented how in the modern era, you don’t really “own” what you buy. That game console, smart lock, or smart refrigerator can quickly become less useful (or completely useless) with a firmware update, bankruptcy, or addition of annoying subscription paywall. The problem is particularly bad when it comes to digital rentals. In […]
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