By now we’ve well established that the AT&T–>Time Warner–>Discovery series of media mergers were some of the dumbest, most pointless “business” exercises ever conceived. The utterly senseless saga burned through hundreds of billions in debt, saw more than 50,000 people lose their jobs, killed off numerous popular brands (like Mad Magazine and HBO), created oceans of animosity among […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about Gina Carano’s lawsuit against Disney, in response to another commenter asserting that “all she’s asking for is consistency”: What makes you think she’s entitled to it? Disney is not bound by her subjective personal view of what she said. In […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2019, we wrote about how getting rid of Section 230 would just strengthen the internet giants, the dangers of forthcoming deep fake legislation, and why thinking of privacy as a property right would end badly. We looked at the backwards approach of the UK’s online harms legislation, while UK […]
Cops love a pretextual stop. A perceived traffic infraction is all that’s needed to cast out a fishing net in hopes of landing something bigger than a citation for an illegal lane change. That’s why cops have historically led most traffic stops with a leading question: do you know why I’ve pulled you over? It’s […]
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 […]
Karl Bode was just talking through some of the changes that Netflix is making to its subscriptions, most of which revolve around charging more for same or lesser service. In the case of Netflix, this means raising subscription rates while injecting advertisements where once there were none. This so-called “enshittification” process — a word I […]
During the Trump administration, ICE came up with the highly questionable scheme of setting up a completely fake college solely for the reason of setting up immigrants on H-1B visas for failure. The DHS and ICE created a faux university in Michigan (the “University of Farmington”), complete with a (fake) social media presence. Then it […]
MagStack is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a phone stand for FaceTime or video playback while charging. This 3-in-1 foldable design featuring 3 wireless charging spots, enables charging for up to 3 devices simultaneously, including iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, other Qi-compatible Android phones, and […]
Elon Musk’s ExTwitter just set a new speed record: from enthusiastic joiner of an advertising coalition to potential plaintiff against the same organization in just over a week. Sometimes, timing is everything. This week has been a travel week for me, so on Tuesday evening, I wrote up a short article on last week’s news […]
Like a growing number of states, the FTC under Lina Khan continues to show it’s somewhat serious about protecting consumers’ rights to repair their own tech. In 2021 the agency issued a useful report busting a lot of lobbying myths about repairability, and over the last few years has been cracking down on companies that […]
Here we are again, with yet another example of how buying digital products, or buying products that have a digital component to them, doesn’t mean you have any actual ownership and control of those products. We have seen a bunch of examples of this recently, from Oral-B removing Alexa-based features from one of its toothbrush […]
The famous line is “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” But what do you call it when Elon Musk fools advertisers over and over again into believing that ExTwitter will protect their brand safety, despite making it clear that he has no interest in doing so? At this point, […]
One of the common themes here at Techdirt over the last 20 years is how in the digital and internet-connected era, the very meaning of “ownership” and “property” has changed — often for the worse. It simply takes a merger or an ill-timed firmware update to render something you thought you owned — completely obsolete. […]
I’m not going to go through all the background on this story, because we just did that yesterday. If you missed that post, it will help to go read it before reading this one. I concluded that post by noting that, thanks to district court Judge Terry Doughty petulantly claiming he can’t stay an obviously […]
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It’s a problem that likely dates back to the department’s inception, but in 2015, the New York City Inspector General released a report that explained why residents were forced to shell out millions every year to foot the bill for police misconduct: Historically, NYPD has frequently failed to discipline officers who use force without justification. […]
Back in April the Biden FCC once again voted along party lines to restore net neutrality rules stripped away by the Trump FCC in a flurry of sleazy industry behavior that included using fake and dead people to create the illusion of public support. The Trump FCC was also caught making up a DDOS attack to explain away public outrage […]
Most people would respond to a possible drug overdose by seeking immediate medical attention and following up with medical professionals to see how the victim is faring. I mean, that’s what the EMTs who responded to a drug overdose call did. They took Corban Elmore’s son to the emergency room and, from there, medical professionals […]
On any given Sunday there’s simply no shortage of U.S. antitrust violations, where some giant predatory corporation leverages its consolidated power to derail price competition and harm consumers. But because U.S. antitrust enforcement is a feckless and inconsistent mess, in most instances (see: telecom), a company can engage in these kinds of practices for decades […]
There’s a stunning degree of fear mongering and lack of humility about what California AI bill SB 942 can or can’t do. Honest conversation about this bill’s limitations are essential to ensuring we don’t pass this ineffective law. But its proponents have obstructed reasoned policy development by injecting panic into that conversation and pretending it […]
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