The rushed adoption of half-cooked automation in America’s already broadly broken media and journalism industry continues to go smashingly, thanks for asking. U.S. media companies have long been at the forefront of managerial dysfunction. More recently, that mismanagement has taken the form of wave after wave of “AI” scandals, ranging from getting busted for using […]
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So powerful. And yet, sooooo sensitive. Washington Post columnist Philip Bump asked a simple question: why are so many ICE agents covering their faces when disappearing people from US city streets? Pointing to the extremely disturbing arrest of Turkish PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk over her criticism of her university for its Israel-Palestine conflict stance, Bump […]
At a time when mainstream media continues to struggle with calling out Trump’s censorial power grabs for what they are, John Oliver just devoted an entire segment to exposing what Techdirt readers already know: Donald Trump’s administration has been waging a direct and sustained assault on free speech and the First Amendment, with FCC chairman […]
We’ve talked about how, in the digital space at least, the concept of “ownership” has undergone a massive philisophical shift. It used to be that you would go out somewhere, buy a thing, and own that thing. When the product is digital, however, or if it is connected to the internet and subject to firmware […]
Afew weeks ago, the UK’s regional and national daily news titles ran similar front covers, exhorting the government there to “Make it Fair.” The campaign Web site explained: Tech companies use creative content, such as news articles, books, music, film, photography, visual art, and all kinds of creative work, to train their generative AI models. Publishers and […]
Our Secretary of Homeland Security, tasked with overseeing the detention of thousands of people, doesn’t understand one of the most fundamental protections against unlawful imprisonment in our legal system. And we’re not talking about some obscure technical detail — we’re talking about habeas corpus, a basic right that’s been around since the Magna Carta. Kristi […]
The DEA may not be an early adopter of forward-looking policies, but it certainly leads the pack when it comes to shedding accountability like a teen ditching an ill-fitting sports coat the instant a family portrait session has wrapped up. Federal law enforcement agencies definitely trailed the trends when it came to body cam use […]
Here’s a question about the First Amendment and social media companies that used to just be in the realm of crazy law school hypotheticals: What makes social media sites “state actors” subject to constitutional constraints? For years, we heard from some that merely talking to government officials was enough — at least according to Vivek […]
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For years, the DHS has been expanding its intrusive surveillance of anyone attempting to enter this country. (It has also expanded this to include people leaving the country.) The current onboarding procedure for US entry includes demands for account passwords and deep dives into devices carried by migrants, visitors, asylum seekers, and anyone else CBP […]
There are two major reasons that the U.S. doesn’t pass an internet-era privacy law or regulate data brokers despite a parade of dangerous scandals. One, lobbied by a vast web of interconnected industries with unlimited budgets, Congress is too corrupt to do its job. Two, the U.S. government is disincentivized to do anything because it exploits this […]
It’s no secret that Nintendo is among the most draconian actors when it comes to intellectual property. Techdirt is rife with posts on the various ways the company has been a royal and overreaching pain in the ass on anything with even the most modest concern over copyrights, trademarks, or patents. From attempting to unmask […]
It’s not enough to simply go after anyone looking kinda Venezuelan these days. DHS components have an unquenchable thirst for arrest stats, especially now that Trump’s second Oval Office stay has removed any remaining discretion and restraint from border control actions. Installing Trump supplicant Kristi Noem to the top spot in the DHS has only […]
In a brazen attempt to avoid oversight, Elon Musk’s DOGE team is now trying to “audit” the very agency tasked with auditing them. On Friday, NOTUS reported that DOGE officials showed up at the Government Accountability Office — Congress’s independent watchdog — to attempt their signature hostile takeover routine. There’s just one small problem: DOGE […]
President Trump’s attack on public broadcasting has attracted plenty of deserved attention, but there’s a far more technical, far more insidious policy change in the offing—one that will take away Americans’ right to unencumbered access to our publicly owned airwaves. The FCC is quietly contemplating a fundamental restructuring of all broadcasting in the United States, via a new DRM-based […]
They may claim they care about the children, but the Republican push for age verification laws, book bans, and the general censorship of anything not specifically straight and (preferably) white is all about preventing adults from accessing content these lawmakers don’t personally care for. The kids are merely useful leverage for legislators pushing for the […]
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Since the start of the Trump administration, many of our biggest concerns about how MAGA would attack free speech have not only proven true, but have turned out to be understated. Nearly all parts of the administration are seeking to silence critical speech. Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “free speech warriors” who signed the infamous Harper’s Letter […]
Telecom lobbyists have been working overtime for decades in the US and EU, trying to get policymakers to support the idea of “Big Tech” paying “Big Telecom” billions of additional dollars for no coherent reason. It’s what started the net neutrality wars. More recently, it has evolved into claims that we need to tax streaming companies to help […]
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