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Bureau Of Prisons Seeking To Criminalize Social Media Access By Inmates

1 year 4 months ago
I guess being incarcerated isn’t dehumanizing enough. Being treated like barely sentient meat deserving of any abuse perpetrated by guards or other inmates just isn’t enough oppression, apparently. This country talks a big game about rehabilitation and “paying your debt to society,” but when it comes to the day-to-day business of incarcerating people at a […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: Headway Premium

1 year 4 months ago
Headway Premium is the revolutionary app designed to help you turn personal growth into a habit. With a lifetime subscription, you get unlimited access to a huge number of non-fiction bestsellers, summarized into 15-minute reads. Be it personal development, business strategies, or health insights, Headway has you covered. It’s on sale for $60. Note: The […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Elon Finally Finds A Government He’s Willing To Stand Up To: When The Censorship Demands Target His Political Allies

1 year 4 months ago
Over the last few years, Elon Musk has repeatedly said that his definition of free speech means “that which matches the law.” He says this whenever anyone calls out that he’s not actually the free speech absolutist he claims to be. He regularly and expeditiously caves in to censorship demands, without any protest, from authoritarian […]
Mike Masnick

New Net Neutrality Rules Won’t Harm Telecom Giants In The Slightest

1 year 4 months ago
The FCC is expected to vote to restore net neutrality rules on April 25. And while there’re early indications that the rules may be slightly weaker than those stripped away by the Trump administration — and absolutely no indication the rules could meaningfully impact telecom revenues — telecom giants have already begun their whining about […]
Karl Bode

One YouTuber’s Quest For Political Action To Preserve Old Video Games

1 year 4 months ago
In all of the posts we have done on the topic of video game preservation, I have often made the point that it’s probably long past time that there be some sort of political action to address the real or potential disappearance of cultural output that is occurring. The way this works far too often […]
Dark Helmet

Meta’s Dumb Deletion Of Links To Journalism Shows Why Attempts To Tax Platforms That Link To Journalism Is Even Dumber

1 year 4 months ago
As Mike has already chronicled, Meta has managed to alienate itself from reasonable people by first suppressing links to an independent Kansas journalism outlet, then links to others reporting on the suppression, and eventually entire accounts discussing the episode. I tend to be of the view that what happened was an error caught in a […]
Cathy Gellis

The Story Behind The XZ Backdoor Is Way More Fascinating Than It Should Be

1 year 4 months ago
Every few years, it seems, we’re reminded of the incredible number of dependencies built into the software we all rely on. Remember kik? Or Chef Sugar? Or any number of similar situations? The xkcd comic on dependency is so well known for a reason. So, the backdoor that was discovered in xz utils a week […]
Mike Masnick

Ninth Circuit Dumps Three More ‘Sue Twitter Because Terrorism’ Lawsuits

1 year 4 months ago
While it’s understandable to desire someone be held responsible for brutal acts of terrorism, the responsibility for those actions lies with those who committed them. That’s hardly satisfying because it can be almost impossible to extract anything from the terrorists themselves, other than the limited recompense of seeing them arrested and jailed. And that’s something […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The 2024 Python for Software Engineering Bootcamp Bundle

1 year 4 months ago
Demand for Python is booming in the job market and it is a skill that can help you enter some of the most exciting industries, including data science, web applications, home automation, and many more. The 2024 Python for Software Engineering Bootcamp Bundle has 7 courses to take you from beginner to expert in no […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Both Things Can Be True: Meta Can Be Evil AND It’s Unlikely That The Company Deliberately Blocked A Mildly Negative Article About It

1 year 4 months ago
Truth matters. Even if it’s inconvenient for your narrative. I’m going to do a question and answer style post, because I want to address a bunch of questions that came up on this story over the weekend, but let’s start here. So what happened? Last Thursday, the Kansas Reflector, a small local news non-profit in […]
Mike Masnick

Whoops: Data Broker Data Reveals Rich Visitors To Jeffrey Epstein’s Island

1 year 4 months ago
You might recall that, back in February, Senator Ron Wyden’s office revealed how a data broker named Near Intelligence had collected the data of women visiting abortion clinics, then sold that data (via a proxy) to right wing activists. Those activists then turned around and used it to target vulnerable women with health care misinformation. […]
Karl Bode

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

1 year 4 months ago
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about Jim Jordan demanding major ad companies explain why they won’t advertise on Truth Social: Far right: we support free speech and free markets!Businesses: We’ve decided it’s not in our best interest to advertise on this far-right website.Far right: Advertise there […]
Leigh Beadon

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Letters To Cthulhu

1 year 4 months ago
And here we are! We’ve arrived at the end of our series of posts looking at the winners of the sixth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928! We’ve already featured Best Visuals winner Flight from Podunk Station and Best Adaptation winner Mickey Party, Best Remix winner The Burden Of Creation, Best and […]
Leigh Beadon

Germany Still Locking Up Some Laws Behind Copyright

1 year 4 months ago
It is often said that “ignorance of the law is no defense.” But the corollary of this statement is that laws must be freely available so that people can find them, read them and obey them. Secret laws, or laws that are hard to access, undermine the ability and thus the willingness of citizens to […]
Mike Masnick

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Are Platforms Ready For Elections?

1 year 4 months ago
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 […]
Leigh Beadon

Jim Jordan Demands Major Ad Companies Explain Why They Won’t Advertise On Truth Social

1 year 4 months ago
Jim Jordan, who heads the House Judiciary Committee and its subcommittee on “the weaponization of the federal government,” continues to use “weaponize the power of the federal government” to punish his enemies and support his friends. He’s done this before. Many times before. The latest seems particularly pathetic. You would have to be particularly wedded […]
Mike Masnick

Restricting Flipper Is A Zero Accountability Approach To Security

1 year 4 months ago
On February 8, François-Philippe Champagne, the Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced Canada would ban devices used in keyless car theft. The only device mentioned by name was the Flipper Zero—the multitool device that can be used to test, explore, and debug different wireless protocols such as RFID, NFC, infrared, and Bluetooth. While it is […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: The Ultimate PHP Training Bundle

1 year 4 months ago
PHP is an invaluable tool to help web developers build powerful websites. The beginner-to-advanced Ultimate PHP Training Bundle will teach you all things PHP so you’ll be able to build seamless, interactive sites before you know it. It’s on sale for $20. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion […]
Gretchen Heckmann