Welcome to the modern world, where the thing you bought that worked a particular way at the time you purchased it isn’t actually fully owned you, which means the thing you bought could work totally differently tomorrow! This dystopia for consumers was perhaps most famously demonstrated to exist when Sony famously removed the ability to […]
The good news is Americans are concerned about data privacy. Some Americans always have been but it looks like more people are concerned than usual, which could be a good thing. I’m not sure it will be. As is often the case here in America, our views on privacy — especially when combined with our […]
We all remember the infamous case from earlier this year, in which lawyer Steven Schwartz had to admit that he had used ChatGPT to help construct a brief (which was then signed by another lawyer, a partner at his firm), and that neither lawyer bothered to check whether or not the citations were made up […]
Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident journalist often critical of the Saudi government, was murdered by Saudi government agents while inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He wasn’t just murdered. His body was dismembered. All of this was captured by hidden recording devices placed by the Turkish government in the Saudi consulate. The Saudi government is […]
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There are now a bunch of these lawsuits accusing AI companies of some sort of copyright infringement for training their models on works of plaintiffs. However, the first high profile one was the case brought by Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz against Stability AI, MidJourney, and (bizarrely) DeviantArt. We covered the case back […]
The Trump era was very, very good to the country’s giant telecom monopolies. Trump officials doled out billions in tax breaks (AT&T nabbed $42 billion alone) and billions more in poorly tracked subsidies. It also approved anticompetitive mergers without even reading the details, and handed out all manner of regulator favors like the dismantling of […]
It’s over. It’s finally over. The battle to end the trademark registrations for “Taco Tuesday” began years and years ago, mostly after Taco John’s wielded the trademark haphazardly to occasionally threaten other taco joints with legal action. Less spotlighted was Gregory’s Bar & Restaurant, which held the trademark for the phrase in the one state […]
The list of things law enforcement officers consider reasonably suspicious could fill a decent-sized book. Pretty much anything anyone does or says when being accosted by an officer is usually deemed to be indicative of illegal activity. It’s not just cops. It’s the courts, too. A list of things considered to be “reasonably suspicious” enough […]
As you hopefully know, we recently launched (and then released a podcast about) our new game, Trust & Safety Tycoon, which we created in association with the Atlantic Council’s Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web. This week, we’ve got two people from the Atlantic Council joining us on the podcast: Democracy & Tech Initiative Director […]
When Twitter first launched what it called “Birdwatch,” I was hopeful that it would turn into a useful alternative approach to helping with trust & safety/content moderation questions, but I noted that there were many open questions, in particular with how it would deal with malicious actors seeking to game the system. When Elon took […]
For months, it has seemed as though retailers are under siege, raided on a daily basis by organized groups of thugs who walk off with hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of merchandise. This has been amplified by all forms of media. Clips from security cameras circulate social media with viral spread outpacing reality. This […]
The Complete Microsoft Azure Certification Prep Bundle has four courses designed to help you prepare for various certification exams. Courses cover what you’ll need to know for AZ-103, AZ-203, AZ-300, and AZ-301. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt […]
We’ve spent plenty of time over the last year or so on Missouri and Louisiana’s lawsuit against the Biden administration for apparently suggesting how sites like Meta should moderate content on their platforms. That case has had its twists and turns and is now going before the Supreme Court. I’m sure we’ll have plenty more […]
Groups like the National Digital Inclusion Alliance have consistently released studies showing that telecom giants like AT&T, despite billions in subsidies and tax breaks, routinely avoid upgrading minority and low income neighborhoods to fiber. Not only that, the group has documented how users in those neighborhoods even struggle to have their existing (older and slower) DSL lines repaired. Regional telecom […]
Here are two things that cannot simultaneously be true: a company is very confident in the product it produces and that same company is very afraid of public discussion of its product on social media. This is generally true of pretty much every product in every category, but it gets a little more serious when […]
Decades of somewhat-restrained conflict between Israel and Palestine erupted into war again at the beginning of the month. Islamist militant group Hamas followed rocket strikes with a physical invasion, the latter of which included the massacre of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Israeli civilians were also tortured and mutilated. Hamas also allegedly kidnapped around 200 Israelis, […]
Earlier this month we noted how everything critics of the T-Mobile and Sprint merger predicted has come true, whether it’s 10,000 employees who have lost their jobs, the steady implementation of fees and price hikes, a lower overall quality product, or the company’s boring new branding. Those inevitable outcomes recently culminated in a new suite […]
I have no idea how the current Google antitrust trial will turn out, and frankly, I’m not sure it much matters. I mean, I’m sure it matters for Google, but I don’t see how either outcome will change all that much for anyone else. I have noted, repeatedly, that I’m much more interested in a […]
Google is an internet powerhouse. It’s home to the most-used search engine in the world. It has its own operating system and its own line of cell phones. It also has its own cell phone service. It has ad services, a suite of web-based productivity apps that are (somewhat compatible) with a bunch of Microsoft […]
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