Elon Musk sure has a way of fucking over anyone who trusts him. A bunch of current and former employees, including some who agreed to stick around at Twitter with the explicit promise that they would receive the bonuses they were owed, are suing Twitter saying that those bonuses were never given (story found via […]
The California legislature is competing with states like Florida and Texas to see who can pass laws that will be more devastating to the Internet. California’s latest entry into this Internet death-spiral is the California Journalism Protection Act (CJPA, AB 886). CJPA has passed the California Assembly and is pending in the California Senate. The CJPA […]
Full disclosure time, Techdirt peeps! I am a resident of this state. And, as such, I am painfully familiar with the governor’s pro-Trump performativeness, as well as the state legislature’s general disdain for the people it serves. South Dakota is basically an on-shore tax shelter camouflaged by farmland and ultra-patriotic tourist traps. Governor Kristi Noem […]
The Agile Expert Project Management Bundle has three courses to help you master Agile. Originally developed for the software industry, Agile is the project management methodology that leverages quick, iterative sessions to rapidly identify defects and improve a product. Now that more companies are going digital, Agile is seeing even more popularity in the working […]
We already knew that Twitter had stopped paying its cloud computing bills from Google and Amazon as Elon continues his “pursuit of profitability” that he himself destroyed in Twitter (remember, Twitter was profitable in 16 of the previous 20 quarters before Elon took over at a much higher run rate, before Elon drove away somewhere […]
We’ve noted several times how European telecom giants have somehow convinced European policymakers that technology giants like Netflix and Google should annually give them billions of dollars… for no coherent reason. The proposal is dressed up to sound like a sensible adult policy aimed at shoring up broadband access to the downtrodden. In reality it’s net […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is TFG responding to the suggestion that the Reddit protest will be quelled by simply removing the mods: As the polls show: the mods aren’t alone. The mods aren’t the only ones posting the john oliver pics – there’s no way that they could do […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, Ajit Pai was trying to pretend that everybody supported repealing net neutrality, while ISP lobbyists were trying and then succeeding at derailing California’s own net neutrality law. Pai was also pushing for rule changes that would benefit Sinclair Broadcasting, while being under investigation for his relationship with the […]
Any investigative report of any police department in the United States composed by the DOJ’s Civil Rights division can be described as “scathing.” Bad cops doing bad things trigger these investigations, which invariably find evidence of biased policing, excessive force deployment, and a general disregard — if not actual disdain — for the people these […]
We’ve noted for years how the steady, mindless consolidation by telecom monopolies has resulted in patchy broadband access, slow speeds, and high prices. But another longstanding trademark of the industry has been its abysmal customer service, created by mindless growth and a subsequent refusal to scale customer service to match. The latest customer satisfaction rankings […]
It’s hardly a secret that the Chinese government is obsessed with controlling everything that its citizens see or do online — Techdirt has written dozens of stories on the topic over the years. But control within China’s borders isn’t enough, it seems: the authorities there now want the ability to censor material globally. The latest […]
Two weeks ago, Canada’s Heritage Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, who has been the main Canadian government official pushing for C-18, the bullshit link tax bill, that is just a corrupt wealth transfer from one disliked industry to a favored industry, insisted that it was “unacceptable” that Meta might stop allowing links to news if the bill […]
Things are getting heated in the city that never sleeps stops bitching. Private business owners don’t much care for the city telling them how to run their business, even when said business involves perhaps careless use of problematic tech. Grocery store owners in New York City oppose a bill that would limit use of facial recognition software, […]
MagPRO Smartwatch is a tracker with multiple features that make your daily life easier. Customize the face of the watch with hundreds of different custom backgrounds to fit your needs or make your own. It comes with a magnetic no-buckle wraparound band that’s sweatproof and waterproof. It’s available in four different colors and is on sale […]
The lawyers who ridiculously did not check the citations ChatGPT gave them, and when called on it, doubled down with having ChatGPT make up the matching opinions, have now been sanctioned: they have to pay $5k. That may seem light, but with all of the details, it kinda makes sense. So, yes, by now you’ve […]
We’ve noted for several years how the “race to 5G” was largely just hype by telecoms and hardware vendors eager to sell more gear and justify high U.S. mobile data prices. While 5G does provide faster, more resilient, and lower latency networks, it’s more of an evolution than a revolution. But that’s not what telecom giants […]
Actions, as they say, have consequences. Or potential consequences, at least, in the case of Microsoft battling with the FTC. In the ongoing drama that is Microsoft’s attempted purchase of Activision, the FTC filed for a temporary restraining order barring the consummation of the purchase while its lawsuit remains unresolved. The first trial date in […]
Some more great reporting based on public records has emerged from ProPublica. This one shows how willing cops are to exploit the system they’re supposed to be protecting and upholding. Now former officer Jeffrey Kriv certainly isn’t one of Chicago’s worst cops. There’s simply too much competition, given the PD’s long history of internal corruption […]
If you’re a Techdirt reader, a Reddit user, or both, then you probably know all about the chaos engulfing the site as users and moderators of popular subreddits protest CEO Steve Huffman’s recent changes to the site’s API. This week, we’re joined by Jay Peters from The Verge to talk about the situation, the protests, […]
We talk a lot about the concept of “trust & safety” at internet companies, but the entire concept is relatively new, and still very confusing to many, including some who work in the field! Over the last few years we’ve seen a growing movement to organize and somewhat “professionalize” the space, with very important and […]