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Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Moderation Without Representation

3 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 roundup of the latest news in online […]
Mike Masnick

Trump Admin Forcing African Countries To Embrace Elon Musk’s Starlink If They Want To Continue Receiving Lifesaving Aid

3 months ago
You can’t say that Elon Musk hasn’t gotten his money’s worth after spending $277 million to help buy Donald Trump an election victory (that’s not including the $44 billion Musk spent on turning Twitter into a right wing propaganda mill). The end of the numerous investigations into labor, environmental, and consumer fraud abuses alone have […]
Karl Bode

Musk Adviser May Make as Much as $1 Million a Year While Helping to Dismantle Agency that Regulates Tesla and X

3 months ago
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. One of Elon Musk’s employees is earning between $100,001 and $1 million annually as a political adviser to his billionaire boss while simultaneously helping to dismantle the federal agency that regulates two of Musk’s biggest companies, according to court records and a financial disclosure report obtained by ProPublica. […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: The Complete Circuit Design And Simulation Super Bundle

3 months ago
The Complete Circuit Design and Simulation Super Bundle has 19 courses on electronics, 3D simulation, and PCB builds. You’ll learn what tools you need to set up your own home lab, how to build your own Arduino board, how to solder, how to create a customized printed circuit board, and more. It’s on sale for […]
Daily Deal

We Shouldn’t Have To Explain To The FTC Why Content Moderation Is So Crucial To Free Speech, But We Did

3 months ago
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson begged Donald Trump for his job by promising he would “end Lina Khan’s politically motivated investigations.” And, yet, one of his first orders of business upon getting the job was to… kick off a politically motivated investigation regarding “big tech censorship,” which he (falsely) claimed was potentially illegally targeting conservative speech […]
Mike Masnick

States Forced To Kill Millions In Rural Broadband Investment After Trump Illegally Kills The Digital Equity Act… Simply For Having The Word ‘Equity’ In It

3 months ago
Last week we noted how Trump illegally declared he was killing the $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act. The law, passed as part of the infrastructure bill, was slated to bring millions in new broadband grants and digital literacy tools to Americans of all kinds long stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. The […]
Karl Bode

Fifth Circuit Says It’s Fine For A Judge To Funnel Parolees To His Campaign Donors’ Ankle Monitor Service

3 months ago
Every so often, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court will surprise you with a well-reasoned decision that cuts against the grain of its usual pro-cop, pro-censorship, pro-“conservative values” output. This one, brought to us by Raffi Melkonian, unfortunately isn’t one of those exceptions. This one is more aligned with the rule. This potential class-action lawsuit, brought […]
Tim Cushing

The U.S. Copyright Office’s Draft Report On AI Training Errs On Fair Use

3 months ago
Within the next decade, generative AI could join computers and electricity as one of the most transformational technologies in history, with all of the promise and peril that implies. Governments’ responses to GenAI—including new legal precedents—need to thoughtfully address real-world harms without destroying the public benefits GenAI can offer. Unfortunately, the U.S. Copyright Office’s rushed draft report on AI […]
corynne.mcsherry

Whoops: Chicago Sun-Times Publishes ‘AI’ Generated ‘Summer Guide’ Full Of Made Up Recommended Books, Nonexistent People

3 months ago
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 […]
Karl Bode

Daily Deal: The Ultimate AWS Data Master Class Bundle

3 months ago
The Ultimate AWS Data Master Class Bundle has 9 courses to get you up to speed on Amazon Web Services. The courses cover AWS, DevOPs, Kubernetes Mesosphere DC/OS, AWS Redshift, and more. It’s on sale for $39. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt […]
Daily Deal

ICE Boss Thinks Journalists Shouldn’t Be Asking About Masked Officers Disappearing People

3 months ago
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 […]
Tim Cushing

Trump’s War On Free Speech Gets The John Oliver Treatment

3 months ago
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 […]
Mike Masnick

Copyright Licensing For AI Training Won’t Make Anything “Fair”

3 months ago
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 […]
Glyn Moody

DHS Secretary Thinks Habeas Corpus Is The Power To Deport People With No Due Process

3 months ago
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 […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: Curiosity Stream Standard Plan

3 months ago
Whether you’re a science enthusiast, history buff, or technology geek, Curiosity Stream has something for everyone. Unleash the power of on-demand streaming that allows you to choose what you want to watch, when you want to watch it, and where you want to watch it. From the comfort of your living room to the remote […]
Daily Deal