We haven’t found ourselves talking about Mariah Carey much at Techdirt in the past, but the few times we have, have been for positive reasons. This time, not so much. If you’re not a fan of Mariah Carey, like me, you are probably still familiar with her hit holiday single, All I Want For Christmas […]
As you may recall, back during the Trump administration, after a bunch of kids on TikTok trolled Trump into believing one of his campaign rallies would be massively attended (which it was not), Trump decided to take out his anger on TikTok by issuing an almost certainly unconstitutional executive order demanding that TikTok’s owner, the […]
For a few years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low orbit satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but not eliminated. Musk and company […]
Earlier this week, Bloomberg released a well-investigated, and somewhat damning article highlighting how people searching for abortion clinics on Google Maps are often being misled to go to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are sketchy organizations designed to try to convince women to give birth. Google Maps routinely misleads people looking for abortion providers, a new […]
The Microsoft Office Pro for Windows 2021 + HP EliteBook + Office Courses Bundle is pretty self-explanatory. You get one license for Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows and 8 courses to help you learn how to get the most out of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Publisher, and Access. You also get a […]
Senator Richard Blumenthal has been attacking the internet while demonstrating his own ignorance of how technology works for basically as long as I can remember. He did it back before he was Senator, when, as Attorney General of Connecticut he was eager to blame Craigslist for ads on its site. It appears that Blumenthal has […]
There’s another player in the phone malware game. NSO is far from the only malware merchant out there. Its products are the most well-known and the most dangerous, thanks to zero-click deployment options. NSO Group and Candiru — both Israeli companies created and staffed by former state intelligence operatives — were recently hit with sanctions […]
If you’re not familiar with the story and history behind the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then go read up on it, because it’s a great story. For you lazy bums out there, I’ll summarize it thusly. A 24-year old in Oregon got sick of religious types in Kansas trying to inject the teaching […]
Back in the spring of 2021, we wrote briefly about yet another Steven Biss SLAPP lawsuit. This one was filed by the brother of disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Jack Flynn, arguing that CNN defamed him by showing a video of both Flynns and other family members, repeating the QAnon slogan “where we […]
The FBI needs to shut the fuck up about phone encryption. This isn’t just profane hyperbole. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. The FBI has continued — via consecutive directors — to agitate for encryption backdoors. And these directors have done this by delivering a false narrative, aided and abetted by the FBI’s refusal to correct its […]
The Complete 2022 Python Programmer Bundle has 9 courses to help you hone your programming skills. You’ll start by learning fundamental Python functionality such as arithmetic, conditional statements, and working with basic data structures, and will move on to concepts like generators, decorators, callbacks, higher-order functions, context managers, and more. It’s on sale for $39. Note: The […]
Earlier this year, we had a podcast with Jacob Mchangama about his excellent book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, and I pointed out one theme that is seen throughout the book. Over and over again, vocal supporters of free speech eventually seem to change their position when they realize people say […]
We’ve noted for a long while that Americans pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for mobile data. But U.S. network quality doesn’t really make that a great value equation. U.S. 5G networks are notoriously slower than 5G networks in many other countries, and studies have found U.S. video streaming over wireless […]
There are very few things that are more dangerous for citizens and cops than no-knock warrants. These warrants allow cops to raid houses without announcing themselves, leading those on the receiving end to assume they’re being invaded by armed criminals. People who don’t know they’re dealing with cops defend themselves. Cops, who believe everyone should […]
Being the “Queen of Talk,” perhaps it’s no surprise that Oprah Winfrey has made it onto Techdirt’s pages plenty of times in the past. To be fair to her, most of the posts we’ve done concern her being on the receiving end of typically silly intellectual property disputes. That being said, Oprah and her company, […]
The federal court-authorized search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate has brought renewed attention to the obscure but infamous law known as the Espionage Act of 1917. A section of the law was listed as one of three potential violations under Justice Department investigation. The Espionage Act has historically been employed most often by […]
Former Congressman, now Trump lackey TruthSocial CEO, Devin Nunes hasn’t had very much success with his long list of lawsuits against critics and the media. In just the past few months he’s lost multiple such cases. Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from soldiering on. One of the bigger cases he filed was against reporter […]
A decade or so ago you couldn’t go even a week without a major U.S. cable company finding its technicians in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. You’d routinely see technicians that fall asleep on the job, blow up homes, occasionally murder people and get arrested for torturing and spray painting kittens (seriously). And while major U.S. cable companies have […]
This refurbished EliteBook from HP pairs a fast processor with 8GB of RAM to help make multitasking easier, and its speedy 256 solid-state drive can house your essential media, games, and other data. It also features three USB ports so you can make the most of your system by expanding it with peripheral devices. This […]
Congressional hearings into the January 6, 2021 raid of the US Capitol building continue, focusing on the actions of Donald Trump and members of his administration as they sought to have Trump’s loss turned into a win. Congressional investigators are looking into the possible involvement of Trump and Pence’s security teams. But subpoenaed communications from […]
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