The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has long contended it has no gang problem. We’re not talking about the many gangs roaming the streets of Los Angeles. We’re talking about the cliques formed by deputies that identify themselves with patches, tattoos, tactics, and a general disregard for the rights of the people they serve. The LASD […]
This week is Engine’s second annual Patent Quality Week, focused on the many ways that the patent system allows low-quality patents to get through, the problems this causes, and what can be done about it. On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Abby Rives and Charles Duan for a discussion all about why patent quality […]
It’s entirely possible that there’s a different backstory to the whole Elon/Twitter mess, but from everything that’s happened so far, the story sure looks like (1) Elon decided to buy Twitter on a whim without recognizing either the risks or the actual challenges in pulling together a deal, (2) almost immediately started regretting it, especially […]
UPDATE: Since this post’s composition over the weekend, there has been a notable development. Axon has, for the moment, pulled the ends of its toes from overhanging the precipice. It only took the resignation of most of the Ethics Board (nine of twelve members) to force the company to reconsider its move towards offering schools […]
The refurbished HP EliteBook 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 laptop […]
We’ve had to publish many, many articles highlighting just how badly the mainstream media has misrepresented Section 230, with two of the worst culprits being the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal. Professor Eric Goldman now points us to an incredible 200 page masters thesis by a journalism student at UNC named Kathryn Alexandria […]
New York State has become the first state in the country to pass “right to repair” legislation taking direct aim at repair monopolies. The bill itself mandates that hardware manufacturers make diagnostic and repair information available to consumers and independent repair shops at “fair and reasonable terms.” The bill notably doesn’t include vehicles, home appliances, […]
“Defund the police!” people shouted as cops continued to kill unarmed black people in ways that went far past “subjectively defensive” into “objectively racist.” Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd for ten minutes, personifying 300 years of white oppression of black people. Floyd died, suspected of nothing more than […]
You may have heard that, on Friday, Mariah Carey and Sony Music were sued by a guy named Andy Stone (pretty sure a different Andy Stone than the one who leads communications for Facebook) for allegedly infringing on his song “All I Want For Christmas, Is You.” What you might not have heard is that […]
Now that we’re encountering mass shootings in America on what appears to basically be a weekly or so clip, all the tired, made-up, bullshit talking points that get trotted out to shift blame are coming off as even more tired and made-up than they did previously. We’ve now had three mass shootings that have been […]
Two years ago, just as the COVID pandemic was beginning to radically transform day-to-day life for nearly everyone on the planet, the United States Postal Service decided to protect cops from passive criticism. One month after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin personified America’s omnipresent racism by kneeling on the neck of unarmed black man George […]
The Complete Utility Pro Lifetime Mac Bundle has 9 apps to help you get the most out of your Mac. You’ll get AirRadar, MacPilor, MacMagic, MacCleanse, Display Maestro, Librarian Pro, Data Guardian, Alarm Clock Pro, and Mystery Island II. The bundle is on sale for $49. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated […]
There are so, so, so many different discussions going on concerning internet platform regulations, and so many of the different ideas conflict with one another. But there is a general agreement that the US really, really needs a federal privacy law. Without it, we just bounce back and forth between (1) EU and other nations’ […]
While it got lost under the obsession with “big tech,” California has been doing a lot of interesting stuff in a bid to counter “big telecom.” The state not only implemented new net neutrality rules requiring that telecom monopolies behave, it’s building a massive new open access fiber network that should go a long way […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Toom1275 with a comment about the copyright questions around “fast movies”: If your movie is so shallow that it can be completely replaced with a 10-minite summary (or evem the trailer) then perhaps it really isn’t all that truly valuable in the first place. […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2017, things seemed pretty bad on the privacy front. Intelligence community leaks were normalizing domestic surveillance abuses, the Fifth Circuit said no warrants were required to obtain near-realtime cell site location info, and while DHS agencies were stepping up demands for social media account info from visa applicants Congress […]
The Supreme Court made it pretty clear in its Rodriguez decision that pretextual traffic stops were fine, but once the pretext evaporated, it was time to cut civilians loose. We hold that a police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable […]
I’m starting to lose count of how many regulatory proceedings there have been in the last 6 months or so to discuss “standard technical measures” in the copyright context. Doing policy work in this space is like living in a zombie movie version of “Groundhog Day” as we keep having to marshal resources to deal […]
Techdirt is one of the few remaining independent blogs. And, in many ways, I really miss the era of independent blogging that became a thing mainly in the early 2000s. Over time, most people have moved on to either new media organizations (often funded or owned by the old media organizations) or simply embraced social […]
Clearview may as well exit Europe entirely. Things are not going to get better for it. Online privacy laws are far more restrictive on the other side of the pond and Clearview’s business model will always be in violation of those laws. European laws require companies to obtain some sort of consent from the people […]
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