We’ve talked about the many, many problems of the “SMART Copyright Act” from Senators Thom Tillis and Pat Leahy, and highlighted how a ton of public interest groups, academics, companies, and more have spoken out against the bill. Perhaps realizing that their dream of sneaking through legislation that will mandate upload filters is facing a […]
As Russia has faced a flood of sanctions for its brutal invasion of Ukraine, many telecom companies, like Lumen and Cogent, also stopped feeding and financing key Internet transit routes into the country. Other companies, like domain registrar Namecheap, made the choice to stop doing business with any current residents of Russia. While severing Russia […]
You may have heard that Stone Brewing Co., once a scion and protector of the craft beer industry, won a trademark lawsuit against Molson Coors due to the latter’s rebranding of its “Keystone” brand to more prominently feature the word “STONE” on cans and labels. We didn’t write about the case, though that doesn’t mean […]
A couple months back, Starlink and Elon Musk got several weeks of press adulation for shipping thousands of low orbit satellite terminals to Ukraine. The units, generally capable of 100 Mbps speeds with low latency, were likely a huge help to locals struggling to maintain Internet access while under Russian assault (with the small caveat […]
I’ll admit this recent decision sort of passed me by. My brief read of it suggested nothing more was happening than an affirmation of preexisting law via lots of procedural discussion. There are plenty of hoops people who have been falsely accused of crimes need to jump through before a court will even entertain their […]
George Galloway is a UK politician with, well, something of a reputation. Anyway, recently, he got very, very upset, because Twitter labeled his account as being “Russia state-affiliated media.” That tweet shows the addition by Twitter of the “Russia state-affiliated media” and then says: Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work […]
Some of you may recall that, back in July of 2020, there was one of those interminably long “tech CEO” hearings in front of Congress that appear to serve only to make politicians look foolish, out of touch, and technically illiterate. Among the most laughable moments was when Rep. Greg Steube wasted everyone’s time by […]
The Mac Madness App Bundle has 14 apps to help boost your Mac’s productivity. The apps can help you with file organization, converting audio, controlling smart bulbs and devices, budgeting, and more. It’s on sale for $20. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt […]
We may supposedly be a nation of equals but some people will always be more equal than others. The justice system has multiple tiers. This has always been the case, despite the best efforts of the founding fathers. Rich people view some laws as optional, since they can easily absorb the fines and fees. Laws […]
We’ve already noted how U.S. broadband maps aren’t just terrible, they’ve laid the foundation for terrible policy. When your maps falsely overstate competition and broadband coverage, it makes it easy to downplay or ignore the primary reason U.S. broadband stinks: regional monopolization and the state and federal corruption that protects and enables it. But the […]
This week, That One Guy takes both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, it’s a comment about Senator James Lankford’s stupid letter to Sundar Pichai demanding answers about the removal of CPAC videos: Maybe take the gloves off? At this point everyone should really stop treating people like Lankford as honest individuals […]
We’re nearing the end of our series of posts about the winners of the fourth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1926. So far, we’ve looked at The Wall Across The River, The Obstruction Method, Dreaming The Cave, and Mr. Top Hat Doesn’t Give A Damn! Today, we move on to the winner […]
Firewalls. You know, boring old IT stuff. So why are we talking about them at Techdirt? Well, one thing we regularly talk about is how companies tend to respond to exploits and breaches that are uncovered and, far too often, how horrifically bad they are in those responses. Often times, breaches and exploits end up […]
With Elon Musk now Twitter’s largest shareholder, and joining the company’s board, there have been some (perhaps reasonable) concerns about the influence he would have on the platform — mainly based on his childlike understanding of free speech, in which speech that he likes should obviously be allowed, and speech that he dislikes should obviously […]
For years, we’ve noted how telecom and media giants have been trying to force “big tech” to give them huge sums of money for no reason. The shaky logic usually involves claiming that “big tech” gets a “free ride” on telecom networks, something that’s never actually been true. This narrative has been bouncing around telecom policy […]
A month ago, we wrote about a bizarre, nonsensical, Twitter rant from Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma that followed a bizarre, nonsensical appearance at the CPAC conference in which he lashed out at “big tech” for supposedly “censoring conservatives.” This fact-free grievance has been an item of blind faith among the Trumpist set, that big […]
Nearly every rumor about NSO Group has been proven true, despite plenty of early denials by the (oh, I guess we’ll be nice…) “embattled” malware merchant. The world’s foremost purveyor of zero-click exploits capable of completely compromising phones of targets is still in damage control mode. The damage can no longer be controlled, though. So, […]
GameGuru is a non-technical and fun game maker that offers an easy, enjoyable and comprehensive game creation process that is designed specifically for those who are not programmers or designers/artists. It allows you to build your own game world with easy to use tools. Populate your game by placing down characters, weapons, and other game items, […]
Local politicians across the political spectrum are trying to force websites to moderate their content in a manner the politicians want. Some (mainly Democrats) are trying to push for companies to remove more content. Some (mainly Republicans) are pushing companies to stop removing certain kinds of content. In both cases, trying to force specific editorial […]
We’ve noted for a while that Trump’s alternative social media platform, Truth Social, isn’t doing particularly well. Being a Trump product, the platform (surprise!) began with a lot of money slushing around that wasn’t spent in any coherent way. It’s also just generally glitchy and terrible. And it’s not helped much by the fact that […]
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