The following is republished from the excellent Pessimist’s Archive, with permission. The Oxford Dictionary just added “brainrot” as its newest official word—a cynical, but tongue-in-cheek term for consuming too much short-form social media content. However, the word isn’t actually new – in the archives we found examples going back as far as a century and […]
Kash Patel — Trump’s pick to head the FBI — is not the sort of person who should be allowed to head the FBI. While he does have some experience as a federal prosecutor, he’s mostly known for helping Republicans thwart the Russian election interference probe that began during Trump’s first term and for filling […]
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The censors are making a big push on the new version of “KOSPA,” which is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) merged with a problematic privacy bill (hence the “P”). Over the weekend, Senator Marsha Blackburn — who directly admitted the point of the bill was to “protect minor children from the transgender [sic] in […]
SpaceX’s Starlink service can be an absolute game changer for those completely out of range of broadband access. Getting several hundred megabits per second in the middle of nowhere is a decidedly good thing, assuming you can afford the $120 a monthly subscription, $375 (or more) hardware fee, and occasional $100 “congestion surcharges.” But contrary to […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side Thad with a comment about the news that the owner of the LA Times will be personally reviewing opinion headlines: If anybody’s got some money to spare, consider donating to news sources that aren’t owned by billionaires, like PBS, ProPublica, 404 Media, or, you know, […]
We’re past the halfway point of our Kickstarter campaign for One Billion Users, a new competitive card game about building the biggest and best social media network. We’re very excited to get this game into people’s hands, but we won’t be able to do it without your support! If you want to try your hand […]
Valve’s Steam PC gaming storefront appears to be on a bit of a pro-consumer kick as of late and I like it. We recently discussed the platform’s update to its purchase process, which now specifically includes explicit language around how the purchase is that of a revokable license to play the game, rather than any […]
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 round-up of the latest news in online […]
To anyone who listened to the oral arguments in the DC Circuit regarding the TikTok ban bill, it perhaps wasn’t a huge surprise that the DC Circuit today ruled to uphold the ban, but the resulting opinion is incredibly troubling. In a stunning and dangerous decision, the court argued that banning TikTok somehow vindicates and […]
Civil asset forfeiture has never been about dismantling criminal operations. It has always been about immediately enriching those who directly benefit from every dollar seized under the pretense that taking cash away from random people somehow cripples multi-national drug operations that have both the personnel and the cash on hand to survive these small-ish seizures. […]
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In a disturbing (if unsurprising) trend, Republican FCC and FTC commissioners are deliberately misusing “free speech” rhetoric in an Orwellian attempt to justify government intervention to control and suppress online speech. Last week, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr pushed censorial policies in the name of “free speech.” This week, GOP FTC Commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew […]
We’ve noted for decades how the U.S. broadband sector is a mess thanks to corruption and unchecked monopoly power working tirelessly to undermine U.S. telecom competition. The result is high prices, spotty access, slow speeds, and comically terrible customer service. Another way to put it is market failure. Caused by regulatory capture. In direct response, […]
It was only a few weeks ago that we discussed Good Old Games’ (GOG) return to its roots with the site’s “GOG Preservation Program”. While GOG never stopped selling, you know, good old games, the site also expanded over the years to be a storefront for new releases and AAA games as well. But with […]
I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years and I can assure I have yet to read a DOJ civil rights investigation report that has concluded everything looks pretty OK at this cop shop. Every — and I mean every — DOJ investigation is followed by a report that can be accurately described as […]
The Federal Trade Commission is once again taking action against a data broker for illegally collecting and selling the sensitive data of Americans, including information on people’s trips to doctors offices, abortion clinics, and places of worship. This time the FTC is taking aim at Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel, which the FTC announcement […]
Billionaire media owners are getting bolder in their attempts to suppress opinions they dislike. The latest example comes from LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who reportedly plans to personally review all opinion headlines to ensure they don’t offend Elon Musk or others that Soon-Shiong is trying to impress. Considering the billionaire class keeps pretending that […]
Microsoft 2019 Professional Plus is one of the most popular business suites globally. This new version of Office 2019 has been redesigned with more powerful features and improved cloud connectivity, allowing you to do more in less time. Office 2019 has a lot to offer in terms of features and functionality. It provides users with […]
There’s little that’s more impermeable than the US border. I mean, people flow across it all the time, often without being vetted, but courts seem to agree the only thing that really matters is what border agencies are trying (and failing) to accomplish. Whatever rights need to be abridged, paused, or outright discarded are just […]
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