As we head into another Presidential election, one thing has been consistent from the last two such elections as well: the tech policies of both major parties are terrible. The Donald Trump Republican platform for 2025 is beyond crazy with all sorts of nonsense. The “tech” part of it is barely worth a mention, but […]
I spent decades as a telecom beat reporter watching the mainstream press cover the telecom industry. I had a front row seat to the endless promises big telecoms like AT&T and Comcast made before a merger, and the way the U.S. business press repeatedly parroted pre-merger claims entirely unskeptically, without pointing out the harms of […]
One of many ideas floated as a solution to police misconduct issues is the requirement that officers carry their own insurance. Almost every law enforcement officer is currently indemnified by the towns and cities that employ them, ensuring they’re never personally responsible for any judgments or settlements stemming from their misconduct. And that’s a very […]
Because of the wonderful world in which we live, we get to learn about certain unhappy terms and practices, one of which is the concept of “collective punishment.” As a matter of war, collective punishment is a war crime. The idea is that a belligerent force cannot punish an entire population or group merely for […]
The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed Indiana’s age verification law to go into effect — even as the Supreme Court has suggested a similar law in Texas might be unconstitutional. The Seventh Circuit panel handed down this ruling, letting the law go into effect just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court decided […]
For as long as the evening news has existed, America has been portrayed as a dangerous place to live. Reminding people we’re a very safe country — especially over the past 30 years — doesn’t draw in viewers. And it doesn’t draw in voters, either. Among the many, many, many things Donald Trump lied about […]
As we recently noted, telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast are having some very good luck using a corrupt, MAGA-heavy court to not only kill popular net neutrality rules — but to effectively lobotomize the FCC’s ability to protect broadband consumers at all. Leveraging the recent Supreme Court Lopper rulings, telecom lawyers are trying to […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about the Governor who told students to “look the other way” if they are bothered by mandated postings of the Ten Commandments: Funny how theocrats never practice what they preach. They refuse to simply “look the other way” when bothered by, […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2019, we looked at the loss of Aereo and its impact on policy, and also dedicated the first of two episodes of our podcast to dissecting the FTC’s Facebook settlement. The Wall Street Journal had Dennis Prager peddling complete nonsense about “Google censorship”, a Fox News commenter was calling […]
It was just a few weeks ago that we were discussing how an update Apple made to its rules for its App Store allowed for some retro-console game emulator apps, but not retro-PC game emulator apps for some reason. When Apple made the policy change, developer Chaoji Li submitted his app, iDOS, for consideration, only […]
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 […]
For a while, we’ve been pointing out how terrible KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) is. Our main concern is that the bill would fundamentally lead to the suppression of all kinds of speech. That’s because the “duty of care” provision, while limited, would allow officials (mostly at the FTC, which can get partisan) to […]
I, for one, would welcome an opportunity for the inmates to run the asylum. It can’t possibly be any stupider than this bit of news, which emanates from what I consider to be my hometown (I spent 15 formative years living here, beginning at age 5), El Paso, Texas. An El Paso middle school is […]
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A challenge for the mainstream media: can you stop saying that Elon Musk is a free speech absolutist? Over the past few years, we’ve had a number of posts highlighting just how laughable it is that Elon Musk claims that he’s a “free speech absolutist.” He never has been. Remember that even before he took […]
Last June scientists warned that low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites constantly burning up in orbit could release chemicals that could undermine the progress we’ve made repairing the ozone layer. Researchers at USC noted that at peak, 1,005 U.S. tons of aluminum will fall to Earth, releasing 397 U.S. tons of aluminum oxides per year to the atmosphere, […]
One of the common excuses companies give when enforcing their trademarks in a way that is far more ham-fisted than is actually required is: “Hey, we have to police our marks or else we risk losing them.” This excuse often exaggerates that requirement, of course, as there is no need to police marks when there […]
We learned earlier this year, it’s not just the FBI targeting extremely vulnerable people with the intent of radicalizing them into arrests on terrorism charges. The FBI has been a world leader in this particular category, apparently incapable of being shamed (or sued) into altering its tactics, which often appear to be on the wrong […]
You may recall that RFK Jr.’s nonsense-peddling anti-vax organization “Children’s Health Defense” (CHD) sued Meta back in 2020 for the apparent crime of fact-checking and limiting the reach of the anti-vax nonsense it posted. Three years ago, the case was tossed out of court (easily) with the court pointing out that Meta is (*gasp*) a […]
Re-branding isn’t going to save ShotSpotter. While it would prefer to be called “SoundThinking,” its flagship product is still its acoustic detection tech — something the company claims reliably detects gunshots. Whatever the preferred (and trademarked) nomenclature, the claims the company makes are rarely backed up by facts. Even when it works, it still kind […]
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