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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 […]

You might recall that AT&T’s $200 billion acquisition of Time Warner and DirecTV was supposed to transform the telecom giant into a modern internet video advertising superpower. Instead, after a massive amount of debt and endless bumbling, AT&T wound up laying off more than 50,000 people, closing a bunch of popular brands (like Mad Magazine), […]

Elon Musk’s legal team probably thought they had the perfect strategy: file a SLAPP suit in a court with a judge known for partisan rulings, including rulings benefiting Elon himself in the past. But they didn’t count on one thing – the judge recusing himself. Last week, Elon sued GARM and the others, claiming that […]

[Extremely War Boys voice]: Oh, what a lovely mess! The problem with a story like this is that a recap will run a couple thousand words before you even get into the new stuff. To quote another cult classic movie, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” Marion Police Chief […]

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I know that many Elon Musk supporters assume that my mockery of the many stupid things that Elon does means that I won’t give him a fair shake. But when he does something good, I’m happy to highlight it and give him kudos. In this case, he’s right (if a bit provocative) in telling EU […]

Fifth-generation wireless (5G) was supposed to change the world. According to wireless carriers and gear makers, not only was it supposed to bring about the “fourth industrial revolution,” it was supposed to usher forth amazing new smart cities and help with cancer treatment. Wireless giants routinely portrayed a world full of 5G powered robots giving tattoos or engaging in remote […]

It was just a few months ago that we had some fun with Logitech over it’s amazing, never been done before AI mouse… that was actually just a rehash of a previous mouse that had a button that could be used to launch a ChatGPT prompt. So it wasn’t so much an AI mouse, as […]

We fought a revolution for this?!? This is the new America: a loose confederacy (yes, I’m using that correctly [and pointedly]) of states that desire to see us returned to the harsh reality our founding fathers (and colonists before them) left their homelands to escape. The shift of the so-called “conservative movement” to the extreme […]

For years now, the UN has been trying to strike a deal on a “Cybercrime Treaty.” As with nearly every attempt by the UN to craft treaties around internet regulation, it’s been a total mess. The concept, enabling countries to have agreed upon standards to fight cybercrime, may seem laudable. But when it’s driven by […]

In one of several ongoing campaigns of hate in our country, the Iowa legislature passed a law that not only changed what schools could teach, but what students could be allowed to read. First, let’s get to the changes to the state’s health curriculum, which is nothing less than the erasure of HIV/AIDS sufferers. The […]