Oh Look, The MAGA FTC Built The Censorship Industrial Complex It Was Screaming About
We’ve been covering the Trump administration’s escalating campaign against NewsGuard for a while now. It started with the House Oversight Committee’s absurd investigation of the…
The Wall Street Journal Wonders Why There Are Suddenly So Many Sleazy Fees
I cut my teeth as a telecom reporter, so I spent a lot of time writing about how broadband monopolies and cable TV giants rip off consumers with sleazy, misleading fees. I also…
ACAB: Cops Are Bringing ‘Delinquency Of A Minor’ Charges Against Adults Who Assist Students During Anti-ICE Protests
While the Trump administration’s extremely aggressive, thoroughly bigoted attempts to eliminate as many non-white people from this country as possible have resulted in some…
John Deere Pays $99 Million To Settle ‘Right To Repair’ Class Action
A few years ago agricultural equipment giant John Deere found itself on the receiving end of multiple state, federal, and class action lawsuits for its efforts to monopolize…
Nintendo’s Haphazard ‘Mario Maker 2’ Takedown Process Rife With Abuse
We’ve talked for many years about Nintendo’s shotgun approach to IP enforcement, as well as its heavy-handed ToS enforcement policies that can include bricking customer consoles…
‘Trump Phone’ Sees Price Hike, But Still No Release Date (Or Actual Phone)
Last year the fraud-prone Trump organization announced a half-assed wireless phone company. As we noted at the time, calling this a “phone company” was generous; it was a lazy…
Nevada Court Latest To Say Mandatory Detention Of Migrants Is Illegal
More of the same for the Trump administration — one that seems incapable of achieving its goals without breaking the law or disregarding the Constitution. Hundreds of judges…
The CDC Doesn’t Want You To See A CDC Report On How Effective COVID Vaccines Are
One of the most remarkable staffing decisions of the second Trump administration has been to allow the anti-vaxxers to run America’s health agencies. While RFK Jr. and his cadre…
Administration Apparently Planning To Blow Off FISA Court’s Ordered Fixes For Section 702
It wasn’t all that long ago that GOP legislators were collectively stonewalling a clean reauthorization of Section 702. Three years ago, these legislators were seeking to end the…
438 Experts Said Age Verification Is Dangerous. Legislators Are Moving Forward With It Anyway.
In early March, 438 security and privacy researchers from 32 countries signed a massive open letter warning that age verification mandates for the internet are technically…
Section 230 Is Dying By A Thousand Workarounds, And Massachusetts Just Added Another One
We’ve been warning for a while now that Section 230 is dying by a thousand legal workarounds rather than a straightforward repeal, and the hits just keep coming. A few weeks ago,…
Trump Invites More Criminal Acts By Promising Pardons To Everyone Who Works For Him
If you’re not corrupt, you generally don’t have to say certain things. Let’s take a look at ex-NYC mayor Eric Adams who, while dealing with plenty of corruption investigations and…
DOJ Is Using A Grand Jury To Force Reddit To Unmask An Anonymous User
The government’s reliance on grand juries to bring charges against activists, protesters, and the president’s personal enemies has been misplaced. Increasingly, grand juries are…
Whoops: Russia’s Attempt To Block VPNs Causes Major Banking Failure
VPNs (when integrity is maintained and the owners aren’t sleazy scammers) have long been the mortal enemy of shitty, surveillance-happy governments. And when shitty,…
No Surprise Here: Inspection Reveals Dozens Of Violations In El Paso ICE Detention Center
I’m not here to cut the Trump administration any slack or engage in both-sides bullshit, but this is something that has always been true: we treat anyone imprisoned or detained as…
Judge Tosses Trump’s Ridiculous $10 Billion Defamation Suit Against Rupert Murdoch
Back in January of last year, the Wall Street Journal published a story about a leather-bound birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell had assembled for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th…
1,000+ Hollywood Insiders Write Letter Opposing Paramount/Warner Bros Merger
More than 1,000 top Hollywood professionals ranging from Glenn Close to Denis Villeneuve have signed off on a new letter opposing the merger between Larry Ellison’s Paramount/CBS…
NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 Demo Video Briefly Taken Down Because YouTube’s Take Down Process Sucks
Last month, we discussed NVIDIA’s demo video for its forthcoming DLSS 5 technology and the controversy surrounding it. While I’m going to continue to be of the posture that an…
Trump Attacks On Public Media Blocked By Judge (But It’s Too Little, Too Late)
A federal judge has ruled that President Trump’s executive order last year defunding PBS and NPR violated the First Amendment, and has issued a permanent injunction insisting that…
The New York Times Got Played By A Telehealth Scam And Called It The Future Of AI
Since the New York Times published its semi-viral big profile of Medvi last week — the “AI-powered” telehealth startup that it breathlessly described as a “$1.8 billion company”…
Musk, Bezos, Both Cry To Trump’s FCC In Bid To Dominate Satellite Broadband
Elon Musk is desperate to dominate the Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband market. So is Jeff Bezos. And now the two billionaires are engaged in proxy fights at Trump’s FCC…
Prosecutors Still Trying To Convict 62-Year-Old Woman For Wearing Penis Costume To Anti-Trump Protest
Never underestimate the stupidity of law enforcement. When things could just be left alone and everything would turn out OK, officers insist on inserting themselves into the…
Remember The “Ministry Of Truth” Freakout? Rubio Is Now Doing Something Far Worse Through Elon Musk’s X
Remember when the Biden administration set up something called the “Disinformation Governance Board” and the entire MAGA universe lost its collective mind? It was the “Ministry of…
RFK Jr. Amends ACIP’s Charter In Attempt To Exert More Control Over Panel Members
After RFK Jr. found himself getting a rebuke from the court system over his ACIP reorganization from last year, in which the courts issued a preliminary injunction on the vaccine…
Judge Tells Border Officers (Again!) That They Can’t Arrest Migrants Without Real Warrants
The courts keep pounding the nails home. What this government is engaged in is illegal, on multiple levels. If you subtract the pro-MAGA Fifth Circuit and 6/9ths of the Supreme…
Someone Filed a Bogus DMCA Notice to Kill a Story About A Sketchy SEO Firm. It Worked — Briefly.
We’ve talked for years about how the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown system is ripe for abuse. The legal structure of the law practically begs for such abuse: send a notice, content…
The World Is Yours
Forgive me for this digression. I know it’s usually left to Mike Masnick to lift us up from our collective doldrums when things seem even more hopeless than they did last year.…
Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations To Focus On Deportations
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the…
With Cox V. Sony The Supreme Court Provides Yet Another Internet-Protecting Decision
The Supreme Court has now issued its decision in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment. This was a case where Cox, a broadband provider, had been held liable for the…
Trump’s Two-Faced AI Policy
The Trump administration’s AI policy is two-faced, torn between deregulation and despotism. In March, the administration released its National AI Legislative Framework, directing…
Tech Lobbyists Are Trying To Kill Colorado’s Popular ‘Right To Repair’ Law
There’s a meaningful push afoot to implement statewide “right to repair” laws that try to make it cheaper, easier, and environmentally friendlier for you to repair the technology…
Daily Deal: The 2026 Canva Bundle
The 2026 Canva Bundle has six courses to help you learn about graphic design. From logo design to business cards to branding to bulk content creation, these courses have you…
Daily Deal: The Complete Raspberry Pi And Alexa A-Z Bundle
Learn Raspberry Pi and start building Amazon Alexa projects with The Complete Raspberry Pi and Alexa A-Z Bundle. Catered for all levels, these project-based courses will get you…
Daily Deal: The Ultimate Python & Artificial Intelligence Certification Bundle
The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to help you take your Python and AI knowledge to the next level. You’ll learn about data pre-processing and…
AI And Cybersecurity: A Glass Half-Empty/Half-Full Proposition, Where The Glass Is Holding Nitroglycerin
First, some of the good news: certain AI models—currently Anthropic’s Mythos, but surely others are well on their way if they haven’t already arrived—turn out to be really good at…
Game Jam Winner Spotlight: As I Lay Flying
It’s time for the third in our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best…
Court Blocks Republican Push To (Further) Dominate And Destroy Local Broadcast News
Last month FCC boss Brendan Carr illegally ignored remaining U.S. media consolidation laws to rubber stamp Nexstar’s $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna. It’s part of the generational…
Techdirt Podcast Episode 449: The Dangers Of Product Design Liability For Social Media
Support us on Patreon » We’ve written at length about the dangers of the recent court rulings in California and New Mexico that say social media companies can be held responsible…
Daily Deal: Geekey Multi-Tool
Geekey is an innovative, compact multi-tool like nothing seen before. It’s truly a work of art with engineering that combines everyday common tools into one sleek little punch…
Court Dismisses Pepperdine’s Nonsense Trademark Suit Against Netflix Over ‘Running Point’
A little over a year ago, we wrote about a fairly silly lawsuit filed against Netflix (and Warner Bros.) by Pepperdine University in California for trademark infringement. At…
Daily Deal: The 2026 Complete Godot Stack Development Bundle
Dive into Godot – a rising star in the game engine world – with the 2026 Complete Godot Stack Development Bundle. You’ll learn to create platformers, RPGs, strategy games, FPS…
Daily Deal: uTalk Language Education
We have all wanted to learn a language at some point but it’s hard to get started. Some language learning tools can be complicated and very time-consuming. But with uTalk, you’ll…
Trump Threatens CNN For Very Basic Reporting On His Shitty, Unpopular War
In case you’ve been asleep, what appears to be an increasingly mentally unstable Donald Trump has further destabilized the middle east with a war nobody asked for or wanted. Most…
Techdirt Podcast Episode 450: Infrastructure For The New Private Internet
Support us on Patreon » As we work our way towards a better future for the internet, the most encouraging and exciting part is the people out there building towards that future.…
Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, we’ve got a double-winning comment from Shannon Vanshoon that took first place on the insightful side and second place on the funny side. It’s a response to a…
Oh God: RFK Jr. Unveils Plan To Be First Sitting Cabinet Secretary To Host A Podcast
With all that RFK Jr. has done, and failed to do, as the Secretary of HHS, he should be terribly busy cleaning up mess after mess. The measles outbreak that is going to cause…
Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ Internet
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,…
Daily Deal: Luminar Mobile for iOS And Android
Luminar Mobile is your all-in-one creative companion designed for iOS, Android OS, and Chrome OS. Powered by an intuitive, touch-responsive interface, it lets you enhance photos…