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Text • Karl Bode

Former FCC Officials Line Up To Blast Brendan Carr’s Lawless Censorship Of ABC

A bipartisan roster of former top-level FCC officials have submitted a filing to the Trump FCC blasting the agency’s ongoing violations of the First Amendment and urging it to terminate its phony “investigations” into ABC — including the unprecedented early ownership review of the company’s broadcast licenses. In the filing, former FCC officials allied under […]

Techdirt
Text • Timothy Geigner

A Blackout Protest Over Sony Ditching Disks Is Brewing

Sony’s decision to stop producing PlayStation discs starting in 2028 was met with a ton of initial backlash, especially in the wake of Sony reminding its customers yet again that a digital purchase of content isn’t actually a purchase of content at all and what you’ve bought can be ripped away from you with the […]

Techdirt
Text • Tim Cushing

Court Shuts Down Federal Officers Who Wanted To Run A Stingray Device For A Month Straight

For a long time, cell site simulators, a.k.a. “Stingrays” made headlines on nearly a daily basis. Then they just kind of fell off the map. L3Harris — the manufacturer of cell site simulators that commanded enough market share to see its flagship product become the victim of genericide — saw the writing on the wall […]

Techdirt
Text • Karl Bode

Paramount Merger Gets Further Delayed, And Things Could Get Expensive

Just as Larry Ellison and Paramount executives had worried, the state antitrust challenge to their $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers has resulted in significant delays that could prove terminal. Two weeks ago California and eleven other states filed an antitrust lawsuit to block the merger, pointing out that the consolidation would undermine market competition, […]

Techdirt
Text • Mike Masnick

The FTC Would Like To Decide Which AI Answers Are Too Woke, And Is Calling That Consumer Protection

On Friday this week the FTC’s open comment period regarding its “Policy Statement Addressing AI Accuracy” will close, which means that a bunch of very smart, very busy people are wasting a ton of time this week writing up comments that will mostly be ignored by the FTC — but still matter for the record. […]

Techdirt
Text • Daily Deal

Daily Deal: The Complete Machine Learning Bundle

Dive into the world of self-driving cars, speech recognition technology, and more with the Complete Machine Learning Bundle. Over 10 courses, you will learn about pattern recognition and prediction, and how to harness the power of machine learning to take your programming to the next level. Discover quant trading, how to harness large data sets, […]

Techdirt
Text • Tim Cushing

404 Media Scores Leaked Document Detailing The Dozens Of Surveillance Tools ICE Has Access To

The always-invaluable 404 Media has scored another minor coup. We all know ICE is heavily invested in surveillance tech, ranging from its purchases of cell location data from data brokers to throwing money at Clearview AI, the most notorious of facial recognition tech firms. But there’s so much more to it than that. On top […]

Techdirt
Text • Karl Bode

The Trump FCC’s Chinese Drone Ban Continues To Be A Sloppy, Protectionist Mess

Last year the Trump administration announced it would ban Chinese-made drones from the U.S. As I noted at the time, the plan had several problems, not least of which being the Trump administration is a racist, corrupt, dysfunctional mess filled with weirdos and lazy incompetents, primarily interested in assorted personal investment grifts and protecting less […]

Techdirt
Text • Glyn Moody

AI Systems Out-Persuade Expert Humans, Including Professional Canvassers And World Championship Debaters

Persuasion plays a key role in society. Whether it is political or financial decisions, workplace or family choices, or simply reading a book or article (like this one), often someone is trying to persuade someone else to agree with them, possibly by changing their mind. This raises an interesting question: if persuasion is such an […]

Techdirt
Text • Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Sharon Lerner

Trump Officials Want To Use Human Rights Aid To Advocate For White South Africans And Right-Wing Causes In Europe

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. For decades, the U.S. Department of State gave money to groups protecting free speech, human rights and persecuted minorities in poor and authoritarian countries.  To decide what to fund, staffers with deep expertise typically pored over reams of information on abuses under the most repressive regimes […]

Techdirt
Text • Tim Cushing

Administration Admits It’s Canceling Federal Grants For Purely Political Reasons

We all know this administration is more than willing to reward “red” states and punish “blue” states. There will always be an administration official on hand to claim the incredibly transparent vindictiveness of this administration is actually just regular government business devoid of animus. No one believes these officials, of course. And the officials mouthing […]

Techdirt
Text • Mike Masnick

Judge Rejects Google’s Attempt To DMCA Its Way Out Of Being Scraped

Back in December we called out Google for filing a DMCA 1201 lawsuit over companies scraping Google’s results. Almost everything about the lawsuit seemed problematic, not the least of which is that Google’s entire business was built on scraping the web. To sue another company for scraping Google just felt… obnoxious. And now a judge […]

Techdirt
Text • Daily Deal

Daily Deal: ExamsDigest for CompTIA, AWS, Microsoft & More

ExamsDigest isn’t just another study tool—it’s your ultimate certification training partner. With over 3,000 exam simulators and more than 50,000 practice questions across 70+ learning paths, this platform is designed to help you train the way you’ll be tested. Whether you’re diving into IT for the first time or leveling up in cloud, cybersecurity, networking, […]

Techdirt
Text • Tim Cushing

Protester Charged With Destroying Property After Giving CBP Agents His GrapheneOS ‘Duress’ Mode Passcode

Atlanta, Georgia’s attempt to erect a law enforcement officer training center in Atlanta was met by months of concerted protests. As the months stretched into years (the center was announced in 2021 but did not complete construction until 2025), opposition efforts ranged from peaceful protests to heated exchanges during public comment sessions to attacks on […]

Techdirt
Text • Karl Bode

Court Partially Reverses Trump Attacks On Law That Tried To Make Sure Broadband Deployment Isn’t Racist

Earlier this year the Trump administration decided to illegally dismantle the 2021 Digital Equity Act, which was intended to help push internet access into long-neglected parts of the U.S. The Act took very vague aim at digital redlining, or the longstanding practice by telecom giants of refusing to upgrade (or at times even timely repair) […]

Techdirt
Text • Leigh Beadon

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, both top comments on the insightful side come in response to our post about the attempted murder charges that were dropped after bystander recordings exposed the lies of ICE officers. First, it’s Citizen with a reminder that the word of law enforcement officers shouldn’t be trusted: In second place, it’s Pixelation with a […]

Techdirt
Text • Leigh Beadon

This Week In Techdirt History: July 19th – 25th

This Week in 2016 This Week in 2011 This Week in 2006

Techdirt
Text • Tim Cushing

Trump Fires Court-Appointed US Attorney One Hour After Appointment, Immediately Gets Sued

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Federal judges in the Western District of Washington had unanimously appointed Roger Rogoff to be the Justice Department’s top official there, filling a vacancy that the president has never addressed. But the Trump administration has largely defied attempts by federal judges to fill vacancies, leading to Mr. Rogoff’s […]

Techdirt
Text • Mike Masnick

DOJ Withdraws NY Times Subpoenas After Judge Notices It Never Bothered To Follow The Rules For Subpoenaing Reporters

Just last week we had the story of the Trump DOJ issuing very questionable subpoenas of NY Times journalists while trying to track down who leaked information to those reporters regarding the potentially catastrophic security flaws of the “gift” 747 plane he received from Qatar. As we noted in that original post, this appeared to […]

Techdirt
Text • Mike Masnick

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Live At TrustCon 2026

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. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on […]

Techdirt
Text • Mike Masnick

Election Commission Says Musk Likely Broke The Law By Paying Voters. Will Anyone Do Anything About It?

Will Elon Musk actually face legal consequences for illegally paying voters in an attempt to interfere in an election? We’re at least one step closer to finding out. Back during the 2024 Presidential election, he got away with offering $1 million to a “random” (not actually random) voter who would sign his petition in an […]

Techdirt
Text • Daily Deal

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 up and running with the basics of Pi, before escalating to full projects. Before you know it, you’ll be building a gaming system to play old Nintendo, […]

Techdirt
Text • Tim Cushing

Administration Accelerating Immigration Hearings To Ensure Migrants Miss New Court Dates

No punishment is too vindictive. No cruelty is too small. The administration that is openly seeking to create a white Christian nationalist autocracy will do whatever it can to expel as many non-white people from this nation as possible. Trump and his cabinet members constantly claim the country has been overrun by dangerous foreign migrants, […]

Techdirt
Text • Karl Bode

Brendan Carr Lobs More Empty Threats At ABC For Not Airing Trump’s Election Fraud Lies

Earlier this year FCC boss Brendan Carr launched a series of fake investigations into ABC because the network (1) hosted Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico on The View, (2) aired comedians who made fun of the president and his wife, and (3) occasionally engaged in journalism critical of Trump corruption. The details of these […]

Techdirt
Text • Timothy Geigner

Caleb Williams, George Gervin, An ‘Iceman’ Trademark And Insulated Boots…Oh My?

If you’re not a particular kind of sports fan, a certain trademark dispute may have escaped your attention. The Chicago Bears quarterback is Caleb Williams and he’s pretty great. He also has acquired a nickname: “Iceman.” This nickname has become so associated with him that it is even referenced on Williams’ appearance on the cover […]

Techdirt
Text • Sharon Lerner and Anna Maria Barry-Jester

“Digital Colonialism”: U.S. Demands To Access Africans’ Data Raise Privacy, Sovereignty Concerns

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Frank Ssekamwa says the United States presented his country with an impossible choice. If it accepted the terms of a new health agreement, Uganda would have to give the U.S. access to the data of millions of his fellow citizens — a decision he worries would […]

Techdirt
Text • Keith Fentonmiller

The FTC’s National Nanny Returns: AI Edition

In 1978, the Federal Trade Commission, the agency that regulates unfair or deceptive advertising, proposed limiting TV ads for sugary foods on programs targeted at children. The Washington Post’s editorial board scoffed that the plan would “turn the agency into a great national nanny.” Congress clipped the agency’s wings, and “kidvid” entered history as a […]

Techdirt
Text • Mike Masnick

Government Lawyers Say Trump Admin Can Use TikTok Again Because ‘Owned’ No Longer Means ‘Owned’

We spent a few years pointing out the ridiculousness of the whole “TikTok ban” moral panic, and the fact that all of the “concerns” magically melted away after Trump became president and then effectively gifted a controlling stake to some of his friends should raise some pretty big questions. However, most people seem to have […]

Techdirt
Text • Daily Deal

Daily Deal: The Modern No-Code Development Bundle

The Modern No-Code Creator Bundle is an extensive online curriculum specifically developed to enable individuals to construct professional websites, applications & automated workflows without the necessity of writing any code. It has five courses, covering leading no-code platforms and tools like ChatGPT, Mendix, and Tabnine. It is ideally suited for novices and non-technical professionals, empowering […]

Techdirt
Text • Tim Cushing

ICE Illegally Scooped Up Medicaid Data, Then Shared It With Palantir

The Trump administration’s continual trend towards maximum awfulness means that every report seems to be “I’ve got bad news and I’ve got worse news.” What was already bad has become even worse now that more of the administration’s actions have been exposed during court proceedings. Last July, the Trump administration unilaterally decided ICE should have […]