Some Follow Up Questions For Elon Musk, After He Admits He Gets Stuff Wrong Sometimes
Here’s a story about being wrong. Not just regular wrong — we’re all wrong sometimes! — but spectacularly, publicly, “I’m going to double down again and again and again on this obviously false thing even after being corrected” wrong. This week, Elon Musk stood in the Oval Office at the White House and was finally […]
Trump FCC Tries To Bully Comcast Away From Its Already Flimsy Dedication To Civil Rights
Since his appointment by Trump in 2017, the FCC’s Brendan Carr has never stood up to telecom giants on any issue of substance to consumers. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about the company’s destruction of net neutrality, privacy violations, bullshit hidden fees, or its technically unnecessary usage caps, there’s nothing a company like Comcast […]
Sony, MarkScan Go On ‘Bloodborne’ DMCA Blitz Of Fun, Fan-Made Creations
It’s always interesting to me to see companies identify what they see as a threat by looking at what type of content they attempt to DMCA or otherwise disappear. When actual direct and flagrant wholesale copying of a digital product occurs, you can understand why the takedowns are issued. We might still want to argue […]
Media Equipment Maker Terumo Cardiovascular Trying To Monopolize Repair Of Costly Gear
Terumo Cardiovascular, a company that makes six-figure medical equipment used in heart surgeries, is apparently keen on attracting the ire of the “right to repair” movement. But given the Trump administration’s assault on state and federal consumer protection, it’s not clear they’ll face many meaningful repercussions for it. In a letter obtained by 404 Media, […]
Steve Wynn Asks Supreme Court To Gut Key First Amendment Standard
Billionaires are already deleting parts of our government, as well as various safety mechanisms on the internet that sought to minimize hate and abuse. Do we also want them to be able to rewrite our understanding of the First Amendment? Steve Wynn’s latest Supreme Court petition represents a dangerous escalation in the ongoing assault on […]
Federal Court Allows Lawsuit Over Network Of 172 Flock ALPR Cameras To Move Forward
Late last fall, a number of Norfolk, Virginia residents — with the assistance of the Institute for Justice (IJ) — sued the city for blanketing Norfolk with nearly 200 automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) provided by Flock Safety. Flock Safety made its first inroads with the private market, selling plate readers to gated communities and […]
DOGE May Now Be Aware Of The CFAA But It’s Still Violating It, Along With Lots Of Other Laws
Another day, another computer system for DOGE to unlawfully access. This time it is the one running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one of the latest to be unlawfully shut down. Bloomberg is reporting that this time the DOGE bros incursion into the systems came with some sort of MOU, which did a few things […]
Daily Deal: The 2025 Business & Leadership Skills Bundle
The 2024 Business & Leadership Skills Bundle has 5 courses to help you learn skills you need to advance your career. Courses cover strategic planning, leadership styles, marketing communications, the art of professional poise and politeness, office politics, and more. It’s on sale for $25. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/12/daily-deal-the-2025-business-leadership-skills-bundle/
GOP Is Quietly Freaking Out About Elon; Time For Them To Take A Stand
It turns out that when you let the world’s richest man take over significant portions of the federal government, some people might get nervous. Who knew? Last week we wrote about how some staunch conservatives were finally admitting that Elon’s takeover of the government represented a constitutional crisis. Then earlier this week, we showed how […]
Phone Companies Still Suck At Stopping Unwanted Scam Robocalls, Something That Will Get Much Worse Under Trump 2.0
We’ve long noted how absurd it is that scammers, debt collectors, and greedy telemarketers have ruined our voice communications networks. We’ve somehow just normalized it. We’ve also noted how a big reason our robocall problem never gets fixed is because Congress and regulators routinely fixate on scammers and not on the “legit” companies like debt collectors that use […]
India Wants Wide Business Use Of Its Huge Aadhaar Biometric Database, Now With Facial Recognition
Techdirt has been writing about India’s huge Aadhaar database of biometrics, which assigns a unique 12-digit number to all Indian citizens, for a decade now. The system was introduced to make it easier for people in India to access key government services by authenticating their identity, but there were soon plans to allow businesses to […]
The Red Pill Was Hijacked
“Wake up, Neo. The Matrix has you.” These words marked a cultural moment—one that captured our collective anxiety about reality itself. The Matrix wasn’t just a movie about robots and kung fu. It was a story about questioning the systems of power and control that shape our understanding of the world. The red pill became a powerful metaphor for choosing difficult […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/11/the-red-pill-was-hijacked/
Trump’s Latest Solution To Everything: Let’s Make Foreign Bribery Great Again
There have been legitimate debates about whether the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — which makes it a criminal act for US entities to bribe foreign government officials — sometimes creates gray areas in international business. For example, over a decade ago, the Walmart Mexico case highlighted how Walmart payments to “speed up” permitting to build […]
Ohio Judge: Clearview Matches Aren’t Probable Cause So Kiss Your Murder Case Goodbye
If cops aren’t going to follow the law or the Constitution, I don’t know why we’re expecting them to adhere to end user agreements. It’s not just the fake social media profiles officers and investigators use. It’s also the tech they deploy. No matter how well facial recognition tech may perform, it’s still problematic. And […]
Daily Deal: The Six Sigma Green & Yellow Belt Certification Training Bundle
Six Sigma is a detail-orientated crafted set of tools and techniques that help improve processes within an organization. The main goal of the Six Sigma certification is simple: to equip individuals with the skills to recognize errors in a business process and remove them. You will receive an introduction to the tools and methods that […]
Palantir CEO Sures Seems Pleased His Tech Is Capable Of Getting People Killed
As if things weren’t terrible enough, the techbros of the world have decided the one-two punch of Donald Trump and Elon Musk will make them even richer than they already are, even if it means making the world a worse place to live… or suddenly die. Palantir has been on the leading edge of surveillance […]
Musk Promised Government Transparency, DOGE Delivers Maximum Secrecy
Before the election, Elon Musk declared: “I think that the strong bias with respect to government information should be to make it available to the public. Let’s be as transparent as possible. Fully transparent.” When one of his fanboys tweeted that quote, Elon responded by making an even bigger claim, saying: “There should be no […]
Subaru Software Hacked, Allowing Remote Control And Access To The Location Histories Of Millions Of Drivers
Last year Mozilla released a report showcasing how the auto industry has some of the worst privacy practices of any tech industry in America (no small feat). Massive amounts of driver behavior is collected by your car, and even more is hoovered up from your smartphone every time you connect. This data isn’t secured, often isn’t encrypted, […]
Appeals Court Says Town Can’t Forbid Cops From Flying The ‘Thin Blue Line’ Flag
While we all know the “Thin Blue Line” flag is just a bastardization meant to signify cops are above the law, there’s no constitutional way we can forbid cops from displaying their deliberate antagonism against their obligations to the people they serve: things like transparency, accountability, and the service and protection so many law enforcement […]
The Trump Administration Just Sued IL, Chicago Over State Laws Around Immigration Enforcement
I’m quite certain that by now, a few weeks into the second Trump term, many or most of our readers are already tired of the coverage over the administration’s actions. And if that’s you, your quarrel is not with us. It’s with the administration and its plainly stated strategy of “flooding the zone with shit” […]