Germany, Ukraine Start Ramping Up Use Of European Starlink Alternative
SpaceX’s Starlink service can be a big improvement for those completely out of range of broadband access. But contrary to what many Republicans and c-tier comedians turned fascism apologist podcasters imply, Starlink is not magic. And it comes with a growing list of caveats. Including the increasingly unhinged behavior and far right political alliances of its conspiratorial, […]
AI Crawlers Are Harming Wikimedia, Bringing Open Source Sites To Their Knees, And Putting The Open Web At Risk
The current rapid advances in generative AI are built on three things. Computing power, some clever coding, and vast amounts of training data. Lots of money can buy you more of the first two, but finding the necessary training material is increasingly hard. Anyone seeking to bolster their competitive advantage through training needs to find […]
Amid The Measles Outbreak, HHS Cuts 1/8th Of Workforce
The measles outbreak that began in Texas continues at a brisk pace. RFK Jr. and his Department of Health and Human Services, as we’ve discussed, continues to make the outbreak worse through a combination of public opining on alternative treatments that are making some even sicker, garbled messaging that seeks to downplay the severity of […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/04/amid-the-measles-outbreak-hhs-cuts-1-8th-of-workforce/
Daily Deal: The Complete Cisco Training Bundle
The Complete Cisco Training Bundle has 6 courses to help you get ready to become certified. Courses cover al you need to know as a CCNA, CCEA, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/04/daily-deal-the-complete-cisco-training-bundle-8/
Anchorage Police Department: AI-Generated Police Reports Don’t Save Time
The Anchorage Police Department (APD) has concluded its three-month trial of Axon’s Draft One, an AI system that uses audio from body-worn cameras to write narrative police reports for officers—and has decided not to retain the technology. Axon touts this technology as “force multiplying,” claiming it cuts in half the amount of time officers usually spend writing […]
Trump’s FCC ‘Investigates’ Disney For Not Being Racist And Sexist Enough
Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr isn’t really interested in doing his actual job as head of the FCC. He’s not interested in protecting consumers or markets from notoriously shitty telecom monopolies. He’s not interested in protecting consumers or markets from harmful consolidation. He’s not interested in addressing the fact the telecom industry just saw the […]
The Normalization Of Autocracy
The White House Correspondents Association has just capitulated to pressure from the Trump administration by removing comedian Amber Ruffin from its annual dinner. Their stated reason? “To ensure the focus is not on the politics of division.” This seemingly minor capitulation reveals something profound about how democracy dies—not through dramatic confrontation, but through a thousand small surrenders […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/01/the-normalization-of-autocracy/
Techdirt Podcast Episode 413: Ron Wyden On Chutzpah
Support us on Patreon » If you’re a Techdirt reader, you’re probably familiar with Senator Ron Wyden. In January, he released his new book It Takes Chutzpah, offering up a call for political boldness that feels even more relevant with every day that passes. This week, Senator Wyden joins Mike on the podcast to talk about […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/01/techdirt-podcast-episode-413-ron-wyden-on-chutzpah/
Indiana Court: Finding Drugs On One Person Means Everyone On A Bus Can Be Searched
A whole new level of constitutional wtf-ness has emerged from the Indiana state Appeals Court. Here’s how John Wesley Hall sums it up on FourthAmendment.com: If you’re riding a bus and drugs are found on one, are all subject to search. The answer can’t be yes, but it is here. Exactly. The answer cannot be […]
Mariah Carey Defeats Ridiculous Copyright Suit Over ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’
It appears that Mariah Carey got a very late Christmas present this year. Several years ago, Carey was sued by Andy Stone over Carey’s hit holiday song, All I Want For Christmas Is You. The whole lawsuit was a complete mess. The fact it was filed in a Louisana court made no sense. The suit […]
The Real Cost Of DOGE: Musk’s Government Cuts Creating Massive New Expenses
Imagine you had pretty much unlimited power over the government and wanted to save taxpayers’ money. You could: Or you could do what Elon Musk did with DOGE: declare everything wasteful, start firing people at random, and claim you’re saving billions through pure destruction. It’s long been clear that Elon has never considered Chesterton’s Fence […]
The Reckoning At The Town Hall
The footage is hard to watch—not because it’s shocking, but because it isn’t. Because we’ve seen this coming. Because we’ve written it down. Because it’s what happens when performance fully replaces governance, and people are asked to believe that “DOGE” and “efficiency” and “Musk” now constitute a new political grammar. Rep. Victoria Spartz stands in front of her constituents at […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/31/the-reckoning-at-the-town-hall/
Lawyers Last Chance To Pick Which Side Of History They Want To Be On
America’s largest law firms are facing an existential choice that will define not just their legacies, but potentially the future of constitutional democracy: fight against clearly unconstitutional executive orders designed to destroy the ability of anyone to fight back, or surrender to authoritarianism. While that might sound hyperbolic, the evidence shows that it’s absolutely true. […]
Daily Deal: Rosetta Stone (All Languages)
Embark on the journey of language learning with the Rosetta Stone lifetime subscription for all languages. Trusted by top-tier organizations like NASA, Calvin Klein, and TripAdvisor, Rosetta Stone has been the go-to software for language learning for the past 27 years. With its immersive and intuitive training method, you might be reading, writing, and speaking […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/31/daily-deal-rosetta-stone-all-languages-6/
An Unfortunate Update: DOGE Dodges An Injunction
There is a disquieting update to my last post about a district court victory in Does 1-26 v. Musk that had enjoined DOGE, given its likely unconstitutional exercise of power, particularly in the context of its dismemberment of USAID. The Fourth Circuit has now stayed enforcement of that injunction, which raises a few issues worth […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/31/an-unfortunate-update-doge-dodges-an-injunction/
Supremes Hint They May Reject Bid (By Fake Consumer Group) To Make FCC Low Income Broadband Subsidies Illegal
The FCC runs an $8 billion federal subsidy program to help bring phone and broadband services to lower income homes and schools called the Universal Service Fund. Started by Reagan and expanded by Bush Jr., the program was historically a bipartisan thing, until the extremist Trump administration came to town. Driven by a fake right wing […]
Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is frankcox with a comment about the horrifying abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk: Masked abductors? The people doing this are obviously ashamed of themselves because they are wearing masks to prevent anyone from identifying them. That adds another level of terror to this sort of thing. […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/30/funniest-most-insightful-comments-of-the-week-at-techdirt-154/
This Week In Techdirt History: March 23rd – 29th
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, the pandemic news continued. Some people were attempting to leverage it to call for longer patent terms, while we were calling for loosening the intellectual property reins, and the DOJ was using it to justify indefinite detention of arrested people. Libraries were looking to become pandemic broadband havens […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/29/this-week-in-techdirt-history-march-23rd-29th/
Not Content With Its Billions Of Web Scrapings, Clearview Tried To Buy Millions Of Mugshots And SSNs
Clearview saw an opening in the facial recognition market and took full advantage of it. While most tech firms offered face-matching tech of dubious accuracy, Clearview went further, matching its AI to the billions of records it has harvested for free from the open internet. (And while this effort certainly wasn’t free, it definitely was […]
Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Chief Equivocation Officer
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 […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/28/ctrl-alt-speech-chief-equivocation-officer/