Trump Admin Clarifies: Only WHITE Anti-Semites Will Be Granted Asylum In This Country
For years, the DHS has been expanding its intrusive surveillance of anyone attempting to enter this country. (It has also expanded this to include people leaving the country.) The current onboarding procedure for US entry includes demands for account passwords and deep dives into devices carried by migrants, visitors, asylum seekers, and anyone else CBP […]
‘Populist’ Trump Rolls Back Minimal Efforts To Prevent Dodgy Data Brokers From Spying On You
There are two major reasons that the U.S. doesn’t pass an internet-era privacy law or regulate data brokers despite a parade of dangerous scandals. One, lobbied by a vast web of interconnected industries with unlimited budgets, Congress is too corrupt to do its job. Two, the U.S. government is disincentivized to do anything because it exploits this […]
Nintendo Updates Console EULA: We’ll Brick Your Shit If We Don’t Like What You Do With It
It’s no secret that Nintendo is among the most draconian actors when it comes to intellectual property. Techdirt is rife with posts on the various ways the company has been a royal and overreaching pain in the ass on anything with even the most modest concern over copyrights, trademarks, or patents. From attempting to unmask […]
Judge Tosses BS Trespassing Charges From ‘Military Zones’ Hastily Erected At Southern Border
It’s not enough to simply go after anyone looking kinda Venezuelan these days. DHS components have an unquenchable thirst for arrest stats, especially now that Trump’s second Oval Office stay has removed any remaining discretion and restraint from border control actions. Installing Trump supplicant Kristi Noem to the top spot in the DHS has only […]
After GAO Started Investigating DOGE, DOGE Decided To ‘Investigate’ GAO
In a brazen attempt to avoid oversight, Elon Musk’s DOGE team is now trying to “audit” the very agency tasked with auditing them. On Friday, NOTUS reported that DOGE officials showed up at the Government Accountability Office — Congress’s independent watchdog — to attempt their signature hostile takeover routine. There’s just one small problem: DOGE […]
The FCC Must Reject Efforts To Lock Up Public Airwaves
President Trump’s attack on public broadcasting has attracted plenty of deserved attention, but there’s a far more technical, far more insidious policy change in the offing—one that will take away Americans’ right to unencumbered access to our publicly owned airwaves. The FCC is quietly contemplating a fundamental restructuring of all broadcasting in the United States, via a new DRM-based […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/19/the-fcc-must-reject-efforts-to-lock-up-public-airwaves/
Republican Lawmakers Want To Replace The Community Standard For Obscenity With *Their* Own Standard
They may claim they care about the children, but the Republican push for age verification laws, book bans, and the general censorship of anything not specifically straight and (preferably) white is all about preventing adults from accessing content these lawmakers don’t personally care for. The kids are merely useful leverage for legislators pushing for the […]
Where Did All Those Brave Free Speech Warriors Go?
Since the start of the Trump administration, many of our biggest concerns about how MAGA would attack free speech have not only proven true, but have turned out to be understated. Nearly all parts of the administration are seeking to silence critical speech. Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “free speech warriors” who signed the infamous Harper’s Letter […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/19/where-did-all-those-brave-free-speech-warriors-go/
New Law Would Add New Tax To Your Netflix Bill So AT&T And Comcast Execs Can Get Richer
Telecom lobbyists have been working overtime for decades in the US and EU, trying to get policymakers to support the idea of “Big Tech” paying “Big Telecom” billions of additional dollars for no coherent reason. It’s what started the net neutrality wars. More recently, it has evolved into claims that we need to tax streaming companies to help […]
Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment about Stephen Miller suggesting the suspension of habeas corpus: Remember: Once they suspend the civil rights of non-citizens, they’ll only ever need to declare someone a non-citizen to justify black-bagging an American citizen off the street and sending […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/18/funniest-most-insightful-comments-of-the-week-at-techdirt-160/
Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Cocoanut Hotel
We’re nearing the end of our series of posts about the winners of this year’s public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1929! We’ve already covered the Best Remix, Best Deep Cut, Best Visuals, Best Adaptation, and the honorable mentions, and this week we’re looking at the winner of Best Digital Game: Cocoanut Hotel by […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/17/game-jam-winner-spotlight-cocoanut-hotel/
Buc-ee’s Gas Station Chain Is Becoming The Monster Energy Of Gas Stations For Trademark Bullying
If you’re from Texas or its surrounding states, you’ve probably heard of Buc-ee’s. The gas station and convenience store chain is a staple of the area and has a well-known branded logo that looks like this. I recently came across a settlement that was the result of a trademark suit Buc-ee’s initiated back in November […]
Supreme Court Pumps The Brakes On Trump’s Use Of The Alien Enemies Act
The Supreme Court has delivered a clear rebuke to the Trump administration’s attempt to weaponize the Alien Enemies Act, issuing a slightly more detailed ruling that follows up on last month’s midnight emergency order. That emergency ruling came as the administration was literally loading detainees onto buses headed to airports, racing to deport them before […]
The Kids Online Safety Act Will Make The Internet Worse For Everyone
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is back in the Senate. Sponsors are claiming—again—that the latest version won’t censor online content. It isn’t true. This bill still sets up a censorship regime disguised as a “duty of care,” and it will do what previous versions threatened: suppress lawful, important speech online, especially for young people. […]
DHS, CBP Looking For Facial Recognition Tech That Will Allow Them To Scan Every Person In A Vehicle
The festival of bad ideas continues. Despite facial recognition having proven over and over again it’s not really the solution to speedy ID verification that far too many people think it is, government agencies (along with retailers, sports arenas, and bored billionaires) seem to believe the real problem is that there just hasn’t been enough […]
Daily Deal: The 2025 Embedded Systems Engineer Mastery Bundle
Embedded systems are at the heart of modern innovation, powering everything from smart devices to automotive technology. This Embedded Systems Engineer Mastery Bundle has 10 courses to help equip you with the skills to design, program, and implement microcontroller-based solutions. Gain hands-on experience with Arduino, PIC, and ESP32, master C programming for embedded applications, and […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/16/daily-deal-the-2025-embedded-systems-engineer-mastery-bundle-3/
FCC Commissioner Gomez Calls Out Administration’s Attack On Free Speech, Warns She May Get Fired
We mentioned recently that the only remaining Democratic commissioner at the FCC (and the only remaining Dem commissioner across both the FCC and FTC since Trump illegally fired the Democratic FTC Commissioners) has started calling out FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s attacks on free speech. In a speech yesterday, she went even further: calling out the […]
Trump’s FCC Wants To DOGE Itself, Yet Still Somehow Bully Companies For Doing Critical Journalism Or Not Being Racist Enough
Earlier this month we noted how Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr thinks he can have it both ways. Carr desperately wants to please dear leader, and be part of Trump’s mindless quest to dismantle most U.S. corporate oversight and regulatory independence. Yet at the same time he wants to bully companies for not being racist […]
RFK Jr. Finally Says Something Sensible: ‘Don’t Take Medical Advice From Me’
Fresh off of his Mother’s Day swim in a literal shit creek, RFK Jr. sat before House and Senate committees to answer questions about the impact of the proposed Trump budget on Health and Human Services (HHS), the cuts that have and are proposed further for HHS, and an explanation for why some programs are […]
Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Hypocritical Infrastructure
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 roundup of the latest news in online […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/15/ctrl-alt-speech-hypocritical-infrastructure/
AI Is Making Many People Rethink Copyright
For the last hundred years or so, the prevailing dogma has been that copyright is an unalloyed good, and that more of it is better. Whether that was ever true is one question, but it is certainly not the case since we entered the digital era, for reasons explained at length in Walled Culture the […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/15/ai-is-making-many-people-rethink-copyright/
Missouri AG Thinks Supreme Court Ruling Lets Him Control Social Media Moderation (It Doesn’t)
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey apparently thinks he gets to be editor-in-chief of every social media platform. In his latest attack on free speech rights, Bailey has announced a “first-in-the-nation rule” that would force social media companies to let users choose third-party content moderators rather than using the platforms’ own moderation systems. There’s just one […]
Daily Deal: The JavaScript DOM Game Developer Bundle
The JavaScript DOM Game Developer Bundle has 8 courses to help you master coding fundamentals. Courses cover JavaScript DOM, Coding, HTML 5 Canvas, and more. You’ll learn how to create your own fun, interactive games. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/15/daily-deal-the-javascript-dom-game-developer-bundle-3/
Milwaukee PD Wants To Trade 2.5 Million Mugshots For Free Facial Recognition Tech
Maybe Clearview got it all wrong. Scraping the web for tens of billions of records for free sounds like a good business model, but that model only works if you can keep the malodorous funk of your work from soaking into your reputation. Clearview’s tactics have gotten it banned, fined, and sued and it doesn’t […]
Warner Brothers Discovery Continues Reign Of Post-Merger Incompetence As HBO Brand Once Again Rises From The Dead
We’ve well documented by now how the AT&T->Warner Brothers->Discovery series of mergers were among some of the most destructive and pointless “business deals” ever conceived by modern man. The mergers resulted in bottomless layoffs, the closure of numerous valuable and popular brands and shows, and much worse product as incompetent, fail-upward executives shifted the company’s […]