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 America to lose its elimination status…
The FAA’s “Temporary” Flight Restriction For Drones Is A Blatant Attempt To Criminalize Filming ICE
The Trump administration has restricted the First Amendment right to record law enforcement by issuing an unprecedented nationwide flight restriction preventing private drone operators, including…
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 refusing to give the government what it wants:…
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, I wrote about how two jury…
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 be speaking keywords and phrases in no time, and will start to see the results…
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 handling thousands of cases have already told the…
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, surveillance-happy governments try to block or degrade the use…
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 particular passage in our post about the scammy AI company that fooled…
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 Adaptation and Best Deep Cut winners, and this week we’re looking at the…
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 injection of nuance is desperately…
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 Congress to “prevent the United States government from coercing technology providers,…
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 U.S. media coverage of Trump's disastrous…
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 finding…
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 effortlessly—anytime, anywhere. Whether you're adjusting lighting,…
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 less than human. The…
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 Republican quest to steadily…
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 issue is the Netflix show Running…
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, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice —…
A Baseless Copyright Claim Against A Web Host — And Why It Failed
Copyright law is supposed to encourage creativity. Too often, it’s used to extract payouts from others. Higbee & Associates, a law firm known for sending copyright demand letters to website owners, targeted May First Movement…
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 disappears, and the…
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 covered. It's on sale for $20. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by…
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. His New Year's posts are never wrong. There are always silver linings, even if the filigree is more…
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 over who'll get the honor. Amazon's LEO…
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 schedule changes ACIP recommended and…
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 you own. Unfortunately, while all fifty…
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 equation, ensuring…
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 Truth." It was…
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…
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 Court, you have a judicial…
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 executive branch agencies cannot…