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The FBI has been pulled right up to the national security table for years. Having switched from regular law enforcement agency to being a major player in the counter-terrorism field has seen it avail itself of vast collections of data obtained by the NSA. While its own contributions to combating terrorism have been questionable at best, only recently was its access to NSA data seriously...
Two bits of news came out of the letter Mark Zuckerberg sent to Rep. Jim Jordan this week (and how people responded to it), neither of which are what you’re likely to have heard about. First, Donald Trump seems to be accusing himself of rigging the 2020 election against himself.
And, second, Mark Zuckerberg has absolutely no spine when it comes to Republican pressure on Meta’s moderation...
The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, provided 23+ million low-income households a $30 broadband discount every month. But the roughly 60 million Americans benefiting from the program are now facing much higher broadband bills because key Republicans — who routinely dole out billions of dollars on far dumber fare — refused to fund a $4-$7 billion...
I’ll admit, when I’ve been able to witness some of the fuckery around the use of artificial intelligence in stupid ways, some part of me has always gotten some amusement at those being fooled. I’ve gotten to witness most of this from afar, after all. It feels a bit different when you write about a situation where you were among those fooled by the bullshit.
At some point in the last week or so, I...
The fallout came fast and hard for New College of Florida and its administrators after multiple videos were posted of books dealing mainly with sexual identity and race found filling a dumpster behind the school library.
The immediate reaction from the school’s spokesperson, Nathan Marks, was nonsensical. Marks claimed two things, neither of them believable. The first was that this was just...
There’s been plenty of conversation over the past decade about how unprepared the mainstream media was for the shifts that have happened in politics and political discourse, especially when it comes to finding… well… the truth. As we move towards the 2024 election, the challenges of reporting and fact checking are once again in the spotlight, and this week we’re joined by NYU Journalism...
Elon sure seems to enjoy making employees humiliate themselves on his behalf.
After massively overpaying for Twitter, firing most of the staff, and then making bad decision after bad decision, Elon did promise remaining employees that they would get equity in the new Twitter, now renamed X (even as its valuation kept dropping).
Quite some time went by with no details forthcoming (frustrating many...
More and more politicians have decided the only way to make America great is to abandon the things that made America great in the first place. The free and open exchange of ideas is getting shut down. The First Amendment is being remade and remodeled to only protect the ideas those in power are in favor of.
As is always the case when aspiring fascist take the law into their own hands, the first...
The Ninth Circuit appeals court seems to have figured out the best way to “reform” Section 230: by pretending it doesn’t apply to some stuff that the judges there just randomly decide it doesn’t apply to anymore. At least that’s my reading of the recent ruling against YOLO Technologies.
Now, let’s start by making something clear: YOLO Technologies appears to be a horrible company, making a...
For many many years now we’ve noted how internet-connectivity (and greed) have changed the consumer equation sometimes for the worse, resulting in people no longer truly owning the things they buy. Expensive gadgets can become less useful (or bricked completely) in an instant due to an inconveniently timed merger, company closure, greed, or just rank executive incompetence.
Case in point: owners...