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The case against Backpage was built on lies, innuendo, and a willful misunderstanding of how the internet works. But that didn’t stop the government from destroying the company and its founders’ lives.
Over the last few years, we’ve written about how the entire case against Backpage was a travesty of justice. The company actually worked closely with the feds (and even received commendations) to...
As Techdirt stories attest, Wikipedia has been attacked in the past for publishing true information that somebody doesn’t like. As well as wanting articles to be censored, those behind such attacks often also demand the names of those who worked on the article. Something similar is now happening in India, where the Indian news agency Asian News International (ANI) has filed a lawsuit against...
Never underestimate the amount of effort law enforcement officers will expend to dispense as much cruelty as possible. And never forget these are the people we are expected to believe are actually there to protect and serve. While it’s great there’s a settlement payment on the way, the fact is that this extremely vindictive and extremely expensive act of uncalled-for “retribution” should never...
You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let’s focus on the app. Right off the bat, let’s be clear about one thing: When we say “app” we don’t mean that you’re limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across devices. Want to practice where you won’t have Wi-Fi? Download lessons before you head out, and...
The first shot to use Section 230 to force adversarial interoperability on platforms has hit a setback.
Earlier this year, we wrote about an absolutely fascinating lawsuit that was an attempt to activate a mostly-ignored part of Section 230 in a really interesting way. Most people know about Section 230 for its immunity protections for hosting and content moderation of third party content. But...
Streaming video still provides some meaningful advantages to traditional cable: it’s generally cheaper (assuming you don’t sign up for every service under the sun); customer satisfaction ratings are generally higher; and users have more power to pick and choose and cancel services at a whim.
But the party simply isn’t poised to last.
Thanks to industry consolidation and saturated market growth,...
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Arianity with a comment about Bezos’s endorsement gambit backfiring:
Trump is a disgusting pile of trash, but it is really funny how he always turns on people who help him. People just lining up to get their faces eaten by leopards, after watching the previous guy get his face eaten, daily. It would be funnier if we weren’t stuck in the...
Five Years Ago
This week in 2019, we noted how the FCC’s freakout about Huawei was out of step with the way it ignored the internet of broken things. We were not shocked to learn ISPs were cutting back 2020 investment plans despite all the tax breaks and the death of net neutrality, and not thrilled that CBP was getting access to NSA and CIA data collections. The FBI’s top lawyer from the Apple...
If you’ve followed along with our coverage on the hit video game Palworld, developed by Pocketpair, you will know that Nintendo and the Pokémon Co. has sued Pocketpair for patent infringement. Prior to the suit, there had been a ton of speculation that a lawsuit would be filed, but that it would be a copyright infringement suit. That was because there was a clear inspirational element in Palworld...
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 speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben...