If Twitter Goes Down In Flames, What Happens To Its Huge And Historically Important Collection Of Tweets?

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This blog has just written about the likely loss of a very particular kind of culture - K-pop live streams. Culture is culture, and a loss is a loss. But potentially we are facing the disappearance of a cultural resource that is indisputably more important. I'm talking about Twitter, and its vast store of tweets that […]

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California Court Denies Facial Recognition Pariah Clearview's Anti-SLAPP Motion Over Its Web Scraping Activities

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Clearview wants to be the best in a shady business. As facial recognition tech has undergone increasing public scrutiny, Clearview has chosen to be the turd floating in the government surveillance punchbowl. Clearview scrapes public websites for pictures and data, and sells access to its immense database and the AI to exploit it to whoever […]

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The Czech Republic's Proposed Version Of Upload Filters Has A Bad Idea That Could Become A Great One

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A clear demonstration that the EU Copyright Directive is a badly-drafted law is the fact that it has still not been implemented in national legislation by all the EU Member States three years after it was passed, and over a year after the nominal deadline for doing so. That's largely because of the upload filters of Article 17. The requirement […]

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Appeals Court Denies Immunity To Officers Who Fabricated Evidence To Wrongfully Convict A Man For Murder

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When cops decide they’ve found the right perp, very little can persuade them to look elsewhere. This tunnel vision has the tendency to take years of freedom away from innocent people. And it would be terrible enough if officers simply refused to consider exonerative evidence. But in this case (like far too many others), the […]

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This Week In Techdirt History: November 20th - 26th

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Five Years Ago This week in 2017, it became clear the FCC was gearing up for an attempt to hide its attack on net neutrality just before the Thanksgiving weekend. While Comcast once again falsely claimed there was nothing to worry about, the agency did exactly that and released its order on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the […]

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DOJ Follows Up Springfield (MA) PD Consent Decree With An Investigation Of The Worcester PD

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Two years ago, the DOJ opened up an investigation into the Springfield, Massachusetts police department, targeting its troubled Narcotics Unit. Like far too many other drug-focused units, the Springfield Narcotics Unit was filled with officers who routinely engaged rights violations. Narcotics Bureau officers regularly punch subjects in the head and neck area without legal justification. […]

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As Largest Archive Of K-Pop Live Streams Goes Offline, What Happens To All That Culture?

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When people speak of culture, and preserving it, they usually mean the works of recognized artistic giants like Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charlie Chaplin, and Miles Davis. They rarely mean things like live streams of Korean pop music, generally known as K-pop. And yet K-pop is undoubtedly an expression - some would say a particularly […]

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Keeping ahead of technology

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Azeem Azhar, founder of the future-focused podcast and newsletter Exponential View, and Annie Veillet, national data and advanced analytics lead partner with PwC Canada, discuss how we can ensure humanity stays ahead of technology, and what's at risk if it doesn't.

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AI Art Is Eating The World, And We Need To Discuss Its Wonders And Dangers

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After posting the following AI-generated images, I got private replies asking the same question: Can you tell me how you made these? So, here I will provide the background and how to of creating such AI portraits, but also describe the ethical considerations and the dangers we should address right now. Background Generative AI - […]

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Ohio City's Failure To Control Cops Results In Jury Awarding $4.4 Million To Family Of Man Killed By Officer

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You may think you can take a hands-off approach to local law enforcement. But you’d be wrong. Trusting the police to police themselves has never worked out. If you don’t end up targeted by a DOJ investigation, all the work you didn’t do to oversee your police officers can (and will) be used against you […]

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Data and decisions in soccer

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As the FIFA World Cup kicks off in Qatar, every team taking part is likely to be using data analytics to try to gain an edge, particularly in penalty shoot-outs. As Ben Lyttleton shows, soccer clubs in pro leagues are now in a race to find the best data analytics talent off the field to identify what they should do on it.

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Judge Fines Trump Muppet Josh Hawley For Violating Public Records Laws To Protect His Senate Run

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Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Senator Josh Hawley is not a Good Person. The former attorney general had the chance to be a good person, but instead became the poster boy for insurrection by raising his fist in support of Trump fans on their way to raiding the Capitol building […]

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Hobbyists Once Again Do Preservation: Every 'Nintendo Power' Mag Digitized Online

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One of the wonders of a digital world is that art preservation in many forms suddenly gets much, much easier. For all kinds of art, be it video games, music, drawings/paintings, etc., at the very least an uploaded digital simulacrum of the art means that it can’t be easily lost due to the pernicious lack […]

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This Week In Techdirt History: November 13th - 19th

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Five Years Ago This week in 2017, the assault on the ability of states to protect broadband privacy and net neutrality continued with the wireless industry jumping into the fray, while the FCC was moving to gut rules protecting DSL users. The DOJ was still demanding the identity of Twitter users in an insane crusade, […]

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Mariah Carey Blocked From Trademarking 'Queen Of Christmas'

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In Chicago, fall lasts roughly fifteen minutes. That means that it’s not even Thanksgiving yet and this morning we woke up to 2 inches of snow on the ground and more of it gently falling to Earth. It looks like Christmas already, which is appropriate as I also woke up to an update on Mariah […]

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Even Non-Tech Folks Are Exploring If It's Time To Abandon Twitter

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been spending much more time using Mastodon, and shifting much of what I used to use Twitter for to that other platform. It’s not an exact replacement, nor is it meant to be, but it’s been growing incredibly rapidly as Twitter seemingly crumbles under Elon Musk. Lots of people […]

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'Publication Laundering': How Publishers Happily Accept Fake And Nonsense Conference Papers In The Pursuit Of Profits

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Techdirt has written many times about the dysfunctional state of academic publishing. The main issue is that academics do most of the work required to publish a paper, but the publishers reap most of the benefit. Profit margins are extremely high for top publishers — typically 30-40%. And yet academics are routinely forbidden from sharing […]

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Appeals Court Calls DEA Drug Tests Into Question, Overturns Sentence Based On Expert's Assertions

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We all know field drug tests are inaccurate. The cheap, portable tests turn everything from diesel to humans ashes to contraband, resulting in the wrongful arrests of people who’ve done nothing wrong. Cases often get tossed once these substances are tested by drug labs, but the harm has often already been done. The faulty tests […]

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Google Begins Refunding Years Of Stadia Purchases

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The somehow both long-running and surprisingly quick death of Stadia is now complete. We have been covering Google’s attempt at a video game cloud-streaming service for several years now. Frankly, it’s been a mess from the jump, from a banal launch that was rife with user experience issues, to poor game performance, and a laughably […]

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Immunity Denied To Deputies Who Tried To Turn Muscular Dystrophy Into Reasonable Suspicion

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Courts are cool with pretextual stops. As long as a cop can make up a reasonably good excuse for pulling someone over, they can start casting their lines in hopes of bigger fish. Given enough time and bullshit, cops can often talk people into warrantless roadside searches. But the pretext needs to be reasonable. And, […]

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Devin Nunes Learns That If He's Going To Sue For Suggesting His Family Hired Undocumented Workers, Part Of The Lawsuit Is Finding Out If The Workers Are Documented

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Well, well, well. As you may recall, back in 2019 Devin Nunes and his bumbling lawyer Steven Biss sued Esquire magazine and reporter Ryan Lizza because Nunes really did not like this article about Nunes’ parents and their family farm, which is actually in Iowa, rather than California as many people believed. It’s an interesting […]

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In-N-Out Trademark Tourism Allows It To Keep Mark For 'Double-Double' In Canada

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In-N-Out is In-N-At it again. In our many posts on the burger chain, we’ve discussed the company’s habit of what I’ll call trademark tourism. In posts that have focused primarily on its trademarks in Australia, we’ve detailed out how In-N-Out will conduct a popup restaurant in these countries that it otherwise has zero brick and […]

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Elon Musk's Twitter Moderation Flags Article About Elon Musk's Twitter As Dangerous

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Spaceboy Elon Musk promised the Twitter he was pretty much sued into purchasing would bring an end to all the free speech violations he claimed were happening every day under its liberal overlords. But being an edgelord troll rarely converts into competent management. Musk is speedrunning the moderation learning curve. But he is also discovering […]

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Report Shows Colorado Cop Buried Body Cam Footage Of Officers Brutalizing 73-Year-Old Dementia Sufferer

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Loveland, Colorado has a police problem. The problem isn’t that there are too few, or that they’re being underfunded. The problem is the ones they already have — the ones that keep getting sued. On July 20, 2020, Target contacted Loveland PD to deal with a man (Keenan Stuckey) suffering from mental health issues in […]

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This Week In Techdirt History: November 6th - 12th

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Five Years Ago This week in 2017, Comcast joined the chorus of ISPs trying to stop states from protecting privacy and net neutrality, and also targeted Colorado’s thoughts of building its own broadband network, though it was failing to overpower the voters there. Meanwhile, the SESTA fight was heating up: we talked more about how […]

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MoviePass Execs Charged With Securities Fraud

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You’ll be shocked to learn that the same MoviePass executives that routinely misled investors (and once even covertly changed user passwords to try and keep them from using a service they paid for) are now in even more trouble for their dodgy business practices. According to an announcement by the DOJ, former MoviePass executives Theodore […]

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Houston PD Drops Cases Tainted By Corrupt Narcotics Officers, But Decides It Can Still Keep Seized Cash

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In 2019, Houston police officers — relying on information generated by narcotic squad office Gerald Goines (who is now facing multiple criminal charges) — raided the home of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle. Both occupants of the home were killed during the raid — one predicated on lies from Officer Goines. The fallout resulted in […]

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As Predicted, Starlink Launches Broadband Usage Caps, Overage Fees

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We’ve noted for a while that the laws of physics would prohibit Elon Musk’s satellite broadband service from being truly disruptive at any real scale. Analysts had been quietly noting for a while that Starlink lacked the capacity to handle its projected user load. That recently resulted in obvious slowdowns, raising the question of when […]

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The UK Wants A Trade Deal With India That Would Boost The Already Healthy Profits Of Big Pharma, And Cause Millions Of People To Sicken

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Although trade deals are nominally about, well, trade, Techdirt readers know that they have become an important way to force through changes in areas like copyright and patents without any meaningful democratic scrutiny. That’s because trade deals are negotiated in secret, and then presented as done and dusted once talks have been concluded. The argument […]

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Louisiana Cops Sued After Dash Cam Video Showed They Lied About Why They Performed A Pretextual Stop

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Courts have continually said pretextual stops are a cool way to engage in law enforcement fishing expeditions. But there are a few caveats. First, there needs to be a reason to stop the person, even if that reason exists largely in the imaginative readings of local statutes by police officers. Second, the stop cannot be […]

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The FCC Ponders The Creation Of A Space Division

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For years we’ve been firing no shortage of low-Earth orbit satellites into space without the federal government showing much concern about the the impact of these new technologies at scale. Like, the navigational hazards of unchecked space junk, or the way scientists warned that Starlink causes significant light pollution that seriously harms scientific research and […]

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Attorney General Formally Bans The Collection Of Journalists' Records During Leak Investigations

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The early months of 2021, following Trump’s loss at the polls and the subsequent raid of the Capitol building by his supporters, were periodically punctuated by disturbing revelations about the DOJ under the former reality show star. Seeking to plug multiple leaks originating in his administration, the Trump DOJ began targeting journalists, hoping to use […]

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DEA's Rainbow Fentanyl Moral Panic Is Making Broadcasters, Politicians Stupider Than They Already Are

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Some news outlets engage in journalism. Others just engage in hype. The latter tend to repeat press releases verbatim, only ask for statements from law enforcement when law enforcement screws up, and otherwise cater to the “if it bleeds, it leads” maxim that has allowed mass media to portray America as a criminal dystopia despite […]

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This Week In Techdirt History: October 30th - November 5th

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Five Years Ago This week in 2017, declassified documents revealed the NSA’s efforts to prosecute a journalist for successful FOIA requests, a judge refused a boilerplate request from the DOJ for a gag order, Dianne Feinstein was trying to get Twitter to just hand over a bunch of private communications, and we took a closer […]

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Beer Isn't Vodka: SKYY Vodka People Going After Dark Sky Brewery Over TM

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It just occurred to me as I was preparing to start writing this post that the volume of trademark conflicts I’ve seen in the craft beer industry seems to have finally calmed the hell down. There are still disputes, obviously, but it used to be that I could count on writing several posts a month […]

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Hollywood Whines About Mandatory Release Windows (Which They Used To Support) Fueling Piracy

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This is all kinds of hilarious if you’re aware of the history of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), formerly the MPAA. Basically, the group’s entire existence has been built around lobbying government for ever more ridiculous laws that protect the bottom line of the movie studios. In the late aughts, the studios decided they needed […]

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Dude Who Filed Ridiculous Lawsuit Over Title Of Mariah Carey's Most Famous Song Drops Case After Pretending They Sound The Same

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Back in June we wrote about an absolutely ridiculous lawsuit filed by a guy named Andy Stone, but who performs as Vince Vance and the Valiants, against Mariah Carey, claiming copyright infringement from her song “All I Want for Christmas is You.” As we noted at the time, the only similarity between the two songs […]

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Court Reminds Cops That Pointing A Bunch Of Guns At Someone Doesn't Make A Search Consensual

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Perhaps the last people who should be asked to define “consent” would be cops. They exist in an alternate reality where only those cuffed and/or beaten to a pulp can plausibly raise a claim that their questioning or search was non-consensual. This possibly explains why so many cops get charged with sexual assault, as well […]

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How Price Tourism Propelled A Switch Game To Nintendo Switch Fame

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While we’ve had a lot of conversations about how some forward-thinking content creators have managed to look at understandably frustrating things like copyright infringement as opportunities rather than threats. There’s a lot of ways that can happen: looking at infringement as free marketing research, looking at it as an avenue for exposure, looking at infringers […]

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Report Shows Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Wastes Most Of Its Time Hassling Minorities

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The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has long since abandoned any pretense of serving the public. In fact, it may never have pretended to respect this ideal at any point in its history. It has been a rogue agency for years, openly hostile to oversight, boldly breaking the laws it has sworn to uphold, filling its […]

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Microsoft, Staring Down Regulators, Promises To Keep CoD On PlayStation

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After Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision Blizzard was announced, alongside its deal to acquire Zenimax/Bethesda, we’ve had a series of posts pointing out that this consolidation of the gaming industry has featured vague statements from Microsoft leaving everyone wondering about the exclusivity of major gaming franchises. One of those major franchises would be Activision’s Call […]

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Ninth Circuit Bucks Extremely Recent Trend, Says Chalking Tires Not A Fourth Amendment Violation

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I have to admit I’m amused by recent court activity dealing with chalking tires. Something that has been done for years with zero protest — marking tires with chalk to determine how long a vehicle has been parked — is now fodder for federal appellate decisions. It’s a low tech solution to a low tech […]

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Iowa Appeals Court Affirms State Cops Can't Use Their Ignorance Of The Law To Justify Traffic Stops

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In December 2014, the US Supreme Court extended its blessing of pretextual stops to cover imaginary moving violations. Ignorance of the law is the best excuse, cops were told in the Court’s Heien decision. All cops needed to do was make a “reasonable” error when interpreting the laws they enforce and that mistake could be […]

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Finally: Countries Start To Rebel Against Corporate Sovereignty, But Ten Years Too Late

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Back in 2013, Techdirt wrote about “the monster lurking inside free trade agreements”. Formally, the monster is known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), but here on Techdirt we call it “corporate sovereignty“, because that is what it is: a system of secret courts that effectively places companies above a government, by allowing them to sue […]

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