#techdirt — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #techdirt, aggregated by home.social.
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An Update On How I Use AI To Help With Techdirt (It’s Still Not Writing Articles)
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#Reminder Thu, Aug 28th 2025 German courts are reopening the debate on whether ad blockers infringe copyright—again. Mike Masnick argues the logic is “legal zombie” nonsense, since extensions that alter page display (DOM/CSS) should be about user control—not copyright. 📰🧑💻⚖️ https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/28/here-we-go-again-german-courts-reopen-the-is-ad-blocking-copyright-infringement-nonsense-we-thought-wed-put-to-bed/ #AdBlocking #Copyright #BrowserFreedom #Germany #Techdirt #AdBlockers #Privacy #Cybersecurity #Mozilla #Germany #PrivacyMatters #AxelSpringerSE #NotOnce #Security #Surveillance
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California Town Says Flock Cameras Misread License Plates 71% of the Time
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AT&T CEO Says He Can't Deploy Robocall Blockers Without FCC Approval. He's Wrong (2016)
On his personal phone line, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson blocks unwanted, pre-recorded and auto-dialed robocalls. So why is Darth Randy not making this technology available for all of his customers? He claims it’s because he needs the FCC’s permission to do so, but the FCC says that just isn’t so....
From The Consumerist, former website of Consumer's Union.
There's are reasons AT&T are on my permablacklist, and this article (along with a slew of others at the Dallas Morning News) is several of them. AT&T, and other major telcos, are fatally conflicted over telephone solicitations, in all their forms: unsolicited phone calls, robocalls, spam, and scams. They've dragged their feet for decades whilst their subscribers lose billions of dollars to at best useless and unecessary goods and services, and at worst, fraud and scams.
#DaveLieber of DMN ran a series of articles on this as well, I recommend:
"Watchdog Memo to AT&T's CEO: Didn't mean to get you in trouble" https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2016/07/08/watchdog-memo-to-atts-ceo-didnt-mean-to-get-you-in-trouble/
And:
"Watchdog: AT&T's CEO gets new job, Frontier employees dance during disaster" https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2016/08/04/watchdog-atts-ceo-gets-new-job-frontier-employees-dance-during-disaster
At #Techdirt: "AT&T Falsely Blames The FCC For Company's Failure To Block Annoying Robocalls " https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/02/att-falsely-blames-fcc-companys-failure-to-block-annoying-robocalls/
The FCC announcement, voted on June 18, 2015: "Fact Sheet: Wheeler Proposal to Protect and Empower Consumers
Against Unwanted Robocalls, Texts to Wireless Phones" https://web.archive.org/web/20150910081851/https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-333676A1.pdf (PDF) -
Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped
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ICE Illegally Scooped Up Medicaid Data, Then Shared It with Palantir
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Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them
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#techdirt:
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Musk’s Starlink Socks Customers With $1500 ‘High Demand’ Surcharge
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".. surcharges are actively designed to deter use because the network is struggling to handle the load... researchers at X-Lab quietly showed that Starlink struggles to manage the load as the network grows, making it ill-suited as serious game changer for U.S. access. .."
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/13/musks-starlink-socks-customers-with-1500-high-demand-surcharge/
13.7.2026
#broadband #Internet #Musk #Raumfahrt #satcom #Satelliten #Satellitenkommunikation #SpaceFlight #Starlink
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#ESA Lobbying Against ‘Stop Killing Games’: Hosting Private Minecraft Servers Is Illegal Piracy
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I really thoroughly enjoyed the final #Streisand-ish paragraph in this #Techdirt #Palantir article:
"Anyway, given that Palantir seems really upset about Republik’s reporting, it sure would be a shame if you decided to go read this critical reporting of Palantir’s relentless attempts to win business from the Swiss government."
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/02/thin-skinned-palantir-loses-its-bid-to-bully-a-swiss-magazine-into-publishing-its-rebuttals-to-embarrassing-reporting/ -
The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
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CEOs who think AI replaces their employees are just bad CEOs
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/09/ceos-who-think-ai-replaces-their-employees-are-just-bad-ceos/
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Suuuper Meth!
Pithy article on the way The War on Drugs always says this year's variant is so much more powerful and dangerous than, in this case, your granny's meth.
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/26/super-meth-isnt-the-hero-we-want-but-its-the-hero-we-deserve/
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Court to DOGE: Asking ChatGPT 'Is This DEI?' Is Not Proper Legal Process
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Interesting read on #Techdirt about #AI generated code, #copyright, and a possible future for #FLOSS.
Like with regular text content, I'm confused about the copyright status of computer code, computer binaries, and exactly how much human effort is needed.
That said, the idea of FLOSS turning into shared #GenerativeAI prompts seems unlikely but not impossible. Maybe we should do this defensively before hedge funds do it offensively?
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Sens Ask Gabbard to Tell Americans That VPN Use Subjects Them to Surveillance
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Some news organizations are restricting access to the #WaybackMachine over fears of AI scraping. Mark Graham @mark, director of the Wayback Machine, explains why these concerns are unfounded and that blocking archives risks harming the public record.
Get the story on Techdirt 🔗
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/17/preserving-the-web-is-not-the-problem-losing-it-is/ -
DOGE Didn't Cut Government Waste. It Was Government Waste
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/17/doge-didnt-cut-government-waste-it-was-government-waste/
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Turns Out the DOGE Bros Who Killed Humanities Grants Are Sensitive About It
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The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing
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The Government Told Courts It Could Easily Refund Tariffs. Now It Says It Can't
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Training students to prove they're not robots is pushing them to use more AI
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Rubio to World: Stop Doing the Exact Same Thing the US Just Did
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/03/rubio-to-world-stop-doing-the-exact-same-thing-the-us-just-did/
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It Looks Like The FBI Straight Up Lied To A Judge To Get Permission To Seize Georgia Voting Records
Thanks, Tim Cushing and @mmasnick of #techDirt & @6820211 for this:
> Earlier this month, the FBI decided it was going to help Donald Trump steal back the election he’s claimed for half-a-decade was stolen from him. The state whose Secretary of State was asked directly by the outgoing president in January 2021 to “find 11,780 votes” was raided by Trump 2.0, who still somehow thinks he can win the election he lost back in 2020... It’s not just revenge Trump is seeking. He’s also hoping to find anything that will allow him to cast doubt on midterm election results now that it seems entirely possible the GOP might lose its majority in the legislature...
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DOGE Bro's Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT 'Is This DEI?'
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How Close Can #AI Get To Writing A #Techdirt Post? - https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/18/how-close-can-ai-get-to-writing-a-techdirt-post/ key point in this @mmasnick post: "even just writing out the prompt itself took time, and this piece would still need a fair bit of editing anyway for publication which would probably take away any time benefit."