10 posts published by Leigh Beadon, Dark Helmet, Mike Masnick, Cathy Gellis, Tim Cushing, Daily Deal, and Karl Bode during May 2025| Techdirt
I’m sorry, but those of you looking forward to riding the Friend Feed Flume at Zuckland or the Search Engine Shuffle at GooglePark are probably out of luck. Florida’s new social media l…| Techdirt
Congress has absolutely zero constitutional authority to investigate a private website for its editorial decisions. Zero. None. This is First Amendment 101. Yet House Oversight Committee Chairman J…| Techdirt
Two headlines walked into a UK courtroom: the BBC says “Wikipedia loses challenge,” while the Guardian says “Wikipedia can challenge if the strictest rules apply.” Annoyingly, both are true—and tha…| Techdirt
There are a few ways to think about Elon Musk’s announcement this week that he’s stepping back from DOGE. The first is that he’s leaving a job he officially doesn’t have. Th…| Techdirt
Remember when TikTok was supposedly an urgent national security threat that required emergency legislation? Funny how that “emergency” keeps getting 75-day extensions. Trump is reported…| Techdirt
Posts about abrego garcia written by Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, and Karl Bode| Techdirt
10 posts published by Mike Masnick, Karl Bode, Tim Cushing, Daily Deal, and Leigh Beadon during August 2025| Techdirt
10 posts published by Mike Masnick, Dark Helmet, nirit.weiss-blatt, Michael McGrady Jr, Daily Deal, Karl Bode, Tim Cushing, and Leigh Beadon during December 2024| Techdirt
The Supreme Court’s shadow docket has become a lawless mess. The justices are issuing extremely consequential rulings with either no explanation at all, or with barely a paragraph of reasonin…| Techdirt
There was a bit of news in the world of decentralized social media over the past few weeks. It kicked off with the announcement that Jack Dorsey had left the board of Bluesky. This was followed by …| Techdirt
Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump t…| Techdirt
In his latest “drain the swamp” move that will actually flood the entire ecosystem, Trump demanded the Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) resi…| Techdirt
For months, the DOJ has insisted to US courts that it has no jurisdiction over the people it rendered to Salvadoran detention facilities. But when the UN came asking, El Salvador told a very differ…| Techdirt
The Supreme Court this morning took a chainsaw to the First Amendment on the internet, and the impact is going to be felt for decades going forward. In the FSC v. Paxton case, the Court upheld the …| Techdirt
Posts about rendition written by Mike Masnick, Dark Helmet, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about marco rubio written by Mike Masnick and Tim Cushing| Techdirt
Posts about kristi noem written by Mike Masnick and Tim Cushing| Techdirt
Posts about kidnapping written by Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about due process written by Mike Masnick and Tim Cushing| Techdirt
Posts about detention written by Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about associated press written by Mike Masnick, Dark Helmet, Karl Bode, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about democracy written by Mike Masnick, Cathy Gellis, and Karl Bode| Techdirt
For quite some time now, we’ve pointed out how Jim Jordan has weaponized the government to suppress speech. Quite frequently, he seems to be doing this in coordination with Elon Musk. And yet, some…| Techdirt
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, one of his primary stated goals was to “bring back free speech” to the platform. He was particularly critical of how Twitter had briefly blocked links …| Techdirt
For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what colleg…| Techdirt
Over the last few weeks Parler has become the talk of Trumpist land, with promises of a social media site that “supports free speech.” The front page of the site insists that its conten…| Techdirt
Mike Masnick wrote an absolute banger of a column last Tuesday, explaining why Techdirt's editorial mission was changing. If you haven't read it, you should make time. Masnick's post has been percolating in my brain all week. He's right: If you came of intellectual age here in Silicon Valley over| Not a Tech Bro
Every New Year’s Eve, the Chief Justice releases his year-end report, which used to include things like what the court would like to see Congress do. However, Justice Roberts now uses it more as a …| Techdirt
Posts about evidence written by Mike Masnick and Tim Cushing| Techdirt
While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere “Democrats say this, Republicans say that” dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recogn…| Techdirt
Look, sometimes you make mistakes. Maybe you send an email to the wrong person. Maybe you accidentally buy the wrong kind of pasta sauce at the grocery store. Maybe you accidentally dismantle criti…| Techdirt
When even the Wall Street Journal’s reliably pro-Trump opinion page starts sounding alarm bells about the administration’s policies, something significant has shifted. When even the “th…| Techdirt
Posts about content moderation at scale written by Techdirt| Techdirt
We’ve been warning for years that the UK’s Online Safety Act would be a disaster for the open internet. Its supporters accused us of exaggerating, or “shilling” for Big Tech…| Techdirt
Posts about masnick's impossibility theorem written by Mike Masnick, Glyn Moody, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about malicious actors written by Mike Masnick and Techdirt| Techdirt
Here on Techdirt, we write a lot about content moderation and even did a whole big series of content moderation case studies. However, here’s an interesting one that involves Techdirt itself …| Techdirt
Somehow I missed this (and I’m surprised it didn’t get much attention) but last month was the 25th anniversary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) being signed into law. I only spotted i…| Techdirt
Posts about promotions written by Mike Masnick, Karl Bode, Techdirt, and Michael Ho| Techdirt
Posts about advertisements written by Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, Karl Bode, and Techdirt| Techdirt
I rarely log into Facebook these days, but I happened to do so last week and was a bit surprised to see this pop up saying that an advertising post we had put up for the VPN service CyberGhost near…| Techdirt
Posts about regulations written by Mike Masnick, Karl Bode, and Glyn Moody| Techdirt
As some people know, I’ve spent a fair bit of time studying economist Kenneth Arrow whose work on endogenous growth theory and information economics influenced a lot of my thinking on the eco…| Techdirt
Posts about techdirt written by Mike Masnick and Leigh Beadon| Techdirt
In a world where copyright law has run amok, even creating a silly parody song now requires a massive legal disclaimer to avoid getting sued. That’s the absurd reality we live in, as highligh…| Techdirt
A few months ago, we wondered if Wired had fired its entire fact-checking staff because it published what appeared to be a facts-optional article co-authored by professional consistently wrong Jaro…| Techdirt
We’ve certainly been talking a lot about the “AI Doomers” who insist that AI is all too likely to destroy humanity. However, even people who aren’t fully on board with the existential threat of AI …| Techdirt
In the battle between Elon Musk and Brazil, there are no heroes — only two sides engaged in an epic display of hypocrisy and overreach. You may have heard that Brazil is threatening to ban ExTwitte…| Techdirt
I can’t say for certain how Elon Musk’s thought process works, but his progression in how he talks about free speech over the last few months through this Twitter ordeal certainly provi…| Techdirt
Posts about transparency mandates written by Mike Masnick| Techdirt
Posts about compelled speech written by Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, Cathy Gellis, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about ab 587 written by Mike Masnick, conciergecli@a8c.com, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Friday morning gave us a nice victory for free speech in the 9th Circuit, where the appeals court panel affirmed most of the district court’s ruling finding California’s “Age Appropriate Desi…| Techdirt
Elon Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist,” but almost every time we look more closely at that claim, we discover that he’s one of the most censorial, free speech suppressors around. He just…| Techdirt
Back in September we praised Elon Musk for deciding to challenge California’s new social media transparency law, AB 587. As we had discussed while the bill was being debated, while it’s framed as a…| Techdirt
Hey, Techdirt haters: hold onto your hats, because I’m going to praise Elon Musk for doing the right thing, even though many of you insist that my complaints about him are motivated by personal dis…| Techdirt
It is bizarre that the California legislature, in a state that has produced most of the biggest internet companies out there, has apparently decided it wants to destroy them all in a flood of purel…| Techdirt
We’ve explored multiple times now why Elon Musk is no friend to free speech. He has regularly threatened and sued others for their free speech, and indeed, he has an ever-growing list of such lawsu…| Techdirt
Posts about writing written by Mike Masnick, Leigh Beadon, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about school written by Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, Techdirt, and Michael Ho| Techdirt
Posts about grammar written by Mike Masnick, Michael Ho, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about ai written by Mike Masnick, Glyn Moody, and Tim Cushing| Techdirt
Can the fear of students using generative AI and the rise of questionable AI “checker” tools create a culture devoid of creativity? It’s a topic that is curiously one worth delving into a bit more …| Techdirt
Posts about covid written by Mike Masnick, Karl Bode, Tim Cushing, and Techdirt| Techdirt
Posts about 1st amendment written by Mike Masnick, Tim Cushing, and Cathy Gellis| Techdirt
Posts about meta written by Mike Masnick, Glyn Moody, Tim Cushing, and Karl Bode| Techdirt
Posts about facebook written by Mike Masnick and Leigh Beadon| Techdirt
Actual free speech survives for yet another day as the Supreme Court has rejected a bunch of fantasy-land nonsense in a case in which Trumpists were absolutely positive they’d caught the government…| Techdirt
With the standard caveat that reading too much into oral arguments is dangerous, I will note that I am cautiously optimistic after listening to the oral arguments in the Murthy v. Missouri case at …| Techdirt
Hello! Someone has referred you to this post because you’ve said something quite wrong about Twitter and how it handled something to do with Hunter Biden’s laptop. If you’re new h…| Techdirt
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, Donal…| Techdirt
I am excited to announce that I am joining the board of Bluesky, where I will be providing advice and guidance to the company to help it achieve its vision of a more open, more competitive, more de…| Techdirt
Posts about free speech written by Mike Masnick and Tim Cushing| Techdirt
What do Fentanyl and TikTok have in common? Well, the real answer is absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. But, if you want to push a nonsense moral panic, apparently, you compare the two. While it’s…| Techdirt
If you found out that 500,000 books had been removed from your local public library, at the demands of big publishers who refused to let them buy and lend new copies, and were further suing the lib…| Techdirt
I guess I should start this out by noting that I like Tim Wu quite a bit, and always felt like I learned something in the past when I spoke with him. He was even one of the people who reviewed and …| Techdirt
Let’s start off this post by noting that I know that some people hate anything and everything having to do with generative AI and insist that there are no acceptable uses of it. If that describes y…| Techdirt
I get it. I totally get it. Every tech dude comes along and has this thought: “hey, we’ll be the free speech social media site. We won’t do any moderation beyond what’s required.” Even Twitter init…| Techdirt
Various states and the federal government are proposing and passing a wide variety of “kid safety” laws. Almost all of them pretend that they’re about conduct of social media sites and …| Techdirt
It’s kind of a rite of passage for any new social media network. They show up, insist that they’re the “platform for free speech” without quite understanding what that actua…| Techdirt
Back in April Substack founder/CEO Chris Best gave an interview to Nilay Patel in which he refused to answer some fairly basic questions about how the company planned to handle trust & safety i…| Techdirt