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Techdirt

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A good old fashioned blog that has been covering tech, law, policy, and democracy for almost three decades now.

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TechdirtOct 14, 2026

ICE’s Lies About A Man Officer Ran Over Undone By Footage Captured By Nearby CCTV Camera

Here's something ICE pretends has happened: ICE alleged in a statement that "Parra-Hernandez ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck." ABC13 reached out to an ICE spokesperson, who said agents were attempting to arrest Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, who was their intended target. ICE alleges Mendoza-Cervantes entered the United States illegally from Mexico five...

dhshouston

TechdirtOct 14, 2026

MAGA Built The Censorship Machine It Spent Years Falsely Accusing Democrats Of Building

This is not a unique or new observation, but so many MAGA attacks on others are projection, claiming that Democrats were doing the very things that MAGA always knew they would do if they were in charge. We've certainly spent plenty of time talking about Donald Trump's myriad and non-stop attacks on free speech, and...

1st amendmentcensorship industrial complex

TechdirtOct 14, 2026

Daily Deal: The Academy of Game Art Bundle

The Academy of Game Art Bundle teaches you the basics of how to create video game art. You'll learn how to use Inkscape to create logos, 2D backgrounds, pre-defined modules, UI designs, and characters. A course on using DragonBones will teach you how to animate your characters as well. The bundle is on sale for...

daily deal

TechdirtOct 14, 2026

Court Filings Show DHS Is Collecting Info On Protesters, Feeding It To Palantir

More evidence is piling up that contradicts the almost-but-not-quite denials given by administration officials in response to allegations about the DHS compiling a database to keep tabs on protesters. Just a few months ago, "Immigration Czar" Todd Lyons was trying to turn credible accusations into a nothingburger by deploying a few vague and trite statements...

1st amendmentdhs

TechdirtOct 14, 2026

China Still Has Easy Access To TikTok Despite Trump ‘Fixes’

Remember how the Trump administration -- and folks like Brendan Carr -- spent four straight years fear-mongering about China's purported control over TikTok and its owner, ByteDance? And remember how the Trump administration (with incompetent Democratic lawmaker help) "fixed" the problem by offloading Tiktok to Trump's billionaire buddies while still maintaining co-ownership with the Chinese?...

algorithmchina

TechdirtOct 14, 2026

In 1991, Federal Panel Blasts Vaccine Unavailability That Led To A Measles Epidemic

The apocryphal quote supposedly from Mark Twain is one of my favorites: "History does not repeat, but it does often rhyme." Now, there is no evidence that Twain ever actually authored these words, but it's incredible how true they tend to be regardless. And when it comes to the current measles outbreak that is ravaging...

anti-vaxxerscdc

TechdirtOct 13, 2026

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The End Of The Universal Internet

The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

big techgeopolitics

TechdirtOct 13, 2026

U.S. Car Privacy And Security Remain An Absolute Shitshow

In 2023, Mozilla released a report noting that modern U.S. cars had the worst security and privacy standards of any major technology industry the organization tracks. That was followed by a major NYT report in 2024 showing how automakers routinely hoover up oodles of consumer driving and phone info, then sell access to that data...

automakerschina

TechdirtOct 13, 2026

Trump Bans CNN, Then Has DOJ Investigate CNN For Not Covering Him

Remember when Elon Musk told advertisers to go fuck themselves... and then sued them (unsuccessfully) for not advertising on his personal propaganda and manipulation site? Well, it appears that Donald Trump is trying a government-backed variation on that abusive power play: claiming that news networks choosing not to cover him after he announced he was...

1st amendmentantitrust

TechdirtOct 13, 2026

Daily Deal: The Complete CompTIA And IT Exam Training Bundle

The Complete CompTIA and IT Exam Training Bundle offers access to multi-platform IT training courses, practice exam simulators, and hands-on labs such as CramWise, LinuxPath, DojoLab, CodeDirect, and ExamsDigest. These help prepare you for exams like CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, Cloud+, Server+, and PenTest+, alongside cloud and networking credentials. It's on sale for $40. Note:...

daily deal

TechdirtOct 13, 2026

Jury Convicts Ohio Blogger Of Harassment For Sending A Naked Shrek Pic To A Local Politician

In today's episode of "wtf," we have a jury deciding a local blogger is a criminal because a local politician didn't appreciate being sent a Shrek bereft of clothes to his cell phone. Morgan Trau of the Ohio Capital Journal has the (pathetic) details on this particular miscarriage of justice. An Ohio political blogger let...

1st amendmentabuse of power

TechdirtOct 13, 2026

Judge Orders Trump To Stop Airing Taxpayer-Funded Midterm Propaganda Ads (For Now)

Last week, the DNC sued the Trump administration for using $20 million in taxpayer money on strange and ineffective midterm ads. The use of taxpayer money technically violates multiple laws (remember those?), including the Hatch Act and Federal Appropriations Laws restricting taxpayer-funded propaganda.Trump's now been ordered to stop airing the ads entirely courtesy of a...

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