Below are posts associated with the “techdirt.com” source.
🔗 linkblog: Anthropic’s Statement To The ‘Department Of War’ Reads Like A Hostage Note Written In Business Casual
Good observations here. My respect for Anthropic was solely based on their seeming willingness to stand up for something, because otherwise, I have a lot of issues wirh them. This groveling makes that respect disappear.
🔗 linkblog: OpenAI’s ‘Red Lines’ Are Written In The NSA’s Dictionary—Where Words Mean What The NSA Wants Them To Mean
Masnick—who is far keener on the idea of generative AI than I will ever be—is unsparing in his critique of OpenAI here, and it’s worth a read.
🔗 linkblog: Everyone Knows Our Mad King’s Greenland Obsession Is Insane. Why Won’t Congress Stop It?
The whole post is good, but the first two paragraphs hit on something particularly important.
🔗 linkblog: President Denies Reality Of Massive Nationwide Protests While Posting Videos of Himself Dumping Shit On Citizens
Some good observations worth bookmarking.
🔗 linkblog: DOGE’s “Efficiency” Theater Comes Full Circle: Trump Admin Scrambles To Rehire The Very Workers Musk Fired To “Save Money”
Depressing read but very well put.
🔗 linkblog: Substack’s Algorithm Accidentally Reveals What We Already Knew: It’s The Nazi Bar Now
Not impressed with Substack, and Masnick does a good job of explaining why.
🔗 linkblog: Is Including Hidden AI Prompts In Academic Papers Gaming The Peer Review System — Or Keeping It Honest?
Kind of hate that we have to ask the question in this headline!
I’ve been (link)blogging recently about needing to talk about epistemology when we talk about generative AI. I know that in at least one case, I’ve evoked the generation of scientific knowledge as a counterexample to the “just the facts, ma’am” naïve epistemology promoted by AI and its supporters. To use generative AI to review papers—and to try to get around peer review—feels particularly dangerous to me.
🔗 linkblog: The New York Times Runs Interference For A Racist To Manufacture A Fake Scandal About Zohran Mamdani
There’s a genre of news story that I actively avoid following the discourse on but end up reading about once Mike Masnick writes on it, and then I get angry with everyone else. This fits nicely in that genre.
🔗 linkblog: Noem Announces Military Will ‘Liberate’ LA From Democracy, Then Watches Security Throw Senator To Ground
Finally read the full quote from Noem and it’s so bad. Scary times.
🔗 linkblog: VPNSecure Lifetime Subscriptions: Now You Didn’t License What You Licensed, Either
After seeing a few headlines, this is the first thing I’ve read on this fiasco. What a mess.
🔗 linkblog: The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP’s Favorite ‘Save The Children’ Laws
Interesting point from Masnick.
🔗 linkblog: Trump Admits He Could Get Abrego Garcia Back, But Angrily Insists Non-Existent Tattoos Are The Reason He Won’t
I finally read about the whole tattoo thing. It’s so dumb that it makes me angry. I don’t want to think about it, but I’m bookmarking it because if I don’t, my brain will refuse to remember that Donald Trump made such a dumb assertion. It will get drowned out by so many other dumb things.
🔗 linkblog: Marco Rubio’s Family Values: Preventing Mahmoud Khalil From Witnessing His Child’s Birth
Solid post with damning critiques.
🔗 linkblog: Trump Declares A Trade War On Uninhabited Islands, US Military, And Economic Logic
I appreciate Masnick’s roundup of all the stupid things going on re: tariffs.
🔗 linkblog: Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds
Masnick’s writing has never struck me as inflammatory or rushed. If he’s using this language, we should all be worried.
🔗 linkblog: While Democracy Burns, Democrats Prioritize… Demolishing Section 230?'
I soured on Section 230 for a bit, but I came back and largely because of arguments like this one.
🔗 linkblog: First Cracks Appear: Some Conservatives Admit We’re In A Constitutional Crisis'
As usual, lots to like in this post from Mike Masnick.
🔗 linkblog: The Twitter Files Playbook Comes For The US Government'
More good writing from Masnick on scary stuff coming out of DC.
🔗 linkblog: The Technological Poison Pill: How ATProtocol Encourages Competition, Resists Evil Billionaires, Lock-In & Enshittification'
Saw someone link to this and remembered I should probably read the whole thing instead of just the first few paragraphs. I fall somewhere between Doctorow and Masnick on Bluesky optimism, but I really appreciate their dialogue on it.
🔗 linkblog: The Emptiness Of Zuck’s Promise To Move ‘Biased’ Trust & Safety From California To Texas'
This was one of the dumbest parts of all Meta’s announcements and now it’s… basically nothing, too?
🔗 linkblog: Meta’s Moderation Modifications Mean Anti-LGBTQ Speech Is Welcome, While Pro-LGBTQ Speech Is Not'
Some more good writing on a bad situation.
🔗 linkblog: The Jawboning Double Standard: Brendan Carr’s Threats Are Way Worse Than What Biden Was Accused Of'
Yet more to demonstrate that “free speech” often means “right-wing speech.”