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  30. <site xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">169489720</site> <item>
  31. <title>RFK Jr. Discovers Second Cause Of Autism: Foreskin Deficiency</title>
  32. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/rfk-jr-discovers-second-cause-of-autism-foreskin-deficiency/</link>
  33. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/rfk-jr-discovers-second-cause-of-autism-foreskin-deficiency/#comments</comments>
  35. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Timothy Geigner]]></dc:creator>
  36. <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 03:03:38 +0000</pubDate>
  37. <category><![CDATA[1]]></category>
  38. <category><![CDATA[angela alsobrooks]]></category>
  39. <category><![CDATA[autism]]></category>
  40. <category><![CDATA[circumcision]]></category>
  41. <category><![CDATA[health and human services]]></category>
  42. <category><![CDATA[rfk jr.]]></category>
  43. <category><![CDATA[thom tillis]]></category>
  44. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519358&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=519358</guid>
  45.  
  46. <description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s story time! I came home from the grocery store over this past weekend very proud. I rushed to tell my wife about how I was complimented in the check out line by the very nice woman behind me. She mentioned that she was impressed by how I &#8220;Tetris-ed&#8221; my groceries on the conveyor belt, [&#8230;]]]></description>
  47. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s story time! I came home from the grocery store over this past weekend very proud. I rushed to tell my wife about how I was complimented in the check out line by the very nice woman behind me. She mentioned that she was impressed by how I &#8220;Tetris-ed&#8221; my groceries on the conveyor belt, carefully organizing my purchases not only in proper order so that they&#8217;re bagged together (drinks/alcohol, then frozen stuff, then refrigerated items, then warm storage items), but also so that there is no unused real estate on the belt itself. Hence the &#8220;Tetris&#8221; comment.</p>
  48. <p>My wife&#8217;s response was: &#8220;Honey, your spectrum is showing.&#8221;</p>
  49. <p>This isn&#8217;t to make fun of autism spectrum disorder, of course. Quite the opposite, actually. It&#8217;s an acknowledgement that I&#8217;m somewhere on that spectrum, as are many more of us than probably realize it. I&#8217;m an IT guy. This isn&#8217;t unexpected.</p>
  50. <p>But I had no idea that one of the potential causes for my landing there was because my parents made the choice <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/republicans-rfk-jr-autism-tylenol-circumcision-b2843484.html">to have me circumcised after birth</a>. </p>
  51. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  52. <p><em>During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Kennedy, a longtime proponent of the unfounded theory that vaccines cause autism, went on a tangent about the causes of autism.</em></p>
  53. <p><em>Specifically, he talked about how he saw a TikTok video of a pregnant woman “gobbling Tylenol.” Kennedy said that the woman took Tylenol “with a baby in her placenta,” even though the fetus develops in the uterus. In addition, Kennedy said that infant boys who are circumcised have double the rate of autism.</em></p>
  54. <p><em>But Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who voted to confirm Kennedy both in the Senate Finance Committee and on the Senate floor, expressed confusion.</em></p>
  55. <p><em>“That’s new,” he told&nbsp;The Independent&nbsp;after chuckling.</em></p>
  56. </blockquote>
  57. <p>Chuckling? Kennedy waxing poetic about how an ancient ritual that&#8217;s been around for eons is suddenly causing a spike in autism rates over the past several decades isn&#8217;t funny. Spelling your name wrong with a useless &#8220;h&#8221; in it is funny, but this is something else. The bumblefuck who doesn&#8217;t have even the basics down about how in utero development works is running healthcare policy for the entire damned country and he just claimed that there is a link between autism rates and circumcision. The proper response to this is hearings, specifically impeachment hearings for Kennedy, not a guffaw.</p>
  58. <p>Some people, at least, including a large majority of the voting public, don&#8217;t find any of this humorous.</p>
  59. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  60. <p><em>Many Americans seem to not trust Trump and Kennedy’s claims. A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/poll-trump-rfk-autism-tylenol-b2842687.html">poll from KFF found</a>&nbsp;that just four percent of Americans believed their claims about Tylenol and autism were definitely true, while 30 percent said it was probably false and 35 percent said it was definitely false.</em></p>
  61. <p><em>But Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), a member of the HELP Committee and a sharp critic of Kennedy, said Kennedy’s bizarre and unfounded claims are no laughing matter.</em></p>
  62. <p><em>“We’re talking about whether or not parents can rely on the information provided by the Secretary of Health and Human Services,” she said. “ It&#8217;s really not funny. This whole thing is dangerous. People will get sick and die based on it. And I think it&#8217;s horrible.”</em></p>
  63. </blockquote>
  64. <p>If you&#8217;re wondering, these claims are largely built upon a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-circumcision-linked-autism-experts/">Danish study from 2015</a> that found that circumcised boys were more likely to be diagnosed with ASD compared with boys who had not been circumcised. And as you would expect, the methods and conclusions drawn by the study were heavily critiqued. It shows a correlation, but no causation. And, as is the case with ASD diagnoses generally, the real factor at play here appears to be contact with medical professionals versus those who have less of those contacts.</p>
  65. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  66. <p><em>The 2015 study found that the risk of autism was higher among circumcised boys under age 5, but after age 5, the association disappeared. &#8220;If circumcision truly caused autism,&#8221; said Gounder, &#8220;that association should continue even after age 5. They&#8217;re likely picking up on the fact that kids undergoing circumcision in the health care system have greater contact with the health care system and have parents with higher levels of education and income — all of which are associated with being diagnosed with autism at a younger age than other kids. That association may disappear once kids start school, when teachers and counselors pick up on the symptoms.&#8221;</em></p>
  67. </blockquote>
  68. <p>Folks, the timeline for how long it&#8217;s going to take to unwind the destruction of trust that Kennedy is currently sowing in our governmental medical institutions is going to be measured in <em>decades</em>. And please miss me with any claims that the COVID response or anything else that may have also caused similar distrust is in any way on par with what is currently going on at HHS. It&#8217;s not, and it&#8217;s not even close.</p>
  69. ]]></content:encoded>
  71. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/rfk-jr-discovers-second-cause-of-autism-foreskin-deficiency/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  72. <slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
  75. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519358</post-id> </item>
  76. <item>
  77. <title>Republican Governor Actually Steps Up To Criticize Trump&#8217;s Use Of National Guard Troops</title>
  78. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/republican-governor-actually-steps-up-to-criticize-trumps-use-of-national-guard-troops/</link>
  79. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/republican-governor-actually-steps-up-to-criticize-trumps-use-of-national-guard-troops/#comments</comments>
  81. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Tim Cushing]]></dc:creator>
  82. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 22:27:11 +0000</pubDate>
  83. <category><![CDATA[1]]></category>
  84. <category><![CDATA[chicago]]></category>
  85. <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category>
  86. <category><![CDATA[greg abbott]]></category>
  87. <category><![CDATA[jb pritzker]]></category>
  88. <category><![CDATA[kevin stitt]]></category>
  89. <category><![CDATA[martial law]]></category>
  90. <category><![CDATA[national guard]]></category>
  91. <category><![CDATA[oklahoma]]></category>
  92. <category><![CDATA[trump administration]]></category>
  93. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519264&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=519264</guid>
  94.  
  95. <description><![CDATA[This will obviously work out well for Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt. After all, he&#8217;s lobbing this criticism in the direction of a presidential administration known for its tolerance of dissent and its refusal to use its considerable power against critics and political opponents. Stitt is standing alone, facing a Republican party that only represents itself [&#8230;]]]></description>
  96. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This will obviously work out well for Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt. After all, he&#8217;s lobbing this criticism in the direction of a <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/06/the-tyrant-in-the-white-house/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/06/the-tyrant-in-the-white-house/">presidential administration</a> known for its <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/26/trump-declares-everyone-who-doesnt-kiss-his-ass-is-a-terrorist/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/26/trump-declares-everyone-who-doesnt-kiss-his-ass-is-a-terrorist/">tolerance of dissent</a> and its refusal to use its considerable power against <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/09/trump-calls-for-the-arrest-of-j-b-pritzker-chicago-mayor-brandon-johnson/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/09/trump-calls-for-the-arrest-of-j-b-pritzker-chicago-mayor-brandon-johnson/">critics and political opponents</a>. </p>
  97. <p>Stitt is standing alone, facing a Republican party that only represents itself &#8212; a collection of cowards who are hoping to leverage their subservience to Trump with their constant catering to the most bigoted members of their voting bloc into lengthy careers in the field that <em>used</em> to be known as &#8220;public service.&#8221; </p>
  98. <p>Here are Governor Stitt&#8217;s last words, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/us/politics/oklahoma-governor-national-guard.html" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/us/politics/oklahoma-governor-national-guard.html">reported by J. David Goodman for the New York Times</a>: </p>
  99. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  100. <p><em>Mr. Stitt on Thursday said, “We believe in the federalist system — that’s states’ rights,” adding, “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”</em></p>
  101. <p><em>Mr. Stitt stressed that he supported President Trump’s efforts to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and ensure “law and order” in cities like Chicago and Portland, Ore. But he worried about the precedent that was being set by the guard deployment and how it could be used by a president from another party.</em></p>
  102. </blockquote>
  103. <p>As has been noted here before (repeatedly), the Trump administration is all for federalism when it applies to states rejecting federal laws Trump doesn&#8217;t agree with. When it comes to &#8220;blue&#8221; states, however, Trump doesn&#8217;t believe they&#8217;re allowed to fight for their own rights, even when the law says otherwise.</p>
  104. <p>The Trump administration is hoping to dodge injunctions blocking his martial law plans for &#8220;Democrat&#8221; cities like Portland and Chicago by mobilizing National Guard units from other states &#8212; often with the explicit permission of the Republicans governing those states. We knew it was a lie the moment the words fell out of her mouth, but Trump&#8217;s actions in recent days make it clear that only &#8220;liberal&#8221; cities will be targeted by martial law-esque deployments of military troops. First, <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/13/judge-no-donald-trump-cant-just-order-the-national-guard-to-invade-los-angeles/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/13/judge-no-donald-trump-cant-just-order-the-national-guard-to-invade-los-angeles/">it was Los Angeles</a>. Now, it&#8217;s both <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/29/donald-trump-declares-war-on-portland-because-of-a-few-anti-ice-protests/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/29/donald-trump-declares-war-on-portland-because-of-a-few-anti-ice-protests/">Portland, Oregon</a> and <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/08/the-trump-administration-declares-war-on-chicago/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/08/the-trump-administration-declares-war-on-chicago/">Chicago, Illinois</a>. </p>
  105. <p>The courts aren&#8217;t exactly helping here. While federal courts have <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/10/district-court-tro-for-troops-in-chicago-area-tro-from-using-riot-tactics-against-protests-and-more/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/10/district-court-tro-for-troops-in-chicago-area-tro-from-using-riot-tactics-against-protests-and-more/">found reason</a> to block Trump&#8217;s takeover of <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/07/doj-moves-goalposts-to-send-troops-to-portland-gets-shut-down-by-a-federal-court/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/07/doj-moves-goalposts-to-send-troops-to-portland-gets-shut-down-by-a-federal-court/">local National Guard units</a>, the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court (which covers both California and Oregon) seems <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/portland/2025/10/09/oregon-national-guard-ninth-circuit-trump" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.axios.com/local/portland/2025/10/09/oregon-national-guard-ninth-circuit-trump">inclined to rule in favor</a> of the president and the apparently unlimited extent of executive power. If the case in Chicago generates a circuit split, we&#8217;re no better off. In the past, this sort of thing might have provoked a lengthy discussion by the Supreme Court. These days &#8212; under Trump 2.0 &#8212; the Supreme Court is more likely to give Trump what he wants <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/15/the-supreme-courts-shadow-docket-has-become-a-lawless-explanation-free-rubber-stamp-for-trumps-authoritarian-agenda/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/15/the-supreme-courts-shadow-docket-has-become-a-lawless-explanation-free-rubber-stamp-for-trumps-authoritarian-agenda/">without bothering to explain</a> to the millions of Americans affected why it chose to do so. </p>
  106. <p>Governor Stitt&#8217;s dissent could have been a bit more powerful, too. While he raises good points about how apoplectic the GOP would have been if Biden had pulled this shit, he also thinks it&#8217;s not generally a bad idea to engage in martial law, so long as you force the local troops to go to war with the fellow state residents. </p>
  107. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  108. <p><em>Instead, Mr. Stitt said, Mr. Trump should have moved to federalize the troops in Illinois first.</em></p>
  109. </blockquote>
  110. <p>Stitt&#8217;s attempt to hedge this mild (but still surprising!) criticism of Trump&#8217;s National Guard deployments probably won&#8217;t save him from the wrath of a wholly subservient GOP. He should expect to be pilloried, then primaried, for even <em>suggesting</em> there might be a better way to engage in martial law. Still, it says something about how far Trump has strayed over the line of acceptable executive behavior that even people who know they&#8217;ll be punished for speaking out are doing so and, better yet, making it clear the GOP would have gone nuclear if any Democratic leader attempted to do things Trump is doing on a daily basis.</p>
  111. ]]></content:encoded>
  113. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/republican-governor-actually-steps-up-to-criticize-trumps-use-of-national-guard-troops/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  114. <slash:comments>13</slash:comments>
  117. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519264</post-id> </item>
  118. <item>
  119. <title>New York City Sues Instagram Rather Than Teach Kids Filters Aren&#8217;t Real</title>
  120. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/new-york-city-sues-instagram-rather-than-teach-kids-filters-arent-real/</link>
  121. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/new-york-city-sues-instagram-rather-than-teach-kids-filters-arent-real/#comments</comments>
  123. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Masnick]]></dc:creator>
  124. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 20:46:08 +0000</pubDate>
  125. <category><![CDATA[bytedance]]></category>
  126. <category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
  127. <category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
  128. <category><![CDATA[instagram]]></category>
  129. <category><![CDATA[meta]]></category>
  130. <category><![CDATA[snap]]></category>
  131. <category><![CDATA[tiktok]]></category>
  132. <category><![CDATA[youtube]]></category>
  133. <category><![CDATA[digital literacy]]></category>
  134. <category><![CDATA[eric adams]]></category>
  135. <category><![CDATA[filters]]></category>
  136. <category><![CDATA[lawsuits]]></category>
  137. <category><![CDATA[mental health]]></category>
  138. <category><![CDATA[nyc]]></category>
  139. <category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
  140. <category><![CDATA[suing social media]]></category>
  141. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519240</guid>
  142.  
  143. <description><![CDATA[When a school district sues social media companies claiming they can&#8217;t educate kids because Instagram filters exist, that district is announcing to the world that it has fundamentally failed at its core mission. That&#8217;s exactly what New York City just did with its latest lawsuit against Meta, TikTok, and other platforms. The message is unmistakable: [&#8230;]]]></description>
  144. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When a school district sues social media companies claiming they can&#8217;t educate kids because Instagram filters exist, that district is announcing to the world that it has fundamentally failed at its core mission. That&#8217;s exactly what New York City just did with its <a href="https://courthousenews.com/nyc-sues-social-media-companies-over-keeping-kids-scrolling-in-flow-state/">latest lawsuit</a> against Meta, TikTok, and other platforms.</p>
  145. <p>The message is unmistakable: &#8220;We run the largest school system in America with nearly a million students, but we&#8217;re unable to teach children that filtered photos aren&#8217;t real or help them develop the critical thinking skills needed to navigate the modern world. So we&#8217;re suing someone else to fix our incompetence.&#8221;</p>
  146. <p>This is what institutional failure looks like in 2025.</p>
  147. <p>NYC first got taken in <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/22/mayor-adams-files-ridiculously-stupid-dangerous-lawsuit-against-social-media-claiming-its-a-public-nuisance/">by this nonsense last year</a>, as Mayor Adams said all social media was a health hazard and toxic waste. However, that lawsuit was rolled into the crazy, almost impossible to follow, consolidated version of that lawsuit in California that currently has <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65407433/in-re-social-media-adolescent-addictionpersonal-injury-products-liability/?order_by=desc">over 2300 filings on the docket</a>. So, apparently, NYC dropped that version, and has now elected to <a href="https://courthousenews.com/nyc-sues-social-media-companies-over-keeping-kids-scrolling-in-flow-state/">sue, sue again</a>. With the same damn law firm, Keller Rohrback, that kicked off this trend and are the lawyers behind a big chunk of these lawsuits.</p>
  148. <p>The <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26184849/nyc-meta-lawsuit-southern-district-new-york.pdf">actual complaint</a> is bad, and everyone behind it should feel bad. It’s also 327 pages, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to waste my time going through all of it, watching my blood pressure rise as I have to keep yelling at my screen “that’s not how any of this works.”</p>
  149. <p>The complaint leads with what should be Exhibit A for why NYC schools are failing their students—a detailed explanation of adolescent brain development that perfectly illustrates why education matters:</p>
  150. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  151. <p><em>Children and adolescents are especially vulnerable to developing harmful behaviors because their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed. Indeed, it is one of the last regions of the brain to mature. In the images below, the blue color depicts brain development.</em></p>
  152. <figure class="wp-block-image"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" src="https://i0.wp.com/lex-img-p.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/img/a936ea24-5c31-4e2d-afa4-706b7bdf87d5-RackMultipart20251011-182-xcu0nw.png?ssl=1" alt=""/></figure>
  153. <p><em>Because the prefrontal cortex develops later than other areas of the brain, children and adolescents, as compared with adults, have less impulse control and less ability to evaluate risks, regulate emotions and regulate their responses to social rewards.</em></p>
  154. </blockquote>
  155. <p>Stop right there. NYC just laid out the neurological case for why education exists. Kids have underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes? They struggle with impulse control, risk evaluation, and emotional regulation? <strong>THAT&#8217;S LITERALLY WHY WE HAVE SCHOOLS.</strong></p>
  156. <p>The entire premise of public education is that we can help children develop these exact cognitive and social skills. We teach them math because their brains can learn mathematical reasoning. We teach them history so they can evaluate evidence and understand cause and effect. We teach them literature so they can develop empathy and critical thinking.</p>
  157. <p>But apparently, when it comes to digital literacy—arguably one of the most important skills for navigating modern life—NYC throws up its hands and sues instead of teaches.</p>
  158. <p>This lawsuit is a 327-page confession of educational malpractice.</p>
  159. <p>The crux of the lawsuit is, effectively, “kids like social media, and teachers just can’t compete with that shit.”</p>
  160. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  161. <p><em>In short, children find it particularly difficult to exercise the self-control required to regulate their use of Defendants’ platforms, given the stimuli and rewards embedded in those platforms, and as a foreseeable and probable consequence of Defendants’ design choices tend to engage in addictive and compulsive use. Defendants engaged in this conduct even though they knew or should have known that their design choices would have a detrimental effect on youth, including those in NYC Plaintiffs’ community, leading to serious problems in schools and the community.</em></p>
  162. </blockquote>
  163. <p>By this logic, basically any products that children like are somehow a public nuisance.</p>
  164. <p>This lawsuit is embarrassing to the lawyers who brought it and to the NYC school system.</p>
  165. <p>Take the complaint&#8217;s hysterical reaction to Instagram filters, which perfectly captures the educational opportunity NYC is missing:</p>
  166. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  167. <p><em>Defendants’ image-altering filters cause mental health harms in multiple ways. First, because of the popularity of these editing tools, many of the images teenagers see have been edited by filters, and it can be difficult for teenagers to remain cognizant of the use of filters. This creates a false reality wherein all other users on the platforms appear better looking than they actually are, often in an artificial way. As children and teens compare their actual appearances to the edited appearances of themselves and others online, their perception of their own physical features grows increasingly negative. Second, Defendants’ platforms tend to reward edited photos, through an increase in interaction and positive responses, causing young users to prefer the way they look using filters. Many young users believe they are only attractive when their images are edited, not as they appear naturally. Third, the specific changes filters make to individuals’ appearances can cause negative obsession or self-hatred surrounding particular aspects of their appearance. The filters alter specific facial features such as eyes, lips, jaw, face shape, and face slimness—features that often require medical intervention to alter in real life</em></p>
  168. </blockquote>
  169. <p>Read that again. The complaint admits that &#8220;it can be difficult for teenagers to remain cognizant of the use of filters&#8221; and that kids struggle to distinguish between edited and authentic images.</p>
  170. <p>That&#8217;s not a legal problem. That&#8217;s a <strong>curriculum problem.</strong></p>
  171. <p>A competent school system would read that paragraph and immediately start developing age-appropriate digital literacy programs. Media literacy classes. Critical thinking exercises about online authenticity. Discussions about self-image and social comparison that have been relevant since long before Instagram existed.</p>
  172. <p>Instead, NYC read that paragraph and decided the solution is to sue the companies rather than teach the kids.</p>
  173. <p>This is educational malpractice masquerading as child protection. If you run a million-student school system and your response to kids struggling with digital literacy is litigation rather than education, you should resign and let someone competent take over.</p>
  174. <p>They’re also getting sued for… <strong><em>not</em></strong> providing certain features, like age verification. Even though, as we keep pointing out, age verification is (1) likely unconstitutional outside of the narrow realm of pornographic content, and (2) a privacy and security nightmare for kids.</p>
  175. <p>The broader tragedy here extends beyond one terrible lawsuit. NYC is participating in a nationwide trend of school districts abandoning their educational mission in favor of legal buck-passing. These districts, often working with the same handful of contingency-fee law firms, have decided it&#8217;s easier to blame social media companies than to do the hard work of preparing students for digital citizenship.</p>
  176. <p>This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what schools are supposed to do. We don&#8217;t shut down the world to protect children from it—we prepare children to navigate the world as it exists. That means teaching them to think critically about online content, understand privacy and security, develop healthy relationships with technology, and build the cognitive skills to resist manipulation.</p>
  177. <p>Every generation gets a moral panic or two, and apparently &#8220;social media is destroying kids&#8217; brains&#8221; is our version of moral panics of years past. We&#8217;ve seen this movie before: the waltz would corrupt young women&#8217;s morals, chess would stop kids from going outdoors, novels would rot their brains on useless fiction, bicycles would cause moral decay, radio would destroy family conversation, pinball machines would turn kids into delinquents, television would make them violent, comic books would corrupt their minds, and Dungeons &amp; Dragons would lead them to Satan worship.</p>
  178. <p>As society calmed down, eventually, after each of those, we now look back on those moral panics as silly, hysterical overreactions. You would hope that a modern education system would take note that they have an opportunity to use these new forms of media as a learning opportunity.</p>
  179. <p>But faced with social media, America&#8217;s school districts have largely given up on education and embraced litigation. That should terrify every parent more than any Instagram filter ever could.</p>
  180. <p>The real scandal isn&#8217;t that social media exists. It&#8217;s that our schools have become so risk-averse and educationally bankrupt that they&#8217;ve forgotten their core purpose: preparing young people to be thoughtful, capable adults in the world they&#8217;ll actually inherit.</p>
  181. ]]></content:encoded>
  183. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/new-york-city-sues-instagram-rather-than-teach-kids-filters-arent-real/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  184. <slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
  187. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519240</post-id> </item>
  188. <item>
  189. <title>Flock’s Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening For Human Voices</title>
  190. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/flocks-gunshot-detection-microphones-will-start-listening-for-human-voices/</link>
  191. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/flocks-gunshot-detection-microphones-will-start-listening-for-human-voices/#comments</comments>
  193. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Guariglia]]></dc:creator>
  194. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:17:25 +0000</pubDate>
  195. <category><![CDATA[flock]]></category>
  196. <category><![CDATA[flock safety]]></category>
  197. <category><![CDATA[audio recordings]]></category>
  198. <category><![CDATA[gunshot detection]]></category>
  199. <category><![CDATA[microphones]]></category>
  200. <category><![CDATA[raven]]></category>
  201. <category><![CDATA[surveillance]]></category>
  202. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=518940</guid>
  203.  
  204. <description><![CDATA[Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of&#160;automated license plate readers&#160;spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As part of their suite of technologies, Flock has been pushing&#160;Raven, [&#8230;]]]></description>
  205. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of&nbsp;<a href="https://sls.eff.org/technologies/automated-license-plate-readers-alprs">automated license plate readers</a>&nbsp;spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As part of their suite of technologies, Flock has been pushing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flocksafety.com/webinar/introducing-raven">Raven</a>, their version of&nbsp;<a href="https://sls.eff.org/technologies/gunshot-detection">acoustic gunshot detection</a>. These devices capture sounds in public places and use machine learning to try to identify gunshots and then alert police—but EFF has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/its-time-police-stop-using-shotspotter">long warned</a>&nbsp;that they are also high powered microphones parked above densely-populated city streets. Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/austin-license-plate-readers-ends-privacy-concerns/269-4dc64690-c6c0-4ace-a009-fd8a13f69113">many other municipalities</a>&nbsp;and cancel their Flock contracts, before this new feature causes civil liberties harms to residents and headaches for cities.&nbsp;</p>
  206. <p>In marketing materials, Flock has been touting new features to their Raven product—including the ability of the device to alert police based on sounds, including “distress.” The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flocksafety.com/distress-early-access">online ad</a>&nbsp;for the product, which allows cities to apply for early access to the technology, shows the image of police getting an alert for “screaming.”&nbsp;</p>
  207. <p>It’s unclear how this technology works. For acoustic gunshot detection, generally the microphones are looking for sounds that would signify gunshots (though in practice they often mistake car backfires or fireworks for gunshots). Flock needs to come forward now with an explanation of exactly how their new technology functions. It is unclear how these devices will interact with state “<a href="https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/RECORDING-CONVERSATIONS-CHART.pdf">eavesdropping</a>” laws that limit listening to or recording the private conversations that often take place in public.&nbsp;</p>
  208. <p>Flock is no stranger to causing legal challenges for the cities and states that adopt their products. In Illinois, Flock was <a href="https://www.25newsnow.com/2025/08/28/hundreds-police-departments-use-camera-company-accused-breaking-state-law/">accused of violating state law</a> by allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal agency, access to license plate reader data taken within the state. That’s not all. In 2023, a North Carolina judge halted the installation of Flock cameras statewide for <a href="https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/north-carolina-judge-halts-alpr-deployment-over-licensing">operating in the state without a license</a>. When the city of Evanston, Illinois recently canceled its contract with Flock, it ordered the company to take down their license plate readers–only for Flock to <a href="https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/09/25/city-covers-up-flock-cameras-while-waiting-for-removal/">mysteriously reinstall</a> them a few days later. This city has now sent Flock a cease and desist order and in the meantime, has put <a href="https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/09/25/city-covers-up-flock-cameras-while-waiting-for-removal/">black tape over the cameras</a>. For some, the technology isn’t worth its mounting downsides. As one <a href="https://derekeder.com/blog/why-i-voted-to-cancel-flock">Illinois village trustee wrote </a>while explaining his vote to cancel the city’s contract with Flock, “According to our own Civilian Police Oversight Commission, over 99% of Flock alerts do not result in any police action.”</p>
  209. <p>Gunshot detection technology is dangerous enough as it is—police showing up to alerts they think are gunfire only to find children playing with fireworks is a recipe for innocent people to get hurt. This isn’t hypothetical: in Chicago a <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/responding-shotspotter-police-shoot-child-lighting-fireworks">child really was shot at by police</a> who thought they were responding to a shooting thanks to a ShotSpotter alert. Introducing a new feature that allows these pre-installed Raven microphones all over cities to begin listening for human voices in distress is likely to open up a whole new can of unforeseen legal, civil liberties, and even bodily safety consequences.</p>
  210. <p><em>Originally published to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flocks-gunshot-detection-microphones-will-start-listening-human-voices">EFF&#8217;s Deeplinks blog</a>.</em></p>
  211. ]]></content:encoded>
  213. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/flocks-gunshot-detection-microphones-will-start-listening-for-human-voices/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  214. <slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
  217. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">518940</post-id> </item>
  218. <item>
  219. <title>Hey Zuck, Remember When You Said You&#8217;d Never Again Cave To Government Pressure? About That…</title>
  220. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/hey-zuck-remember-when-you-said-youd-never-again-cave-to-government-pressure-about-that/</link>
  221. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/hey-zuck-remember-when-you-said-youd-never-again-cave-to-government-pressure-about-that/#comments</comments>
  223. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Masnick]]></dc:creator>
  224. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 17:48:27 +0000</pubDate>
  225. <category><![CDATA[cbs]]></category>
  226. <category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
  227. <category><![CDATA[meta]]></category>
  228. <category><![CDATA[1st amendment]]></category>
  229. <category><![CDATA[bari weiss]]></category>
  230. <category><![CDATA[content moderation]]></category>
  231. <category><![CDATA[doxxing]]></category>
  232. <category><![CDATA[free speech]]></category>
  233. <category><![CDATA[ice]]></category>
  234. <category><![CDATA[jawboning]]></category>
  235. <category><![CDATA[jim jordan]]></category>
  236. <category><![CDATA[joe rogan]]></category>
  237. <category><![CDATA[laura loomer]]></category>
  238. <category><![CDATA[mark zuckerberg]]></category>
  239. <category><![CDATA[matt taibbi]]></category>
  240. <category><![CDATA[michael shellenberger]]></category>
  241. <category><![CDATA[pam bondi]]></category>
  242. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519418</guid>
  243.  
  244. <description><![CDATA[You may recall a year or so ago, when Mark Zuckerberg whined to Jim Jordan about how the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain… content.” Or maybe you remember when he went on Joe Rogan and whined some more about Biden pressure on moderation, even though he admitted there that [&#8230;]]]></description>
  245. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You may recall a year or so ago, when <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/28/trumps-accidental-admission-and-zuckerbergs-surrender-the-real-takeaways-from-metas-letter/">Mark Zuckerberg whined to Jim Jordan</a> about how the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain… content.” Or maybe you remember when <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/16/rogan-misses-the-mark-how-zucks-misdirection-on-govt-pressure-goes-unchallenged/">he went on Joe Rogan</a> and whined some more about Biden pressure on moderation, even though he admitted there that he rejected their requests:</p>
  246. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  247. <p><em>And they pushed us super hard to take down things that were honestly were true. Right, I mean they they basically pushed us and and said, you know, anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down.</em></p>
  248. <p><em>And I was just like,</em> <strong><em>well we’re not going to do that</em></strong><em>. Like,</em> <strong><em>we’re clearly not going to do that</em></strong><em>.</em></p>
  249. </blockquote>
  250. <p>Zuckerberg also made a pledge that they were supposedly going to stop being pushed around. From now on, he swore, there was a new Meta that wouldn’t bow at all to government officials demanding content be removed.</p>
  251. <p>He was a new Zuck. A Zuck who would stand up to oppressive government demands.</p>
  252. <p>So, about that.</p>
  253. <p>On Tuesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly bragged about the Trump administration doing exactly what Mark Zuckerberg falsely claimed the Biden administration did to him. She bragged about how the Justice Department successfully pressured Facebook into removing First Amendment-protected speech:</p>
  254. <div class="wp-block-image">
  255. <figure class="aligncenter"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" src="https://i0.wp.com/lex-img-p.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/img/13435ab6-9dd1-4fa5-b4dd-5c2a840171a0-RackMultipart20251015-179-8mf4d4.png?ssl=1" alt=""/></figure>
  256. </div>
  257. <p>If you can’t see that, it’s Bondi tweeting:</p>
  258. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  259. <p><em>Today following outreach from the Justice Department, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target ICE agents in Chicago. The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs. The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.</em></p>
  260. </blockquote>
  261. <p>This is actual government censorship—direct pressure from the DOJ to remove constitutionally protected speech. And unlike the Biden administration&#8217;s communications that Zuck admitted he easily refused, in this case, Facebook immediately complied.</p>
  262. <p>The content in question? Tracking the public movements of law enforcement officials. This is <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/13/fourth-circuit-latest-to-say-filming-cops-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment/">classic protected First Amendment activity</a>, with <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2017/07/10/third-circuit-appeals-court-establishes-first-amendment-right-to-record-police/">well-established case law</a> protecting the right to record and monitor police in public. It&#8217;s nowhere close to meeting the Brandenburg standard for &#8220;inciting imminent lawless action&#8221; that Bondi misquotes in her tweet.</p>
  263. <p>So, once again, let’s take a step back and look at this. When it was the Biden administration asking Facebook about COVID misinfo, Zuck had no problem saying “well, we’re not going to do that.” And as it became clear Trump had a decent chance of winning the election, it gave Zuck an opportunity to throw the Biden admin under the bus, while insisting that they’d changed and would stop being pressured by governments.</p>
  264. <p>But then, as soon as Bondi calls Zuck and says “jump,” he asks “how high?”</p>
  265. <p>And, of course, it’s not just Zuckerberg who is being a cowardly hypocrite here.</p>
  266. <p>Remember how Judge Terry Doughty, in the Missouri v. Biden case, took similar anecdotes of supposed pressure (which the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/26/supreme-court-sees-through-the-nonsense-rejects-lower-courts-rulings-regarding-social-media-moderation/">later rejected</a>, noting that Doughty’s findings were “clearly erroneous” and based on “no evidence”) and claimed that any sign of governments merely communicating with social media companies about moderation practices clearly <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/06/the-good-the-bad-and-the-incredibly-ugly-in-the-court-ruling-regarding-government-contacts-with-social-media/">represented an epic violation</a> of the First Amendment. He said that “the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”</p>
  267. <p>Of course, the Supreme Court eventually laughed that off, because it was based on him both fabricating evidence (including quotes that were not said) and misunderstanding other evidence. But where are the people who cheered on Doughty’s ruling about Bondi’s “massive attack against free speech?”</p>
  268. <p>Or, perhaps, you remember the “Twitter Files” gang of Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/07/paramount-formally-hires-bari-weiss-to-turn-whats-left-of-cbs-news-into-a-soggy-right-wing-propaganda-and-troll-farm/">new CBS News Editor in Chief</a> Bari Weiss, claiming that a few misrepresented stories of government officials asking platforms about their content moderation practices represented the “censorship industrial complex” and were huge attacks on free speech. <a href="https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116615/witnesses/HHRG-118-FD00-Wstate-TaibbiM-20231130.pdf">Matt Taibbi insisted</a> that any suppression of “true speech that undermined confidence in government policies” was “precisely the situation the First Amendment was designed to avoid.”</p>
  269. <p>Shellenberger <a href="https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg54237/CHRG-118hhrg54237.pdf">touted a supposed whistleblower</a> “proving” that the government “pressured” social media, such as Facebook, to take down content (the actual evidence he presented said no such thing). He’s spent years since then laughably presenting himself as an expert on government and social media “censorship”, even getting a “professorship” at Bari Weiss’s fake university on the subject.</p>
  270. <p>Weiss herself wrote <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/why-we-went-to-twitter">a typically self-congratulating article</a> about how Elon Musk bought Twitter to “save the world” from “censorship” and whined about how government-induced content moderation “curtailed public debate.”</p>
  271. <p>Where are they on this? I see nothing from Taibbi, Shellenberger, or Weiss. Not a single story about this on the CBS-owned The Free Press. Nothing on X from any of them. Nothing on their various Substacks. Just… silence as the Trump administration does the very thing, loudly and proudly, that they spent years falsely accusing Biden of, while claiming it was an attack on the very foundations of democracy. How odd.</p>
  272. <p>Or how about this: top Trump confidant and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went around taking credit for the DOJ getting the page removed from Facebook, just a week after her own lawsuit, which tried to argue that Facebook (and Twitter) did the RICO in banning her, <a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5540495-loomers-racketeering-lawsuit-rejected/">got rejected by the Supreme Court</a>.</p>
  273. <div class="wp-block-image">
  274. <figure class="aligncenter"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" src="https://i0.wp.com/lex-img-p.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/img/1c1b261c-262d-4909-9ab0-212409b15264-RackMultipart20251015-230-zrj3wn.png?ssl=1" alt=""/></figure>
  275. </div>
  276. <p>That shows Laura Loomer first tweeting about “ICE tracking pages” on Facebook and complaining that Facebook shouldn’t allow them, followed by her breaking the news that the DOJ told her they contacted Facebook to remove them:</p>
  277. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  278. <p><em>Fantastic news. DOJ source tells me they have seen my report and they have contacted Facebook and their executives at META to tell them they need to remove these ICE tracking pages from the platform.</em></p>
  279. <p><em>We will see if they comply. There are DOZENS of pages like the one below that endanger the lives of ICE agents.</em></p>
  280. <p><em>It’s further evidence Big Tech is continuing to subvert and undermine President Trump and his agenda.</em></p>
  281. </blockquote>
  282. <p>The hypocrisy level here is off the charts. She’s literally spent <em>years</em> suing Facebook for banning her account, claiming it was an attack on her speech… and now she’s demanding that the government tell Facebook to suppress speech, and celebrating when they do so.</p>
  283. <p>The only consistency is “speech I like should be allowed, speech I don’t like shouldn’t be.”</p>
  284. <p>Oh, and remember (lol) the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-freedom-of-speech-and-ending-federal-censorship/">Trump executive order on restoring free speech</a>?</p>
  285. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  286. <p><em>It is the policy of the United States to:</em></p>
  287. <p><em>(a)  secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech;</em></p>
  288. <p><em>(b)  ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen</em></p>
  289. </blockquote>
  290. <p>Bondi <em>clearly</em> violated that.</p>
  291. <p>Will anyone point that out?</p>
  292. <p>Now, because we have enough MAGA trolls around here, I can already predict the reply: “this is different,” they will say, “because this is ‘doxxing’ and a threat to ICE.”</p>
  293. <p>Hell, Bondi even hints at that in her tweet, as well as pretending this fits under the Brandenburg standard of “inciting imminent lawless action” which she misquotes in her tweet. Except that’s bullshit. Simply tracking the location of law enforcement officials in public is not anywhere close to crossing the Brandenburg line. It’s also not “doxxing” in any meaningful manner, which is about revealing <em>private</em> info about someone (and, in most cases, is also not against the law).</p>
  294. <p>It’s classic protected speech, and we’ve got <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2017/07/10/third-circuit-appeals-court-establishes-first-amendment-right-to-record-police/">pretty good case law</a> on the books making it clear that recording and tracking law enforcement in public is <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/13/fourth-circuit-latest-to-say-filming-cops-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment/">classic protected First Amendment activity</a>.</p>
  295. <p>So what we’re left with is yet another example of the extreme hypocrisy of the MAGA cult. They claimed, falsely, that Biden was “censoring” social media (a lie debunked by even the conservatives on the Supreme Court) and then as soon as they got into power, they not only did exactly what they falsely accused Biden of doing, but they did so openly, publicly, and proudly.</p>
  296. <p>And where are all those “free speech warriors”? Where are Taibbi, Shellenberger, and Weiss? They were soooooooo concerned that what Biden didn’t actually do was the end of free speech in America. Yet, when Trump does way worse than even what they pretended Biden did… it’s crickets.</p>
  297. <p>How odd.</p>
  298. <p>Or how about Joe Rogan? He spent hours with Zuck, helping him spin a blatantly misleading tale of “censorship” from Biden (which again, even Zuck admitted to Rogan didn’t lead to any speech being taken down). But here, Zuck folded like a cheap card table… and what? Silence?</p>
  299. <p>These grifters spent years telling us that free speech was under attack, but they never had the actual goods. Yet now it’s actually happening, but by the guy they supported, and they’re all off hiding somewhere?</p>
  300. <p>How pathetic.</p>
  301. <p>But this isn&#8217;t just about individual hypocrisy—it reveals something more troubling about the entire &#8220;free speech&#8221; discourse we&#8217;ve been subjected to for the past several years. The people who positioned themselves as champions of free speech never actually cared about the principle. They cared about weaponizing the concept to attack their political opponents while laying groundwork for their own censorship regime.</p>
  302. <p>The supposed champions of free speech who spent years manufacturing outrage over nonexistent government censorship are now silent in the face of actual government censorship. Their hypocrisy is complete, and they should never, ever, be seen as credible sources on the subject of free speech.</p>
  303. <p>Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has revealed himself as exactly what critics always said he was: a coward who bends to whoever holds power. His theatrical resistance to Biden was performative. His instant capitulation to Trump is revealing.</p>
  304. <p>The real lesson here isn&#8217;t just that these people are frauds—though they obviously are. It&#8217;s that we now have a crystal-clear example of what actual government pressure on speech looks like, versus the manufactured controversies of the past few years. When Bondi tweets about successful DOJ pressure campaigns, when Facebook immediately complies, when demands result in immediate content removal—that&#8217;s the difference between real government coercion and the communications that resulted in no platform action, which the Supreme Court found insufficient to establish standing because plaintiffs couldn&#8217;t show they were actually harmed.</p>
  305. <p>The free speech grifters won&#8217;t learn from this, of course. But the rest of us should.</p>
  306. ]]></content:encoded>
  308. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/hey-zuck-remember-when-you-said-youd-never-again-cave-to-government-pressure-about-that/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  309. <slash:comments>17</slash:comments>
  312. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519418</post-id> </item>
  313. <item>
  314. <title>Daily Deal: Nix Mini 3 Color Sensor</title>
  315. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/daily-deal-nix-mini-3-color-sensor-2/</link>
  316. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/daily-deal-nix-mini-3-color-sensor-2/#respond</comments>
  318. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Daily Deal]]></dc:creator>
  319. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 17:43:27 +0000</pubDate>
  320. <category><![CDATA[1]]></category>
  321. <category><![CDATA[daily deal]]></category>
  322. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519409&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=519409</guid>
  323.  
  324. <description><![CDATA[Instantly become a color expert with the Nix Mini 3 Color Sensor. This portable device puts all paint fan decks in your pocket, offering access to over 200,000 brand-name paint colors and essential color codes like RGB, HEX, and CMYK. Perfect for designers, contractors, and homeowners. The Mini 3 features Bluetooth connectivity, Debris and splash [&#8230;]]]></description>
  325. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Instantly become a color expert with the <a href="https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/nix-mini-3-the-1-color-sensor-for-designers-contractors-architects-and-homeowners?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown">Nix Mini 3 Color Sensor</a>. This portable device puts all paint fan decks in your pocket, offering access to over 200,000 brand-name paint colors and essential color codes like RGB, HEX, and CMYK. Perfect for designers, contractors, and homeowners. The Mini 3 features Bluetooth connectivity, Debris and splash resistance, and free access to the Nix Toolkit app for precise and convenient color matching. This newest version improves accuracy with 3x enhanced resolution over the Mini 2 and significant improvements to battery life and Bluetooth connectivity. The Nix Mini 3 ensures reliable color management for any project. Additionally, it matches premium libraries like Pantone, RAL, and NCS with monthly or annual subscription options. It&#8217;s on sale for $80.</p>
  326. <div class="wp-block-image">
  327. <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><a href="https://deals.techdirt.com/sales/nix-mini-3-the-1-color-sensor-for-designers-contractors-architects-and-homeowners?utm_campaign=affiliaterundown"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" src="https://i0.wp.com/cdnp1.stackassets.com/d650602951a1477f5add8ec6ef13a5ea83acf15a/store/13d28e9f875f5bd892c4802a21258073bef6780e89ababa3b4a364fa67b8/product_xxxxx_product_shots1.jpg?ssl=1" alt=""/></a></figure>
  328. </div>
  329. <p><em>Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.</em></p>
  330. ]]></content:encoded>
  332. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/daily-deal-nix-mini-3-color-sensor-2/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  333. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  336. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519409</post-id> </item>
  337. <item>
  338. <title>The Federal Police Are Rioting: Chicago Edition</title>
  339. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/the-federal-police-are-rioting-chicago-edition/</link>
  340. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/the-federal-police-are-rioting-chicago-edition/#comments</comments>
  342. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Tim Cushing]]></dc:creator>
  343. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 16:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
  344. <category><![CDATA[1]]></category>
  345. <category><![CDATA[chicago]]></category>
  346. <category><![CDATA[dhs]]></category>
  347. <category><![CDATA[doj]]></category>
  348. <category><![CDATA[federal court]]></category>
  349. <category><![CDATA[federal officers]]></category>
  350. <category><![CDATA[ice]]></category>
  351. <category><![CDATA[illinois]]></category>
  352. <category><![CDATA[mass deportation]]></category>
  353. <category><![CDATA[rights violations]]></category>
  354. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519281&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=519281</guid>
  355.  
  356. <description><![CDATA[Almost every time people protest the government, the government decides to get on the wrong side of the law. This is something every administration is guilty of, but under Trump, attacking protesters and journalists has become the rule, rather than the exception. Plenty of litigation has arisen from the protests greeting Trump&#8217;s uber-aggressive pursuit of [&#8230;]]]></description>
  357. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Almost every time people protest the government, the government decides to get on <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/search/?q=police+are+rioting" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/search/?q=police+are+rioting">the wrong side of the law</a>. This is something <em>every</em> administration is guilty of, but under Trump, attacking protesters and journalists has become the rule, rather than the exception.</p>
  358. <p>Plenty of litigation has arisen from the protests greeting Trump&#8217;s uber-aggressive pursuit of migrants. Under Trump, the expected disregard for protected First Amendment activity (protesting, journalism) has expanded to include a disregard for multiple other constitutional amendments, including the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.</p>
  359. <p>The Trump administration treats any dissent as an act of war against the United States. And his federal agencies treat documentation of government actions as acts of terrorism. On top of all of this is this administration&#8217;s blessing of federal agents concealing their identities, which has encouraged them to violate rights more frequently &#8212; and more <em>violently</em> &#8212; because they know they can&#8217;t be easily identified. </p>
  360. <p>Chicago (specifically) and Illinois (more generally) <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/09/trump-calls-for-the-arrest-of-j-b-pritzker-chicago-mayor-brandon-johnson/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/09/trump-calls-for-the-arrest-of-j-b-pritzker-chicago-mayor-brandon-johnson/">are the new war zones</a> for the Trump administration. Protests prompted by unprovoked violent acts by federal officers have proven to be all the excuse the administration needs to engage in more violence and an expansion of executive power.</p>
  361. <p><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/10/district-court-tro-for-troops-in-chicago-area-tro-from-using-riot-tactics-against-protests-and-more/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/10/district-court-tro-for-troops-in-chicago-area-tro-from-using-riot-tactics-against-protests-and-more/">Tim Geigner covered a lot of this last week</a>, discussing restraining orders issued against federal officers and the constitutional end-around being performed by the Trump administration with its use of Texas National Guard troops to perform its invasion of Chicago.</p>
  362. <p>But here&#8217;s how everything got to that point. And I feel it&#8217;s worth looking at more closely because it so clearly demonstrates the cruelty we&#8217;re dealing with. The first thing this incarnation of the federal government does is pick a fight. Then it responds (violently) to the reaction it has deliberately provoked.</p>
  363. <p>Earlier this month, Border Patrol (do what now) agents shot Chicago resident Marimar Martinez multiple times, <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10/06/marimar-martinez-anthony-ian-santos-ruiz-border-patrol-shooting-brighton-park" data-type="link" data-id="https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10/06/marimar-martinez-anthony-ian-santos-ruiz-border-patrol-shooting-brighton-park">but not before making it clear which side had all the unchecked power</a>:</p>
  364. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  365. <p><em>Body-camera video of a Border Patrol agent involved in the shooting of a woman who was allegedly chasing agents in Brighton Park over the weekend <strong>shows an officer saying, “Do something, b&#8212;-,” before pulling over and shooting the woman five times</strong>, the woman’s attorney said in federal court Monday.</em></p>
  366. <p><em><strong>The video appears to contradict the government’s allegation that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers</strong> before one of them opened fire on her late Saturday morning on Kedzie Avenue near 39th Street, her attorney, Christopher Parente, said at a detention hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.</em></p>
  367. </blockquote>
  368. <p>Whenever a major news agency uses the phrase &#8220;appears to contradict&#8221; in reference to federal government claims, I&#8217;m inclined to believe said footage <em>directly contradicts</em> those claims. On top of that, there&#8217;s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4qBLgk9hWw&amp;t=106s" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4qBLgk9hWw&amp;t=106s">security cam footage</a> that <em>absolutely</em> refutes federal officers&#8217; claims that they were pursued by a &#8220;convoy&#8221; of &#8220;ten&#8221; allegedly hostile vehicles.</p>
  369. <figure class="wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">
  370. <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  371. <iframe title="Footage allegedly shows vehicles involved in Brighton Park Border Patrol shooting" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b4qBLgk9hWw?start=106&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
  372. </div>
  373. </figure>
  374. <p>This attack has understandably resulted in protests and news coverage. Just as predictably, this has resulted in more unprovoked aggression from federal officers, which includes one officer&#8217;s decision to fire a whole bunch of pepper balls at peaceful protesters, despite being in a position even <em>violent</em> protesters would be unable to reach. </p>
  375. <p>Here&#8217;s a description of what went down here, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2025/10/07/in-chicago-clergy-and-religious-protesters-say-ice-is-threatening-their-religious-freedom/" data-type="link" data-id="https://religionnews.com/2025/10/07/in-chicago-clergy-and-religious-protesters-say-ice-is-threatening-their-religious-freedom/">provided by a rather unexpected news source</a>: </p>
  376. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  377. <p><em>Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.</em></p>
  378. <p><em>“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”</em></p>
  379. <p><em>But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing&nbsp;<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/mskellymhayes.bsky.social/post/3lzad2f5gnk2n">pepper balls</a>, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.</em></p>
  380. <p><em>“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.</em></p>
  381. </blockquote>
  382. <p><a href="https://www.chicagofirstchurch.org/pastor-black" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.chicagofirstchurch.org/pastor-black">This is Rev. Black</a>. And this is what happened to him &#8212; something the government can&#8217;t hope to refute credibly because, well, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/mskellymhayes.bsky.social/post/3lzad2f5gnk2n" data-type="link" data-id="https://bsky.app/profile/mskellymhayes.bsky.social/post/3lzad2f5gnk2n">the narrative belongs to the people</a>: </p>
  383. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-bluesky-social wp-block-embed-bluesky-social">
  384. <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  385. <blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:vq5s7pmjzrx4wqbuebz35x33/app.bsky.feed.post/3lzad2f5gnk2n" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreie7vimdeqoldiwohma4nm5d4fypze6qxn3gpxq4dtfdfruuo3xzha">
  386. <p lang="en">CW: protester being struck in the head by a pepper ballFootage I took earlier of the moment Reverend David Black, a regular protester outside of the Broadview Detention Center, was shot in the head with a pepper ball by ICE agents on the roof of the facility.</p>
  387. <p>&mdash; <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vq5s7pmjzrx4wqbuebz35x33?ref_src=embed">Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart (@mskellymhayes.bsky.social)</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vq5s7pmjzrx4wqbuebz35x33/post/3lzad2f5gnk2n?ref_src=embed">2025-09-20T02:22:06.567Z</a></p>
  388. </blockquote>
  389. <p><script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  390. </div>
  391. </figure>
  392. <p>Black is one of the plaintiffs engaged in a lawsuit against federal officers and their tactics. And now &#8212; ahead of the expected deployment of [checks notes] <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/us/video/broadview-illinois-chicago-ice-facility-texas-national-guard-contd-vrtc" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/us/video/broadview-illinois-chicago-ice-facility-texas-national-guard-contd-vrtc"><em>Texas</em> National Guard troops</a> to Chicago &#8212; <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jackjenkins.me/post/3m2roiy35d22s" data-type="link" data-id="https://bsky.app/profile/jackjenkins.me/post/3m2roiy35d22s">the government is restrained</a> (judicially, but probably not in actuality) from doing more of the stuff observed in the video posted above. </p>
  393. <p>The restraining <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26185381-tro-chicago-feds/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26185381-tro-chicago-feds/">order</a> [PDF] says all sorts of things federal officers already likely know to be true, but have chosen to ignore because most of them are bullies who&#8217;ve found an outlet for their aggression that includes health care benefits and a decent pension. You know, things like not beating, pepper spraying, or arresting journalists, peaceful protesters, and &#8212; more directly &#8212; peaceful members of the clergy. It also limits the use of riot control weaponry to when it&#8217;s truly justified, rather than just whenever officers feel like firing off a magazine full of pepper balls. </p>
  394. <p>But there&#8217;s little reason to believe this will actually change anything. ICE will continue to act as though it&#8217;s above the law because&#8230; well&#8230; it&#8217;s backed by an administration that spends each and every day above the law. While that&#8217;s horrific on its own level, it can often feel abstracted. And that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s necessary to see what this all looks like on the ground. It&#8217;s something that personifies the cruelty of this administration. It&#8217;s officers yelling &#8220;Do something, bitch!&#8221; before filling a person full of bullets. And it&#8217;s federal officers standing on a roof purposely firing pepper spray rounds at someone on the ground just because they&#8217;re pretty sure they&#8217;ll get away with it. On top of all of this is an administration that honestly wants to kill people who disagree with it. If it didn&#8217;t have this ultimate desire, it wouldn&#8217;t be sending the military into cities that are not experiencing anything close to the violent unrest that has justified National Guard deployments in the past.</p>
  395. <p>It&#8217;s Dirty Harry politics &#8212; thuggery masquerading as law and order that wanders around provoking confrontations in hopes of eliciting <em>any</em> reaction it can, however implausibly, use to justify deadly force. Don&#8217;t let them get away with it.</p>
  396. ]]></content:encoded>
  398. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/the-federal-police-are-rioting-chicago-edition/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  399. <slash:comments>13</slash:comments>
  402. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519281</post-id> </item>
  403. <item>
  404. <title>Study: The World&#8217;s Satellite Data Is Massively Vulnerable To Snooping</title>
  405. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/study-the-worlds-satellite-data-is-massively-vulnerable-to-snooping/</link>
  406. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/study-the-worlds-satellite-data-is-massively-vulnerable-to-snooping/#comments</comments>
  408. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Karl Bode]]></dc:creator>
  409. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:22:00 +0000</pubDate>
  410. <category><![CDATA[1]]></category>
  411. <category><![CDATA[cellular]]></category>
  412. <category><![CDATA[encryption]]></category>
  413. <category><![CDATA[intelligence]]></category>
  414. <category><![CDATA[privacy]]></category>
  415. <category><![CDATA[satellite]]></category>
  416. <category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
  417. <category><![CDATA[snooping]]></category>
  418. <category><![CDATA[telecom]]></category>
  419. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519338&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=519338</guid>
  420.  
  421. <description><![CDATA[For many many years, experts have warned about massive&#160;longstanding flaws&#160;in Signaling System 7 (SS7, or Common Channel Signaling System 7), a series of protocols used by cellular networks hackers can exploit to&#160;track user location, dodge encryption, and even record private conversations. Governments and various bad actors&#160;routinely exploit the flaw to covertly&#160;spy on wireless users around [&#8230;]]]></description>
  422. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>For many many years, experts have warned about massive&nbsp;<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180530/12054639943/another-report-highlights-how-wireless-ss7-flaw-is-putting-everyones-privacy-risk.shtml">longstanding flaws</a>&nbsp;in Signaling System 7 (SS7, or Common Channel Signaling System 7), a series of protocols used by cellular networks hackers can exploit to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNetsec/comments/s0t5za/what_is_an_ss7_attack_and_how_does_it_work/">track user location, dodge encryption, and even record private conversations</a>. Governments and various bad actors&nbsp;routinely exploit the flaw to covertly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180530/12054639943/another-report-highlights-how-wireless-ss7-flaw-is-putting-everyones-privacy-risk.shtml">spy on wireless users around the planet</a>&nbsp;without them ever knowing. We&#8217;ve done a piss poor job of fixing the problem. </p>
  423. <p>Now <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/satellites-are-leaking-the-worlds-secrets-calls-texts-military-and-corporate-data/">Wired points to a new study</a> that indicates that the planet&#8217;s satellite communications may not be any more secure. A team of researchers at UC San Diego and the University of Maryland found that nearly half of all geostationary satellite signals aren&#8217;t properly encrypted. That includes a lot of highly sensitive corporate, government, and military communications. </p>
  424. <p>Worse, the traffic can be intercepted with roughly $800 worth of off the shelf equipment. In their case, the researchers used a $800 satellite receiver system on the roof of a university building in San Diego. They were able to snoop on a wide variety of data they assumed would have been encrypted, including the communications of many T-Mobile customers and important utility communications:</p>
  425. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  426. <p><em>&#8220;It just completely shocked us. There are some really critical pieces of our infrastructure relying on this satellite ecosystem, and our suspicion was that it would all be encrypted,” says Aaron Schulman, a UCSD professor who co-led the research. “And just time and time again, every time we found something new, it wasn&#8217;t.&#8221;</em></p>
  427. </blockquote>
  428. <p>The researchers have spent the last year contacting companies to let them know they should encrypt their traffic, with mixed results. As we&#8217;ve seen with cellular networks and the SS7 flaw, <strong>knowing </strong>there&#8217;s a very serious problem doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean it&#8217;s fixed; that flaw is still being exploited by intelligence agencies <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/20/wyden-again-warns-that-ss7-telecom-flaw-lets-foreign-countries-broadly-spy-on-american-communications/">despite more than a decade of warnings</a>.</p>
  429. <p>Not too surprisingly, the researchers assume this problem, like the SS7 issue, has long been exploited by intelligence agencies who are happy the problem hasn&#8217;t been addressed:</p>
  430. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  431. <p><em>&#8220;It&#8217;s crazy. The fact that this much data is going over satellites that anyone can pick up with an antenna is just incredible,” Green says. “This paper will fix a very small part of the problem, but I think a lot of it is not going to change. I would be shocked,” Green adds, “if this is something that intelligence agencies of any size are not already exploiting.”</em></p>
  432. </blockquote>
  433. <p>The discovery comes as the Trump administration takes a hatchet to the U.S. government&#8217;s ability to adequately protect the country. The administration has gutted government cybersecurity programs,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/23/trump-disbands-cybersecurity-board-investigating-massive-chinese-phone-system-hack/">including a board investigating the biggest Chinese hack of U.S. telecom networks in history</a>.</p>
  434. <p>The Trump administration has also <a href="https://iottechnews.com/news/fcc-investigation-threatens-launch-of-iot-security-program/">fumbled FCC efforts to shore up internet of things (IOT) security in Chinese smart home devices</a>, <a href="https://industrialcyber.co/regulation-standards-and-compliance/trump-administration-dismantles-csrb-leaves-future-of-cybersecurity-oversight-in-question/">clumsily dismantled the Cyber Safety Review Board</a> (CSRB) (responsible for investigating significant cybersecurity incidents), and randomly fired oodles of folks doing essential work at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).</p>
  435. <p>What could possibly go wrong?</p>
  436. ]]></content:encoded>
  438. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/15/study-the-worlds-satellite-data-is-massively-vulnerable-to-snooping/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  439. <slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
  442. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519338</post-id> </item>
  443. <item>
  444. <title>Research: Italy&#8217;s Piracy Shield Is Just As Big A Disaster As Everyone Predicted</title>
  445. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/14/research-italys-piracy-shield-is-just-as-big-a-disaster-as-everyone-predicted/</link>
  446. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/14/research-italys-piracy-shield-is-just-as-big-a-disaster-as-everyone-predicted/#comments</comments>
  448. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Glyn Moody]]></dc:creator>
  449. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2025 02:58:46 +0000</pubDate>
  450. <category><![CDATA[1]]></category>
  451. <category><![CDATA[copyright]]></category>
  452. <category><![CDATA[domain names]]></category>
  453. <category><![CDATA[internet infrastructure]]></category>
  454. <category><![CDATA[ip addresses]]></category>
  455. <category><![CDATA[italy]]></category>
  456. <category><![CDATA[mistakes]]></category>
  457. <category><![CDATA[piracy shield]]></category>
  458. <category><![CDATA[site blocking]]></category>
  459. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=519325</guid>
  460.  
  461. <description><![CDATA[Walled Culture first wrote about Piracy Shield, Italy’s automated system for tackling alleged copyright infringement in the streaming sector,&#160;two years ago. Since then, we have written about&#160;the serious problems&#160;that soon emerged. But instead of fixing those issues, the government body that runs the scheme, Italy’s AGCOM (the Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees), has&#160;extended it. The [&#8230;]]]></description>
  462. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Walled Culture first wrote about Piracy Shield, Italy’s automated system for tackling alleged copyright infringement in the streaming sector,&nbsp;<a href="https://walledculture.org/a-welcome-attempt-to-take-down-piracy-shield-italys-pre-emptive-and-unfair-net-block-system/">two years ago</a>. Since then, we have written about&nbsp;<a href="https://walledculture.org/?s=piracy+shield">the serious problems</a>&nbsp;that soon emerged. But instead of fixing those issues, the government body that runs the scheme, Italy’s AGCOM (the Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees), has&nbsp;<a href="https://walledculture.org/massive-expansion-of-italys-piracy-shield-underway-despite-growing-criticism-of-its-flaws/">extended it</a>. The problems may be evident, but they have not been systematically studied, until now: a peer-reviewed study from a group of (mostly Italian) researchers has just been published as a&nbsp;<a href="https://research.utwente.nl/en/publications/90th-minute-a-first-look-to-collateral-damages-and-efficacy-of-th">preprint</a>&nbsp;(found via&nbsp;<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-shield-study-reveals-massive-overblocking-collateral-damage-250909/">TorrentFreak</a>). It’s particularly welcome as perhaps the first rigorous analysis of Piracy Shield and its flaws.</p>
  463. <p>The paper begins with a good introduction to the general area of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol">IP</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dns">DNS</a>&nbsp;blocking, also discussed in Walled Culture the book (<a href="https://walledculture.org/the-book/">free digital versions available</a>), before detailing the history of Piracy Shield. As the paper notes, one of the major concerns about the system is the lack of transparency: AGCOM does not publish a list of IP addresses or domain names that are subject to its blocking. That not only makes it extremely difficult to correct mistakes, it also – conveniently – hides those mistakes, as well as the scope and impact of Piracy Shield. To get around this lack of transparency, the researchers had to resort to a dataset leaked on GitHub, which contained 10,918&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4">IPv4</a>&nbsp;addresses and 42,664&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name">domain names</a>&nbsp;(more precisely, the latter were “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_qualified_domain_name">fully qualified domain names</a>” – FQDN) that had been blocked. As good academics, the researchers naturally verified the dataset as best they could:</p>
  464. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  465. <p><em>While this dataset may not be exhaustive … it nonetheless provides a conservative lower-bound estimate of the platform’s blocking activity, which serves as the foundation for the subsequent analyses.</em></p>
  466. </blockquote>
  467. <p>Much of the paper is devoted to the detailed methodology. One important result is that many of the blocked IP addresses belonged to leased IP address space. As the researchers explain:</p>
  468. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  469. <p><em>This suggests that illegal streamers may attempt to exploit leased address space more intensively, even if just indirectly, by obtaining them by hosting companies that leases them, leading to more potential collateral damages for new lessees.</em></p>
  470. </blockquote>
  471. <p>This particular collateral damage arises from the fact that even after the leased IP address is released by those who are using it for allegedly unauthorized streaming, it is still blocked on the Piracy Shield system. That means whoever is allocated that leased IP address subsequently is blocked by AGCOM, but are probably unaware of that fact, because of the opaque nature of the blocking process. More generally, collateral damage arose from the wrongful blocking of a wide range of completely legitimate sites:</p>
  472. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  473. <p><em>During our classification process, we observed a wide range of website types across these collaterally affected domains, including personal branding pages, company profiles, and websites for hotels and restaurants. One notable case involves 19 Albanian websites hosted on a single IP address assigned to WIIT Cloud. These sites are still unreachable from Italy.</em></p>
  474. </blockquote>
  475. <p>Italian sites were also hit, including a car mechanic, several retail shops, an accountant, a telehealth missionary program – and a nunnery. More amusingly, the researchers write:</p>
  476. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  477. <p><em>we found a case of collateral damage involving a Google IP. Closer inspection revealed the IP was used by Telecom Italia to serve a blocking page for FQDNs filtered by Piracy Shield. Although later removed from the blocklist, this case suggests that collateral damage may have affected the blocking infrastructure itself.</em></p>
  478. </blockquote>
  479. <p>The academics summarize their work as follows:</p>
  480. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  481. <p><em>Our results on the collateral damages of IP and FQDN blocking highlight a worrisome scenario, with hundreds of legitimate websites unknowingly affected by blocking, unknown operators experiencing service disruption, and illegal streamers continuing to evade enforcement by exploiting the abundance of address space online, leaving behind unusable and polluted address ranges. Still, our findings represent a conservative lower-bound estimate.</em></p>
  482. </blockquote>
  483. <p>It distinguished three ways in which Piracy Shield is harmful. Economically, because it disrupts legitimate businesses; technically, because it blocks shared infrastructure such as&nbsp;<a href="https://walledculture.org/?s=cdn">content delivery networks</a>, while “polluting the IP address space” for future, unsuspecting users; and operationally, because it imposes a “growing, uncompensated burden on Italian ISPs forced to implement an expanding list of permanent blocks.” The paper concludes with some practical suggestions for improving a system that is clearly not fit for purpose, and poses&nbsp;<a href="https://walledculture.org/why-italys-piracy-shield-risks-moving-from-tiresome-digital-farce-to-serious-national-tragedy/">a threat to national security</a>, as discussed previously on Walled Culture. The researchers suggest that:</p>
  484. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  485. <p><em>widespread and difficult-to-predict collateral damage suggests that IP-level blocking is an indiscriminate tool with consequences that outweigh its benefits and should not be used.</em></p>
  486. </blockquote>
  487. <p>Instead, they point out that there are other legal pathways that can be pursued, since many of the allegedly infringing streams originate within the EU. If FQDN blocking is used, it should be regarded as “a last resort in tightly constrained time windows, i.e., only for the duration of the live event.” Crucially, more transparency is needed from AGCOM:</p>
  488. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  489. <p><em>To mitigate damages, resource owners must be immediately notified when their assets are blocked, and a clear, fast unblocking mechanism must be in place.</em></p>
  490. </blockquote>
  491. <p>This is an important piece of work, because it places criticisms of Piracy Shield on a firm footing, with rigorous analysis of the facts. However, AGCOM is unlikely to pay attention, since it is in the process of expanding Piracy Shield to apply to vast swathes of online streaming: amendments to the relevant law mean that automatic blocks can now be applied to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-shield-scope-widens-to-movie-tv-show-premieres-live-music-250805/">film premieres</a>, and even run-of-the-mill <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/italy-expands-piracy-shield-to-live-tv-begins-with-the-x-factor-250924/">TV shows</a>. Based on its past behavior, the copyright industry may well push to extend Piracy Shield to static Web material too, on the basis that the blocking infrastructure is already in place, so why not use it for every kind of material?</p>
  492. <p><em>Follow me @glynmoody on&nbsp;<a href="https://mastodon.social/@glynmoody" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mastodon</a>&nbsp;and on&nbsp;<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/glynmoody.bsky.social">Bluesky</a>. Originally posted to <a href="https://walledculture.org/academic-research-finds-economic-technical-and-operational-harms-from-italys-piracy-shield/">Walled Culture</a>.</em></p>
  493. ]]></content:encoded>
  495. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/14/research-italys-piracy-shield-is-just-as-big-a-disaster-as-everyone-predicted/comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  496. <slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
  499. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">519325</post-id> </item>
  500. <item>
  501. <title>The Criminal Enterprise Masquerading As A Political Party</title>
  502. <link>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/14/the-criminal-enterprise-masquerading-as-a-political-party/</link>
  503. <comments>https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/14/the-criminal-enterprise-masquerading-as-a-political-party/#comments</comments>
  505. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Brock]]></dc:creator>
  506. <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2025 22:36:21 +0000</pubDate>
  507. <category><![CDATA[1]]></category>
  508. <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category>
  509. <category><![CDATA[gop]]></category>
  510. <category><![CDATA[maga]]></category>
  511. <category><![CDATA[republicans]]></category>
  512. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.techdirt.com/?p=518839</guid>
  513.  
  514. <description><![CDATA[The Republican Party is no longer a legitimate political organization. It has transformed into a corrupt, immoral, and criminal enterprise that serves the interests of one man’s power while systematically destroying the constitutional principles this nation was founded upon. What we’re witnessing isn’t political competition but organized crime wrapped in patriotic rhetoric. When the President [&#8230;]]]></description>
  515. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Republican Party is no longer a legitimate political organization. It has transformed into a corrupt, immoral, and criminal enterprise that serves the interests of one man’s power while systematically destroying the constitutional principles this nation was founded upon. What we’re witnessing isn’t political competition but organized crime wrapped in patriotic rhetoric.</p>
  516. <p>When the President threatens military officers’ careers for not applauding his political agenda, when he declares American cities “enemy territory” to be conquered by federal forces, when he orders the creation of “quick reaction forces” to suppress civilian dissent, this isn’t governance. It’s the systematic dismantling of constitutional constraints on executive power. The Republican Party leadership has abandoned any pretense of defending democratic institutions in favor of tribal loyalty to authoritarian rule.</p>
  517. <p>Trump has already deployed military forces against American cities. He sent troops to “protect” Portland with authorization for “full force, if necessary.” He deployed 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to quell immigration protests. He deployed the National Guard and federal agencies to Washington, D.C., and federalized the police force ostensibly to combat crime. Now he’s announced the creation of military “quick reaction forces” to help quell civil disturbances across the country.</p>
  518. <p>They’ve gerrymandered districts to maintain power regardless of popular will. They’ve implemented voter suppression tactics designed to prevent Democratic participation. They’ve signaled they won’t recognize electoral outcomes that threaten their control. They’ve converted the Justice Department into a revenge operation against political opponents while pardoning violent criminals who attacked law enforcement officers.</p>
  519. <p>The Republican Party has become a seditious conspiracy against constitutional governance, orchestrated by corrupt oligarchs, seditious Christian nationalists, and fascist neo-reactionaries from Silicon Valley. These actors are exploiting legitimate anti-elite sentiment among Americans who have real grievances about economic inequality and institutional failure. They use well-funded propaganda and algorithmic manipulation to trick citizens into supporting the very oligarchs who created those problems in the first place. The goal isn’t reform but permanent power and the end of competitive elections altogether.</p>
  520. <p>The corporate collaboration represents an equally damning betrayal of American principles. CEOs who pay tribute for regulatory favors aren’t engaging in normal business practice. They’re committing federal crimes while destroying the competitive capitalism they claim to defend.</p>
  521. <p>Tim Cook’s golden plaque presentation followed by immediate tariff exemptions represents textbook bribery under federal law. YouTube’s $24.5 million “settlement” payment, with $22 million funding Trump’s personal real estate projects, is a protection racket disguised as legal resolution. These aren’t complicated ethical questions requiring nuanced analysis. They’re clear violations of anti-corruption statutes that should result in federal prosecution.</p>
  522. <p>The democratic opposition should be taking careful notes and planning comprehensive public hearings once legitimate governance is restored. Tim Cook should be dragged before Congress with cameras rolling to explain his tribute payments under oath. Every CEO who handed Trump money in exchange for regulatory favors should face criminal investigation. Every company that provided services enabling human rights violations should face trust-busting and systematic accountability.</p>
  523. <p>These executives aren’t legally immune from prosecution. They’re simply calculating that their wealth and status make them functionally untouchable. They’re committing crimes in broad daylight because they assume the justice system serves their interests rather than the rule of law. If we didn’t accept “I was just following orders” at Nuremberg, we certainly shouldn’t accept “I was just protecting shareholder value” from corporate executives who funded authoritarianism for personal profit.</p>
  524. <p>But perhaps most contemptible are the conservatives who continue defending this criminal enterprise as “the lesser evil” while constructing fantasy scenarios where Democratic governance somehow represents a greater threat than systematic constitutional destruction.</p>
  525. <p>These people are morally corrupted beyond redemption. Once you reach the point of arguing “well, they’re corrupt too” while watching the President deploy military forces against American cities, you’ve lost any claim to principled political judgment. You’ve revealed that your tribal loyalty matters more than constitutional governance, that your partisan identity matters more than national dignity, that your psychological comfort matters more than democratic survival.</p>
  526. <p>There is no moral equivalency between normal political disagreement and systematic authoritarianism. There is no principled argument for supporting a criminal organization because you dislike progressive tax policy. There is no intellectual framework that makes corporate bribery acceptable because you’re worried about diversity initiatives.</p>
  527. <p>These aren’t principled conservatives making difficult political calculations. These are unprincipled tribalists desperately searching for justifications to support evil while maintaining their self-image as moral actors. Their revealed preference is clear: they prefer authoritarian corruption to progressive governance, criminal conspiracy to constitutional democracy, systematic humiliation of American institutions to higher taxes on the wealthy.</p>
  528. <p>History will remember them as collaborators who chose comfort over courage, tribe over truth, personal advantage over national dignity. They had every opportunity to choose differently. They chose complicity instead.</p>
  529. <p>The Republican Party is a criminal organization. Its corporate collaborators are willing accomplices. And anyone still defending either has forfeited any claim to principled political engagement.</p>
  530. <p><em>Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. Originally published at his <a href="https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-criminal-enterprise-masquerading" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Notes From the Circus</a></em>.</p>
  531. ]]></content:encoded>
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  534. <slash:comments>21</slash:comments>
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