Enshittification News

Today's links There's no such thing as "age verification": The foreseeable and foreseen consequences of "something must be done"/"there, I've done something." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Apple Stores exist; Responsible spam; Australia loves Hollywood('s copyright);...

The heads of Tesla, Apple, and Nvidia regard Chinese companies as peers, not enemies, unlike most other Silicon Valley founders.

“ We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns. ”-Meta Internal Document on face recognition software for smart glasses, 2025 It’s unsurprising that a company would plan...

The attorney for Nikko D’Ambrosio, who tried and failed to sue women for posting about him in an “Are We Dating the Same Guy” Facebook group, has apparently been using AI to file non-existent citations, according to a judge.

If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including vast, detailed analyses of NVIDIA , Anthropic and

Musk vows to appeal; the judge vows to throw that case out, too

The post This Convicted Felon Gets $1 Million a Year to Sell Obsolete Internet Service. You Pay for It. appeared first on ProPublica .

The post We’re Investigating Alaska Internet Companies. We Need Your Help. appeared first on ProPublica .

The post With a Chance at Freedom, They Faced an Unexpected Obstacle: Their Own Lawyers appeared first on ProPublica .

Section 702 surveillance powers are still limping along, mostly unimpeded, despite on-again/off-again objections by federal politicians. More active recently have been several GOP politicians. These representatives are newly opposed to clean reauthorization of Section 702 powers. This isn’t because...

Seven Chinese executives and four of the world’s largest shipping container manufacturing companies were indicted for conspiring to restrict the output of — and fix the prices of — nearly all of the world’s standard unrefrigerated shipping containers for over four years, spanning as early as...

Today marks the deadline for online platforms to implement a process for notice-and-takedown of nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) under the TAKE IT DOWN Act (TIDA), which became law one year ago. Starting today, platforms must conspicuously offer a notice-and-removal process for NCII, remove...

A follow up to our open letter regarding Microsoft’s formal review of recent allegations about Israel’s usage of Azure cloud for the surveillance and targeting of Palestinians. The post Joint letter to Microsoft regarding Israeli military use of Azure cloud and AI services appeared first on Access...

It’s nasty , but it requires physical access to the computer: The exploit, named YellowKey, was published earlier this week by a researcher who goes by the alias Nightmare-Eclipse. It reliably bypasses default Windows 11 deployments of BitLocker, the full-volume encryption protection Microsoft...

Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository that exposed credentials to several highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and a large number of internal CISA systems. Security experts said the public archive...

For $7 an hour, virtual assistants use AI tools to write LinkedIn posts and comments on behalf of Western executives.

Through a new joint letter, we're calling on Microsoft to publish the findings of its review into the Israeli military’s use of the company services. The post Microsoft: it’s time to come clean about your ties to the Israeli military appeared first on Access Now .

Fake citations dashed a dude’s “Are We Dating the Same Guy” revenge lawsuit.

We recently updated our privacy policy for the first time since 2022. Most of the changes are clarifications, reorganizations, and improvements in transparency, particularly around how third-party tools that run parts of our site operate. But one change is substantive enough that we want to address...

Poor accountability, feeble control mechanisms, and insufficient legal frameworks have led to systematic human rights violations in the Americas, with no consistent remedy or reparation to victims. What's needed is to materialize essential guarantees and measures to combat repeated surveillance...

Musk plans to appeal after judge immediately affirmed the jury's decision.

“With your permission, your child’s lead teacher may wear a small teacher-worn camera that captures the teacher's approximate first-person perspective, and/or we may place a fixed video camera in the classroom,” a document given to parents and later shared with 404 Media reads.

The post More Than 100,000 American Kids Have Had a Parent Detained in Immigration Sweeps, Report Estimates appeared first on ProPublica .

The post ProPublica Selects 11 Journalists for Investigative Editor Training appeared first on ProPublica .

The post Oily Sludge Is Flooding Their Dream Home. Oklahoma Regulators Say They Can’t Help. appeared first on ProPublica .

The post Tiny Footprints, a Blue Blanket: What I Can’t Forget About the Babies Who Died of Vitamin K Deficiency appeared first on ProPublica .

As students boo commencement speakers touting AI, and communities reject data centers, billionaires are getting nervous and angry. It's going to get worse.

Opusonix is the workflow-first platform built for music producers and engineers who are tired of endless email chains and scattered files. By centralizing feedback, versions, and tasks in one structured workspace, it helps you cut email traffic by up to 90% so you can focus more on creating and...

Today's links Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire: Don't mistake "powerful" for "durable." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Copyrighted law; Viral videos v cops; Crooked banker v tiny bat; "Infested"; Can the means of...

A type of crystal lattice called a clathrate structure has been found for the first time in the fallout of a nuclear detonation.

Today's links No one wants a permanent gerontocracy: The one policy everyone agrees on. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Wolfengitmo; Facebook condemns Google privacy invasion; Michael Moore on bin Laden; TSA v babies; Tendril perversion; "Buy now"; Uber Ch(eats); Who...

Judge orders Apple to give Musk internal messages discussing secretive ChatGPT deal.

The former Crown Prince of Iran is meeting with Iranian diaspora tech and business leaders on Saturday to discuss the future of the country. Attendees include the CEO of Uber.

Lawyers accused of rushing historic settlement to seize $320 million in fees.

The post Why Have Immigration Agents Detained This American Citizen Three Times? appeared first on ProPublica .

The post In a Private Meeting, Colorado Marijuana Regulators Acknowledge the Extent of Illegal Hemp Sales appeared first on ProPublica .

The post At 17, He Was Tear-Gassed at Selma. At 78, He’s Watching Kids Tear-Gassed During Trump’s Deportation Campaign. appeared first on ProPublica .

Today's links Kickstarting "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI": How to be a better AI critic. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: RIP Douglas Adams; R2-trashcan; EFF v W3C; RIP shonky Disneyland; Stolen oligarch forks; Anal fisting site breached; "Reading With...

Xi meeting may force Trump to pivot on chip restrictions and Taiwan.

Last month, Anthropic made a remarkable announcement about its new model, Claude Mythos Preview: it was so good at finding security vulnerabilities in software that the company would not release it to the general public. Instead, it would only be available to a select group of companies to scan and...

The post Counterterrorism Czar’s Blueprint Targets Leftists, Ignores Far-Right Violence and Heaps Praise on Trump appeared first on ProPublica .

The post A Unique Oregon Law Allows It to Block Healthcare Deals. In Five Years, the State Hasn’t Done So Once. appeared first on ProPublica .

As statehouses ramp up for 2026, we’re seeing a familiar and concerning trend of lawmakers rushing to regulate the internet based on shockingly shaky science. From the California State Assembly to the Massachusetts and Minnesota legislatures , a wave of bills is crashing against the digital lives...

Today's links Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm: AGI works best in a K-hole. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Woz's remotes; Furbeowulf; Vinge on AR; Oligarch buys FSU; DNC x GOP megadonors; John Key v Panama Papers; Two elevators,...

The UK’s AI Security Institute evaluated GPT-5.5’s ability to find security vulnerabilities, and found that it is comparable to Claude Mythos. Note that the OpenAI model is generally available. Here is the Institute’s evaluation of Mythos. And here is an analysis of a smaller, cheaper model. It...

"Very painful": Altman relives his Muskian reaction to losing control over OpenAI.

Millions of people around the world use EFF's Privacy Badger . This browser extension blocks the hidden trackers that twist your web browsing into a commodity for Big Tech, advertisers, scammers, and data brokers. But did you know that we’re trying to solve an issue that’s even bigger than creepy...

Jeff Bezos learns being good at YouTube is not so easy.

Approval is no surprise after FCC chair pressured EchoStar to sell licenses.

The post Immigrants Detained in Chicago Military-Style Raid Seek Millions in Damages appeared first on ProPublica .

The post A Noncitizen Says She Was Told She Could Vote. Then Customs Detained Her at the Airport and Threatened to Deport Her. appeared first on ProPublica .

U.S.-China summit to likely cover AI rivalry, chip exports, supply chain security, and the EV trade as leaders navigate intensifying geopolitical tensions.

In the first episode of the Platformer podcast, Box CEO Aaron Levie makes the case that you'll keep your job — but soon, you might not recognize it

Artificial intelligence platforms may be just as susceptible to social engineering as human beings, but they are proving remarkably good at finding security vulnerabilities in human-made computer code. That reality is on full display this month with some of the more widely-used software makers --...

Last week, Instagram ended its opt-in, and therefore rarely used, end-to-end encryption feature . Years after publicly promising to provide the privacy protections of end-to-end encryption across its platforms by default, it instead gave up on that technical challenge. Now, we've all lost an option...

Today's links A fascist paradigm: The change that changed everything. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Openstreetmap x Isle of Wight; Found grocery lists; Mayor wants to pray away potholes; Designing a D120; "Too Like the Lightning." Upcoming appearances: Barcelona,...

This is the worst Linux vulnerability in years. TL;DR copy.fail is a Linux kernel local privilege escalation, not a browser or clipboard attack. Disclosed by Theori on 29 April 2026 with a working PoC. It abuses the kernel crypto API (AF_ALG sockets) plus splice() to write four bytes at a time...

This week, Apple released iOS 26.5 , an update that supports end-to-end encryption for Rich Communication Services (RCS), meaning conversations between Android and iPhone will soon be encrypted in the default chat apps. This has been a long time coming, and is a welcome delivery on a promise both...

Internet shutdowns are devastating for human rights . When people are disconnected from the internet and digital services, it impacts all aspects of their life—from accessing essential information, to seeking medical care, or communicating with loved ones, both in that country and externally. But...

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Teen trusted ChatGPT to help him “safely” experiment with drugs, logs show.

Osama Khalid was just twelve years old when he began contributing to Wikipedia Arabic. In the height of the blogging era, he became a prolific blogger, publishing writings on his home country of Saudi Arabia, meetups he attended, and his opinions and observations about open source technology and...

eBay board doubts GameStop's ability to buy and operate the much larger firm.

The post He Was Fired for Sexually Harassing Students. California Allowed Him to Keep Teaching Anyway. appeared first on ProPublica .

The post Help Us Report on Teacher Misconduct in California appeared first on ProPublica .

Today's links 2024 (apart from the obvious): Some unforced errors. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Denmark legalizing music trading; Babysuit; Patent Office invites "peer review"; DRM protest at the Bastille; Scientology's "super powers"; Banana Dalek; Florida v...

Last year, the Canadian government pushed Bill C-2 , which would erode Canadian digital rights in the name of “border security.” The bill was so bad it didn’t even make it to committee because of the backlash from the privacy community. Now, the spring’s worst sequel, Bill C-22 , aka The Lawful...

EFF, along with the national ACLU, the ACLU affiliates in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit urging the court to require a warrant for...

When governments shut down spaces for dialogue, dissent, and collective organizing, the damage extends far beyond a single event. The abrupt cancellation of RightsCon 2026—the world’s largest annual global digital rights conference—is not just a logistical disruption for thousands of researchers,...

The post A U.S. Senate Candidate Says Foreign Truckers Are Making America’s Roads Unsafe. His Own Truckers Have Caused Harm. appeared first on ProPublica .

The post Despite Court Order, NYPD Failed to Properly Monitor Stop-and-Frisks by Aggressive Unit appeared first on ProPublica .

Lots of monopoly news, as usual.

Today's links Trump's fruitless search for a goreable ox: You can keep billionaires happy, or you can fight the cost of living crisis, but not both. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Typewriter bust; Phrack's new issue; Panama Papers whistleblower speaks; The PRO Act;...

Today's links Lee Lai's "Cannon": A beautiful, subtle, long-lingering tale of duty, sex, and working for a shitty restaurant boss. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Ebay paying to run newspaper classifieds; Chuck Tingle v Sad Puppies; FBI v TOR; Daycare v Goldman Sachs;...

Following criticism, lawmakers have narrowed the GUARD Act , a bill aimed at restricting minors’ access to certain AI systems. The earlier version could have applied broadly to nearly every AI-powered chatbot or search tool. The amended bill focuses more narrowly on so-called “AI...

Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and Vanguard are tamping down on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s donations as the government’s de facto censors. The post Big Finance Might Be Dooming the SPLC — Even Before Its Day in Court appeared first on The Intercept .

In this week’s free newsletter, I explained how bad the circular AI economy is in the simplest-possible terms : Anthropic not have money to pay big cloud bills, because Anthropic company cost lots of money, more money than Anthropic make! So Anthropic only PAY cloud bills if OTHERS

Elon Musk had lots of reasons to make a deal with Anthropic — but he wouldn’t have done it if he were ahead. PLUS: The incredible testimony of Shivon Zilis, and a big new study on school phone bans

The post Puerto Rico Lawmakers Call for Investigation Into Alleged Drugs-for-Votes Scheme After ProPublica Report appeared first on ProPublica .

The post Trump Exempted Some of the Nation’s Biggest Polluters From Air Quality Rules. All It Took Was an Email. appeared first on ProPublica .

EFF friend Guy Kawasaki* has written a book: Everybody Has Something to Hide: Why and How to Use Signal to Preserve Your Privacy, Security, and Well-Being. This guide is now available in Spanish and English as an ebook in the EPUB format that you can download here. Take a look and consider sharing...

An ongoing data extortion attack targeting the widely-used education technology platform Canvas disrupted classes and coursework at school districts and universities across the United States today, after a cybercrime group defaced the service's login page with a ransom demand that threatened to...

Today's links Bubbles are REALLY evil: Bernie Ebbers got what was coming to him. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Mozilla v DHS wiretaps; Judge v FCC's internet wiretaps; Foxconn workers must promise not to kill themselves; "Shannon's Law"; How to password; Stimmies...

In response to CalPrivacy’s request for input on the state’s data broker audit requirements for processing deletion requests, EPIC submitted comments on Thursday advising the agency on best practices. CalPrivacy should establish requirements and processes that ensure auditors independently verify...

The post Submission on amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (“IT Rules, 2021”) appeared first on Access Now .

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division filed a proposed settlement today to resolve the United States’ claims against Agri Stats Inc. (Agri Stats) for unlawful information sharing of price, output, and costs among competing meat processors. Filed in the District of Minnesota, the proposed...

Today's links In praise of vultures: They screw you because they can. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Linus v MSFT; Argentina v MSFT; Danny Hillis on theme parks v games; Smartfilter v Distributed Boing Boing; Rental laptops filled with spyware; Torture didn't help...

Last week, we released apkeep version 1.0.0 , the latest edition of our command-line Android package downloading software. Rather than indicating major changes for the project, this milestone instead signifies arriving at a relatively stable and mature place after gradual iteration on the project...

The federal SECURE Data Act is not a serious consumer privacy bill, and its provisions—if enacted—would be a retreat from already insufficient state protections. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a draft of the bill late last month without bipartisan support. The bill...

If you liked this piece, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including vast, detailed analyses of NVIDIA , Anthropic and OpenAI&

We are looking for a high-touch, digitally savvy communications professional to support the organization’s external presence across a range of channels. The Communications Associate will be a primary point of contact for engagement with the public and press, working in close partnership with our...

We'd all like the internet to be a better place—for kids and adults alike. But in the name of online safety, governments around the world are racing to impose a dangerous new system of control. Are age gates the silver bullet to the internet's problems they're being promoted as? Or are we being...

Today's links The three armies fighting for the post-American world: Hippies, investors and hawks. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: NK dictator's son v Tokyo Disneyland; Mainstream press and Bushies v Colbert; Taliban v Pakistan's first McDonald's; Norwegian sovereign...

Data Subject Rights LinkedIn tracks the visits to profile pages. However, if you want to see who has visited your own profile, you have to pay. The Microsoft subsidiary uses these and other ‘insights’ as an incentive for people to sign up for its paid Premium membership. It is unclear whether this...

EFF joins 18 organizations in writing a letter to UK policymakers urging them to address the root causes of online harm—rather than undermining the open web through blunt restrictions. The coalition, which includes Mozilla, Tor Project, and Open Rights Group, warns that proposed measures following...

William Binney, the NSA surveillance architect-turned-whistleblower, called it the " turnkey totalitarian state ." Whoever sits in power gains access to a boundless surveillance empire that scorns privacy and crushes dissent. Politicians will come and go, but you can help us claw the tools of...

Restricted access to powerful defensive AI tools like Anthropic’s Mythos leaves some companies, central banks, and nations more vulnerable than others.

Today's links Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Beck, Scientologist; Citizen journalism; Podcast-killing treaty; US x Kiwi copyright; Apple did a crime; DeCSS v civilian...

The American phonemaker's Indian arm has named X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Google, and Meta in a lawsuit asking to take down existing and future “defamatory” content.

Digital Fairness in the EU The next few years will be decisive for EU digital policymaking. With major laws like the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the AI Act now in place, the EU is entering an enforcement era that will show whether these rules are rights-respecting or drift...

Today, the Department of Justice announced that it has filed a Statement of Interest in the case of Ferrier v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company , which is currently pending in the state Superior Court of Los Angeles County, California. This case was brought by 60 homeowners who lost their homes...

This week, the four biggest spenders on AI released their earnings within two minutes of each other. There's an unsettling reason for that. Plus, Michigan goes after private equity in youth sports...

Today's links The prehistory of the Democratic Nuremberg Caucus: Do bounties for ICE whistleblowers next! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Colbert v GWB; Wallaby milk; Jay Rosen's journalism precepts; Radical Media(TM); What is carried interest? TCP over pigeon; BNL v...

It wasn't Biden antitrust enforcers. It was Donald Trump's Iran War, JetBlue, the big four trunk airlines, and behind all of that, deregulation. And this story has happened hundreds of times.

One of the central promises of open social media services is interoperability—the idea that wherever you personally decide to post doesn’t require others to be there just to follow what you have to say. Think of it like a radio broadcast: you want to reach people and don't care where they are or...

Think railroads, not crypto. PLUS: The government can't decide what to do about Mythos, and week one of the OpenAI-Elon Musk trial

Today's links How not to ban surveillance pricing: Maryland's new consumer protection law is all loophole. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Google's 8,000 Linux servers; Battleshoe; Knitted potholes; Unpack the court; "Robot Artists and Black Swans"; Enshittifying tech...

This is the fifth and final installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings. You can read the rest of the series here . If the Arab Spring was defined by optimism about what the internet could do, the years since have been marked by a more sober...

Reporters, community advocates, EFF, and others have used public records laws to reveal and counteract abuse, misuse, and fraudulent narratives around how law enforcement agencies across the country use and share data collected by automated license plate readers (ALPRs). EFF is alarmed by recent...

Update, May 11, 2026: Utah has agreed to not enforce the VPN law until Sept. 3, 2026 after Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub.com, challenged the law in court. For the last couple of years, we’ve watched the same predictable cycle play out across the globe: a state (or country) passes a clunky...

“Bills being considered in Colorado, California, Massachusetts, Illinois and New Jersey may likewise regulate surveillance pricing. The US federal government has weighed in as well. The Federal Trade Commission, under the Biden administration, opened an investigation into these pricing practices...

Democrats are are starting to make proposals for what they will do if they take control of Congress. Bans on surveillance pricing, restructuring corporate America, and utility reforms are on deck.

National Administrative Procedures and DPA inactivity Today, noyb has filed a lawsuit against the Hamburg data protection authority (DPA). While the authority considers the practices of the facial recognition search engine PimEyes to be illegal, it refuses to take effective action because the...

AlgorithmWatch has put forward recommendations on how to implement a ban of deepfakes in the AI Act as part of the AI Omnibus procedure. To effectively protect victims of digital sexualized violence, AI companies, platforms, and perpetrators must consistently be held accountable.

A U.S. citizen who teaches Persian poetry classes online is suddenly unable to receive payments or access funds when his account is flagged and frozen by Paypal and its subsidiary Venmo. A Muslim city councilwoman in New York City has a Venmo payment blocked because she uses the name of a...

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 recently announced a study addressing the killings and attacks against Palestinian journalists and media workers, the destruction of media infrastructure in Gaza, and the production and...

Today's links Vicky Osterweil's "The Extended Universe": How Disney killed the movies and took over the world. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Zappa v censorship; Chemistry set with no chemicals; Short cons; Mitsubishi's Dieselgate; "Bellwether." Upcoming appearances:...

On newsletters in the age of AI automation. PLUS: Musk and OpenAI in court, and China blocks Meta's Manus acquisition

Hello premium subs! This is your ad-free free newsletter for the week. Questions? Queries? Email me at ez@betteroffline.com, and if you have a scoop, ezitron.76 is my Signal. Yesterday morning, GitHub Copilot users got confirmation of something I’d reported a week ago — that all

If you want to overthrow Big Tech, you’ll need Section 230. The paradigm shift being built with the Open Social Web can put communities back in control of social media infrastructure, and finally end our dependency on enshitified corporate giants. But while these incumbents can overcome...

If you liked this piece, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including vast, detailed analyses of NVIDIA , Anthropic and OpenAI&

Executive Summary: The Information reports that OpenAI projects that its $20-a-month ChatGPT Plus subscriptions will decrease from 44 Million subscribers in 2025 to a projected 9 million subscribers in 2026. OpenAI projects to make up the difference by increasing its ad-supported ChatGPT Go ($5 or...

“A spokesperson for the Electronic Privacy Information Center said the Chatrie v. United States case is important because it examines how much latitude the government has to use location services to identity a suspect. Alan Butler, EPIC’s executive director and president, said in a statement that...

To get out of our malaise, we must do things that will make the stock market go down. But to preserve our institutions, we can't let the stock market go down. Plus, Amazon gets caught fixing prices...

Today's links The enshittification multiverse: It's a useful analogy. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Every complex ecosystem has parasites; Prison for "attempted infringement"; When We Were Robots in Egypt; Golfing in The Blitz; Copyright vs privacy (NZ edn); GOP...

SmugMug is a family-owned photo hosting and e-commerce platform that helps professional photographers run their businesses online. Founded in 2002, the company provides tools for photographers to show their work, deliver client galleries, sell prints, and manage payments. In 2018, SmugMug purchased...

Speaker Johnson has introduced a new fig leaf over the American surveillance state, the Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act . Introduced with only days to go before Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) expires and the U.S. government loses one of its most invasive...

Today's links Ada Palmer's "Inventing the Renaissance": A tour-de-force, a magnum opus, a work of utter brilliance. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Gloating about the dot-bomb; RIAA sues PC-less family; John Deere v infosec; Foxconn v Wisconsin; Copyfraud x torturers'...

Today's links A free, open visual identity for enshittification: No mere poop emoji! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: RIAA v little girl; Portal turret Easter egg; Atari v indie games; Chabon's Phantom Tollbooth intro; The 0.1%; Well-labeled inns; "More Everything...

A message to the Apple faithful

Invasive monitoring and a fresh round of layoffs have workers I spoke to on edge. Is this the future of knowledge work?

Soundtrack — Brass Against — Karma Police It was January 21, 2025. Per The Information , Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, had just flown to Washington DC from Florida, and had to borrow a coat “...so he wouldn’t freeze during an interview he did on the White

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking permission from the California city of San Clemente to install an Anduril Industries surveillance tower on a cliff that would allow for constant monitoring of entire coastal neighborhoods. The proposed tower is Anduril's Sentry, part of the Autonomous...

California lawmakers are fast-tracking A.B. 1709—a sweeping bill that would ban anyone under 16 from using social media and force every user, regardless of age, to submit sensitive personal information before accessing social platforms. That means that under A.B. 1709, social media companies will...

As Paramount CEO David Ellison hosts a D.C. dinner honoring Trump, major actors and industry stakeholders publicly oppose the Paramount-Warner deal. This conflict has been a long time coming.

Today's links The (other) problem with automatic conversion of free software to proprietary software: You can't add ANY license to a public domain work. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Pimp My Snack; Abandoned Soviet missile silo full of cash; MPAA v 'democratizing...

EFF filed an amicus brief for the second time in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, arguing that allowing cases against the Apple, Google, and Facebook app stores to proceed could lead to greater censorship of users’ online speech. Our brief argues that the app stores should not lose...

Lizzie O’Shea is an Australian lawyer, author, and the founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch , which advocates for freedom, fairness, and fundamental rights in the digital age. She sits on the board of Blueprint for Free Speech , and in 2019 was named a Human Rights Hero by Access Now....

A new AI Now Institute report published April 21, 2026, warns that gig-work platforms marketed as "Uber for nursing" are aggressively lobbying states to rewrite healthcare staffing rules, a push that could leave nurses with less pay, fewer protections, and less control over their shifts, according...

Today, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, after consulting with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), published approvals for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Defense Production Act (DPA) Consortium’s updated Voluntary Agreement and related Plans of Action .

Agencies Ignored EFF’s Public-Records Requests Regarding Unlawful Efforts to Locate People Who Criticized the Government or Attended Protests. SAN FRANCISCO – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today...

Today's links It's not a crime if we do it (to nurses) with an app: It's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for a sex machine. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: PKD named names; Weird Al v Lada Gaga; South Korean Olympic torture camps; McDonald's v ice-cream hackers....

Executive Summary: Internal documents reveal Microsoft’s planned rollout for token-based billing for all GitHub Copilot customers starting in June. For an initial promotional period from June through August 2026, Copilot Business Customers will pay $19 per-user-per-month and receive $30 of pooled...

PLUS: Everyone has feelings about Tim Cook

When we use the internet, we're entrusting tech companies with some of our most private information. These companies have promised they'll keep our data safe. But what happens when the government comes knocking at their doors? In our latest EFFector newsletter , we hear from an EFF client whose...

Today's links Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff's "Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed": A rocket exploding in a human face, forever. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Is sugar poison? More watch-part motorcycles; "Something New"; "Seeds"; Bulldozer fight; Facebook tonsils;...

Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft are ignoring data controls mandated under California law, researchers say.

If you liked this piece, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including vast, detailed analyses of NVIDIA , Anthropic and OpenAI&

Executive Summary: In the later afternoon of April 21 2026, Anthropic removed access to Claude Code for its $20-a-month "Pro" Plans on various pricing pages. Current Pro users appeared to still have access via the Claude web app. Claude Code support documents, for a brief period of

Billion-dollar tech platforms are aggressively pushing for deregulation of the “Uber for nursing” industry in an effort to expand gig work in the healthcare sector, according to a report published on Tuesday. The post ‘Uber for nurses’: gig-work apps lobby to deregulate healthcare, report finds...

The post Amicus Brief to the European Court of Human Rights on spyware and surveillance in Azerbaijan appeared first on Access Now .

People building the future of the social web — interoperable and decentralized — need to protect themselves against copyright liability. Like anyone who creates and operates platforms for user-uploaded content, the hosts of the decentralized social web can take preventive measures to reduce their...

Today's links Comrade Trump: Burning down the American empire to save it. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: MPAA's threat-based 'education'; Cuehack; Heinlein on GWB; AT&T v the internet; British tax-havens v HMG; What is neoliberalism?; Newspaper landlords; Watch-part...

With losses in cases involving Ticketmaster, Nexstar-TEGNA, and Amazon this week, plus a data center ban in Maine and taxes on $5M+ apartments in NYC, the superrich are starting to face obstacles.

Executive Summary: Internal documents reveal that Microsoft plans to temporarily suspend individual account signups to its GitHub Copilot coding product, as it transitions from requests (single interactions with Copilot) towards token-based billing. The documents reveal that the weekly cost of...

Section 230 helps make it possible for online communities to host user speech: from restaurant reviews, to fan fiction, to collaborative encyclopedias. But recent debates about the law often overlook how it works in practice. To mark its 30th anniversary, EFF is interviewing leaders of online...