Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Anchorage Police Department: AI-Generated Police Reports Don’t Save Time

 

at 4/3/25 2:47pm

The Anchorage Police Department (APD) has concluded its three-month trial of Axon’s Draft One, an AI system that uses audio from body-worn cameras to write narrative police reports for officers—and has decided not to retain the technology. Axon touts this technology as “force multiplying,” claiming it cuts in half the amount of time officers usually spend writing reports—but APD disagrees. The APD deputy chief told Alaska Public Media, “We were hoping that it would be providing significant time savings for our officers, but we did not find that to be the case.” The deputy chief flagged that the time it took officers to review reports cut into the time savings from generating the report.  The software translates the audio into narrative, and officers are expected to read through the report carefully to edit it, add details, and verify it for authenticity. Moreover, because the technology relies on audio from body-worn cameras, it often misses visual components of the story that the officer then has to add themselves. “So if they saw something but didn’t say it, of course, the body cam isn’t going to know that,” the deputy chief continued. The Anchorage Police Department is not alone in claiming that Draft One is not a time saving device for officers. A new study into police using AI to write police reports, which specifically tested Axon’s Draft One, found that AI-assisted report-writing offered no real time-savings advantage. This news comes on the heels of policymakers and prosecutors casting doubt on the utility or accuracy of AI-created police reports. In Utah, a pending state bill seeks to make it mandatory for departments to disclose when reports have been written by AI. In King County, Washington, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has directed officers not to use any AI tools to write narrative reports. In an era where companies that sell technology to police departments profit handsomely and have marketing teams to match, it can seem like there is an endless stream of press releases and local news stories about police acquiring some new and supposedly revolutionary piece of tech. But what we don’t usually get to see is how many times departments decide that technology is costly, flawed, or lacks utility. As the future of AI-generated police reports rightly remains hotly contested, it’s important to pierce the veil of corporate propaganda and see when and if police departments actually find these costly bits of tech useless or impractical. Originally posted to the EFF Deeplinks blog.

[Category: axon, ai, anchorage, anchorage pd, draft one, paperwork, police]

— Massive Expansion Of Italy’s Piracy Shield Underway Despite Growing Criticism Of Its Flaws

 

at 4/3/25 1:23pm

Walled Culture has been following closely Italy’s poorly designed Piracy Shield system. Back in December we reported how copyright companies used their access to the Piracy Shield system to order Italian Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to all of Google Drive for the entire country, and how malicious actors could similarly use that unchecked power to shut down critical national infrastructure. Since then, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), an international, not-for-profit association representing computer, communications, and Internet industry firms, has added its voice to the chorus of disapproval. In a letter to the European Commission, it warned about the dangers of the Piracy Shield system to the EU economy: The 30-minute window [to block a site] leaves extremely limited time for careful verification by ISPs that the submitted destination is indeed being used for piracy purposes. Additionally, in the case of shared IP addresses, a block can very easily (and often will) restrict access to lawful websites – harming legitimate businesses and thus creating barriers to the EU single market. This lack of oversight poses risks not only to users’ freedom to access information, but also to the wider economy. Because blocking vital digital tools can disrupt countless individuals and businesses who rely on them for everyday operations. As other industry associations have also underlined, such blocking regimes present a significant and growing trade barrier within the EU. It also raised an important new issue: the fact that Italy brought in this extreme legislation without notifying the European Commission under the so-called “TRIS” procedure, which allows others to comment on possible problems: The (EU) 2015/1535 procedure aims to prevent creating barriers in the internal market before they materialize. Member States notify their legislative projects regarding products and Information Society services to the Commission which analyses these projects in the light of EU legislation. Member States participate on the equal foot with the Commission in this procedure and they can also issue their opinions on the notified drafts. As well as Italy’s failure to notify the Commission about its new legislation in advance, the CCIA believes that: this anti-piracy mechanism is in breach of several other EU laws. That includes the Open Internet Regulation which prohibits ISPs to block or slow internet traffic unless required by a legal order. The block subsequent to the Piracy Shield also contradicts the Digital Services Act (DSA) in several aspects, notably Article 9 requiring certain elements to be included in the orders to act against illegal content. More broadly, the Piracy Shield is not aligned with the Charter of Fundamental Rights nor the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU – as it hinders freedom of expression, freedom to provide internet services, the principle of proportionality, and the right to an effective remedy and a fair trial. Far from taking these criticisms to heart, or acknowledging that Piracy Shield has failed to convert people to paying subscribers, the Italian government has decided to double down, and to make Piracy Shield even worse. Massimiliano Capitanio, Commissioner at AGCOM, the Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees, explained on LinkedIn how Piracy Shield was being extended in far-reaching ways (translation by Google Translate, original in Italian). In future, it will add: 30-minute blackout orders not only for pirate sports events, but also for other live content; the extension of blackout orders to VPNs and public DNS providers; the obligation for search engines to de-index pirate sites; the procedures for unblocking domain names and IP addresses obscured by Piracy Shield that are no longer used to spread pirate content; the new procedure to combat piracy on the #linear and “on demand” television, for example to protect the #film and #serietv. That is, Piracy Shield will apply to live content far beyond sports events, its original justification, and to streaming services. Even DNS and VPN providers will be required to block sites, a serious technical interference in the way the Internet operates, and a threat to people’s privacy. Search engines, too, will be forced to de-index material. The only minor concession to ISPs is to unblock domain names and IP addresses that are no longer allegedly being used to disseminate unauthorized material. There are, of course, no concessions to ordinary Internet users affected by Piracy Shield blunders. An AGCOM board member, Elisa Giomi, who was mentioned previously on Walled Culture as a lone voice within AGCOM exposing its failures, also took to LinkedIn to express her concerns with these extensions of Piracy Shield (original in Italian): The changes made unfortunately do not resolve #critical issues such as the fact that private #reporters, i.e. the holders of the rights to #football matches and other live #audiovisual content, have a disproportionate role in determining the blocking of #domains and #IP addresses that transmit in violation of #copyright. Moreover: The providers of #network and #computer security services such as #VPNs, #DNSs and #ISPs, who are called upon to bear high #costs for the implementation of the monitoring and blocking system, cannot count on compensation or financing mechanisms, suffering a significant imbalance, since despite not having any active role in #copyright violations, they invest economic resources to combat illegal activities to the exclusive advantage of the rights holders. The fact that the Italian government is ignoring the problems with Piracy Shield and extending its application as if everything were fine, is bad enough. But the move might have even worse knock-on consequences. An EU parliamentary question about the broadcast rights to audiovisual works and sporting competitions asked: Can the Commission provide precise information on the effectiveness of measures to block pirate sites by means of identification and neutralisation technologies? To which the European Commission replied: In order to address the issues linked to the unauthorised retransmissions of live events, the Commission adopted, in May 2023 the recommendation on combating online piracy of sport and other live events. By 17 November 2025, the Commission will assess the effects of the recommendation taking into account the results from the monitoring exercise. It’s likely that copyright companies will be lauding Piracy Shield as an example of how things should be done across the whole of the EU, conveniently ignoring all the problems that have arisen. Significantly, a new “Study on the Effectiveness and the Legal and Technical Means of Implementing Website-Blocking Orders” from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) does precisely that in its Conclusion: A well-functioning site-blocking system that involves cooperation between relevant stakeholders (such as Codes of Conduct and voluntary agreements among rights holders and ISPs) and/or automated processes, such as Italy’s Piracy Shield platform, further increases the efficiency and effectiveness of a site-blocking regime. As the facts show abundantly, Piracy Shield is the antithesis of a “well-functioning site-blocking system”. But when have copyright maximalists and their tame politicians ever let facts get in the way of their plans? Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon and on Bluesky. Originally published to Walled Culture.

[Category: 1, agcom, copyright, dns, eu, eu commission, italy, piracy shield, site blocking, vpns, wipo]

— Iowa Book Ban Law Again Mostly Dead Following Return Trip To Federal Court

 

at 4/3/25 12:10pm

Will the third time be the charm? Lets hope so. This charmless act of hatred masquerading as for the children legislating has been struck down again by the same federal court that tried to kill it off the first time. In late December 2023, an Iowa federal court told the state there was little chance of saving its anti-LGBTQ/book ban, given how completely unconstitutional it was. It forbade school libraries from carrying books containing descriptions or depictions of sex acts. It also prevented teachers or librarians from mentioning anything related to sexual orientation or gender identity to any student from kindergarten through sixth grade. The law wasnt very specific as to what constituted a sex act, but to be on the safe side, it created a specific carve-out for the Bible, which contains descriptions of several sex acts. More heinously, the law also wished HIV/AIDS into the ignorance cornfield. The health curriculum shall include the characteristics of communicable diseases including acquired immune deficiency syndrome. […] The health curriculum shall include age-appropriate and research-based information regarding the characteristics of sexually transmitted diseases, including HPV and the availability of a vaccine to prevent HPV, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The court handling the challenge to the law said this about it on its way to saying the law, as written, was a good as dead, constitutionally-speaking: The law is incredibly broad and has resulted in the removal of hundreds of books from school libraries, including, among others, nonfiction history books, classic works of fiction, Pulitzer Prize winning contemporary novels, books that regularly appear on Advanced Placement exams, and even books designed to help students avoid being victimized by sexual assault. The sweeping restrictions in Senate File 496 are unlikely to satisfy the First Amendment under any standard of scrutiny and thus may not be enforced while the case is pending. Indeed, the Court has been unable to locate a single case upholding the constitutionality of a school library restriction even remotely similar to Senate File 496. Whew. Youd think no one would appeal this sort of shutdown, but the Iowa government isnt spending its own money and wouldnt even consider briefly borrowing its constitutents shame. It appealed this decision and was granted a brief revival by the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court eight months later. It didnt exactly green light the law, but suggested the lower court needed to spend a bit more time considering the underlying First Amendment issues. It also suggested that even if it agreed with the lower courts reasoning, it would only apply the injunction to the named plaintiffs and allow the rest of state to be subjected to their legislators open bigotry. The case has been examined again by the lower court. And, whatever hopes the state may have had about salvaging this terrible law have been dashed again. The lower court is no more impressed than it was the first time around. Iowa cannot, for now, continue to enforce part of its book ban law, a federal judge said Tuesday, giving major publishers that sued the state the second temporary reprieve they requested. The new decision from U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher again temporarily blocked the part of the law that prohibits school libraries and classrooms from carrying books that depict sex acts. [] The appellate court told the lower court that it failed to apply the correct analysis in determining whether to temporarily block the law. In his decision Tuesday, Locher stated that the unconstitutional applications of the book restrictions “far exceed” the constitutional applications “under both legal standards the Court believes are applicable.” In its latest decision [PDF] (which the Associated Press cant seem to link to or embed in its coverage), the court arrives at the same conclusion it did last time. This isnt a good lawful. Its definitely not a lawful law. And it takes time to criticize the states hypocritical carve out for its preferred religious text. In essence, Senate File 496 does what Pico and Pratt prohibit: it imposes a puritanical “pall of orthodoxy” over school libraries by concluding that there is no redeeming value to any book that contains a “description” of a “sex act” even if the book is a work of history, self-help guide, award-winning novel, or other piece of serious literature. See Pico, 457 U.S. at 871 (“Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas.”) (plurality opinion); see also Tinker, 393 U.S. at 511 (“In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate.”). The fact that the Bible and other religious texts are exempted from Senate File 496 reinforces the problem because it shows that even the Iowa Legislature does not believe all books involving sex acts are devoid of pedagogical value. There is no substantial or reasonable governmental interest that would justify allowing some books with sexual content to be in school libraries but not others. The injunction is back in force. This will obviously be appealed because the Eighth Circuit reversed it the first time it handled the case. (Of course, it would be appealed anyway because theres no way the states top bigots are going to let this one go until there are no further legal options.) Well see what the Appeals Court has to say at some point in the future but, at least for the moment, the Constitution wins and hateful ignorance is back to racking up losses.

[Category: penguin random house, 1st amendment, bigots, book ban, censorship, iowa, kim reynolds, lgbtq, libraries, stephen locher]

— Daily Deal: uTalk Language Learning

 

at 4/3/25 12:04pm

uTalk can help you start speaking like a native within minutes. Using the uTalk learning App you can listen to real native speakers to help you navigate through your next vacation or business trip. With more than 2,500 words and phrases to learn in each of our 140+ languages, the app gives you a running start on your journey to language fluency. Simple and easy to use, you have fun as you develop your language skills naturally. Access to all 140+ languages is on sale for $200, or you can choose 2 languages for $30 or 6 languages for $50. 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.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

— Trump Declares A Trade War On Uninhabited Islands, US Military, And Economic Logic

 

at 4/3/25 10:29am

Theres a fundamental problem with Donald Trumps new trade policy: it fails a test that actual 5th graders can pass. I know this because I tried explaining his Liberation Day trade plan to one last night. Heres how that conversation went: “Imagine you want to buy a toy at a store which costs $50. You pay for the toy and walk away with it. The President looks at that transaction and says ‘wait, you paid the store $50 and the store paid you nothing, therefore the store is stealing from you. To “fix” this, I’m going to tax the store $25. From now on that same toy costs $75.” The 5th grader looked at me like I was crazy. Whaaaaaaat? None of that makes sense. If I pay for something, its not stealing. And taxing the store seems stupid, and then everything is more expensive. Why would anyone do that? That can’t be how it works. This is the core problem with Trumps Liberation Day trade policy: it fundamentally misunderstands what trade deficits are. And if you think thats bad, just wait until we get to the part where this policy declares economic war on penguins and our own military base. The policy, unveiled yesterday afternoon, is called a reciprocal tariff plan, which is a bit like calling a hammer a reciprocal pillow. The premise is that since other countries have high tariffs on us (they dont), we should have high tariffs on them (we shouldnt). But thats not even the weird part. At the heart of this policy is a chart. Not just any chart, but what might be the most creative work of economic fiction since, well, Donald Trump launched his memecoin. Trump proudly displayed these numbers at a White House event, explaining that they showed the tariffs other countries impose on the US. He emphasized repeatedly that the US was being more than fair because our reciprocal tariffs would be less than what other countries were charging us. There was just one small problem: none of the numbers were real tariff rates. Not even close. Vietnam, according to the chart, imposes a 90% tariff on US goods. This would be shocking news to Vietnam, which does no such thing. At first, observers assumed the administration was simply inventing numbers, which would have been bad enough. But the reality turned out to be far more stupid. James Surowiecki stumbled into what was actually happening: Lets pause for a moment to appreciate what Surowiecki discovered. The administration didnt just make up random numbers — that would have been too simple. Instead, they invented a formula that manages to be both more complicated and more wrong: they took our trade deficit with each country and divided it by that countrys exports to us. So for Indonesia, the math went like this: US trade deficit with Indonesia: $17.9 billion Indonesias exports to the US: $28 billion $17.9B ÷ $28B = 64% Therefore (according to this logic), Indonesia must be charging us the equivalent of a 64% tariff This is roughly equivalent to calculating your coffee shops markup by dividing how much coffee you buy from them by how much coffee they buy from you. Which would make sense if you were in the coffee business, but youre not. When confronted about this methodology, the administration didnt backtrack. They just admitted it: “The numbers [for tariffs by country] have been calculated by the Council of Economic Advisers … based on the concept that the trade deficit that we have with any given country is the sum of all trade practices, the sum of all cheating,” a White House official said, calling it “the most fair thing in the world.” Whoever on the Council of Economic Advisers used this formula should turn in their econ degree, because this is not how anything works. Even if they then go on to publish another version of the formula that looks all sophisticated and shit: This is what happens when you ask ChatGPT to make my wrong econ math look more scientific. The document even admits that they couldnt figure out the actual tariff rates, so they proxied them with this formula instead. Thats a bit like saying you couldnt find your house keys, so you proxied them with a banana. The fundamental problem here isnt just that the tariff numbers are wrong — though they absolutely are. Its that the entire premise rests on treating trade deficits as if they were tariffs. Theyre not the same thing. At all. Lets back up for a moment and talk about trade deficits, because Trump has been getting this wrong for longer than some of his supporters have been alive. His logic appears to be: Deficit sounds bad Therefore, trade deficits must be bad Therefore, countries with whom we have trade deficits must be cheating us Therefore, we should punish them with tariffs to “level the playing field” Remember that 5th grader from earlier? They already understood what Trump doesnt: when you buy a toy for $50 at a store, you have a trade deficit with that store. You gave them $50, they gave you $0. But you also got a toy. Thats not the store cheating you — thats just how buying things works. A trade deficit between countries works the same way. When we have a trade deficit with a country, it just means we bought more stuff from them than they bought from us. We got the stuff. They got the money. Thats it. Trumps solution to trade deficits (which arent a problem) is to impose tariffs (which dont help). In fact, they can often make things worse. According to actual economists who study this stuff, higher tariffs can actually lead to higher trade deficits, not lower ones. Joseph Gagnon, one of the worlds foremost experts on trade deficits, explains exactly why this is such a bad idea: Although tariffs do not reduce trade deficits, they do reduce imports and exports, as well as total income. Thats because they force a country to shift resources from more profitable exports to less profitable imports, as well as to services. But the long-run economic effects are also negative. By shielding producers from foreign competition, a tariff ultimately leads to less business innovation, slower productivity growth, and lower household living standards. You might notice something about that paragraph. It starts by describing how tariffs hurt the economy in the short term. Then theres a but — which usually signals some kind of silver lining. Instead, it just pivots to explaining how tariffs hurt the economy even more in the long term. Cool. So we have a policy that: Is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of trade deficits Uses made-up numbers derived from a nonsense formula Would actually make the problem its trying to solve even worse Will definitely make Americans poorer But wait, it gets better. All of this glosses over the fact that “reciprocal tariffs” are not reciprocal at all. Trump’s team is making up fake tariff numbers for foreign countries based not on anything having to do with tariffs, but on trade deficits, which is just an accounting of inflows vs. outflows between two countries. It’s only reciprocal because the Trump team faked the numbers. On top of that, Trump can only impose tariffs (normally a power of Congress) based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act. Both laws require there to be an actual emergency. The only emergency here is that nobody in the administration understands what trade deficits are. But at least we may know where they got their brilliant formula from. There has been some suggestion that the administration got the idea from AI — specifically from asking a large language model how to calculate fair tariffs based on trade deficits. And yes, when asked What would be an easy way to calculate the tariffs that should be imposed on other countries so that the US is on even-playing fields when it comes to trade deficit? Set minimum at 10%, several AI models did suggest something similar to the administrations approach. guess where they got their weird trade deficit math from?i went to the pit for yall and brought back the screenshots with alt text — Amy Hoy (@amyhoy.bsky.social) 2025-04-03T00:42:22.169Z But heres the thing: every single AI model also included very clear warnings about why using this formula would be catastrophically stupid. I tested this myself with multiple LLMs (Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama, and Copilot), and they all basically said Well, if you insist on doing something this economically illiterate, heres how you could do it, BUT PLEASE DONT. My favorite was DeepSeek, in which I had its reasoning turned on, and it seemed particularly perplexed as to why I would try to balance trade deficits with tariffs, but felt resigned to do so: That’s a little small to read, but it says: Wait, but is this the right approach? I mean, tariffs can have various effects. If you impose a tariff, it might lead to retaliation from other countries, which could hurt US exports. Also, higher tariffs could increase prices for consumers in the US, which isn’t great for the economy. But the user is specifically asking about balancing the trade deficit, so maybe those considerations are secondary here. Yeah, that’s literally DeepSeek grappling with the fact that the user here (the US government) is asking for a fundamentally stupid thing without understanding the consequences. The administration appears to have taken only the formula and ignored all the warnings. Which would be merely sad if they were just playing with theoretical numbers. But theyre not. Theyre actually implementing this policy, using emergency powers that are supposed to be reserved for actual emergencies — not we dont understand how trade works emergencies. Which then brings us around, finally, to the penguins. Because MAGA’s best economists are implementing it so mechanically, applying their formula to every country in what appears to be the CIA World Factbook, we end up with some truly spectacular results. Lets take a closer look at the very last page of the administrations tariff list: Now, you might notice a bunch of these entries show a flat 10% tariff rate. Thats what happens when a country has no trade with the US at all — the formula defaults to the minimum. A mildly competent team might have wondered why these places have zero trade with us and done a quick check before declaring economic war on them. But this team isnt mildly competent. This team is extremely, profoundly, impressively incompetent. So lets look at who exactly were launching a trade war against, starting with the Heard and McDonald Islands. Total population: zero human beings. The only residents are some absolutely stunning penguins. You can actually adopt one if you want — though I suppose that may now cost 10% more, thanks to Trumps tariff. But thats not even the best part. Just a few lines up, youll find the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Islands. Nearly all of the humans currently on these islands are US military personnel at the Diego Garcia base. And theyre only there because, as detailed in a recent Behind the Bastards podcast, the British government forcibly expelled all the native inhabitants to lease the territory to the US military. Let that sink in for a moment: Donald Trump just imposed tariffs on our own military base. On territory we lease. Where the only residents are US military personnel. So to sum up where we are: The administration invented an economic emergency To justify a policy based on made-up numbers Generated by an AI formula that came with explicit warnings not to use it Which theyre now using to launch trade wars against: Penguins Our own military And presumably Santas Workshop (someone check for a North Pole entry) And while the penguins and military base make for amusing examples of this policys incompetence, the real damage will come from applying this same backwards logic to basically all of our actual trading partners — countries whose goods and services make American lives better and whose economic relationships weve spent decades building. And who, historically, welcomed back American goods and services as well. All of that is now at risk because someone couldnt be bothered to learn what a trade deficit actually is. And the American electorate deciding that’s who we wanted to govern the country. When your trade policy is so fundamentally misguided that youre declaring economic war on flightless birds and your own armed forces, perhaps its time to admit that the 5th grader from the beginning of this story wasnt just smarter than the administration — they were dramatically overqualified for Trumps Council of Economic Advisers.

[Category: 1, biot, chagos islands, diego garcia, donald trump, economics, heard and mcdonald island, liberation day, motherfucking penguins, penguins, reciprocal tariffs, tariffs, trade deficit, trade war]

— Trump’s FCC ‘Investigates’ Disney For Not Being Racist And Sexist Enough

 

at 4/3/25 6:27am

Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr isnt really interested in doing his actual job as head of the FCC. Hes not interested in protecting consumers or markets from notoriously shitty telecom monopolies. Hes not interested in protecting consumers or markets from harmful consolidation. Hes not interested in addressing the fact the telecom industry just saw the worst hack in history. Whats he interested in? Harassing companies that dont adequately bend the knee to Trump. And harassing companies that arent suitably racist or sexist enough for the Trump administrations liking. Carrs already announced hes launching phony investigations into Verizon and Comcast for not being racist and sexist enough (read: having some bare-bones inclusivity efforts on a website). Hes doing this by leveraging looming approvals for potential shitty mergers to bully these companies into submission. And because these companies are routinely stocked with abject cowards, it will probably work. And Carr continues to expand his anti-civil-rights campaign on the taxpayer dime. Last week he announced hes also investigating Disney/ABC for not being racist and sexist enough. From NPR (which Carr is also investigating for being insufficiently deferent to christofascist clods): In a letter to Disney CEO Robert Iger, Carr said the FCCs Enforcement Bureau will review whether Disney or ABC have violated any FCC equal employment opportunity regulations. He added that the probe will apply to both past and current policies. As with all of these investigations, Carr is pulling his legal justifications entirely out of his ass. Hes basically trying to claim that marginal efforts to be more inclusive are themselves in violation of anti-discrimination rules and laws. Rules and laws theyre trying to destroy. Its circular logic gibberish designed to give a thin veneer of legitimacy to pointless bullshit harassment. Sayeth Carr: Numerous reports indicate that Disneys leadership went all in on invidious forms of DEI discrimination a few years ago and apparently did so in a manner that infected many aspects of your companys decisions. In telecom, Carr has tried to re-interpret language in the Communications Act designed to prevent discrimination to attack efforts against discrimination. It will never hold up in even the shittiest of courts, but Carr of course doesnt care about that. He wants the publicity generated by the fake investigations to do the bullying. He wants to scare companies with fake, costly inquiries into nonexistent violations. Disney, like most feckless U.S. corporations, has been happy to oblige so far, scrubbing their websites and earnings reports of references to equality and inclusion, shortening warnings on Disney+ about how older Disney content may feature racist stereotypes, and shuttering already flimsy programs designed to help marginalized populations. Of course the U.S. press, many of them keen to avoid harassment or get tax cuts and merger approvals, have proven appropriately feckless in their news coverage of Carrs weird zealotry. Authoritarian propagandists have hijacked the term DEI to help sanitize and normalize sexism/racism, and conflate half-assed corporate inclusivity initiatives with popular civil rights. Instead of saying Carr is being racist, being sexist, embracing resegregation, or attacking civil rights, theyre quick to adopt the more sterile hes investigating DEI nomenclature: And if you read through pretty much any coverage of these sham investigations, youll find they all go out of their way to frame Carrs racist and sexist harassment of companies as serious adult policymaking. Because thats what you get when you let journalism consolidate at the hands of feckless trust fund brunchlords who are more interested in tax cuts and access than serving the public interest. Carrs a weird zealot launching baseless investigations into companies because theyre not being suitably racist and sexist enough for his kings liking. Its pathetic, and the collective press and corporate response so far has been equally so.

[Category: 1, disney, authoritarianism, brendan carr, civil rights, dei, fcc, harassment, journalism, media, racism, resegregation, sexism]

— Take-Two DMCAs Video Of GTA5 Mod To For GTA6 Map Content

 

at 4/2/25 9:00pm

Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, have been telling us who they are for years. And who they are, for our purposes, amounts to a game developer that both absolutely hates any leaked information about its games and one that has been perfectly willing to go to war with its own modding community. After suffering an intrusion by bad actors in 2022, a bunch of information and footage from the in-development Grand Theft Auto 6 leaked onto the internet. That leak has been bookended by Rockstar and Take-Two engaging in all kinds of DMCA takedowns for game mods and even saved game files for Grand Theft Auto titles and other franchises. What do these two topics have in common? Well, they came together recently when Take-Two issued a takedown notice on YouTube videos in which one modder shows off his custom map that seeks to input as much of the map for GTA6 that could be derived from the leaks into GTA5. Modder Dark Space had created a free-to-download GTA 5 map using leaked coordinate data and official trailer shots of GTA 6. He also uploaded gameplay footage of the mod to his YouTube channel. In January, the mod gained widespread attention as GTA fans, eager for a glimpse of the upcoming game, explored this fan-made recreation ahead of GTA 6’s official launch. However, Dark Space confirmed that he recently received a take down notice from YouTube.  We, and Dark Space, can but speculate as to the motivation behind the takedown. Perhaps Take-Two considers the details in the map to be spoilers of sorts, though it would seem the widely available leaked information about the forthcoming game and the trailers did the spoiling first. Perhaps it considers the map construction to be proprietary information, covered by copyright, and acted upon it. Or perhaps its simply a matter of lawyers lawyering. But what isnt up for debate is that the modding community continues to feel slighted by the company, while any sane understanding of the effects of these mods is one that is beneficial to Take-Two. He also criticised Take-Two’s handling of modders, stating, When will these companies learn to stop attacking their own feet? It’s thanks to the community of players and modders that these companies can stand.” He claimed that the company has a history of hiring private investigators and taking legal action against them, rather than supporting their work. He pointed to past instances where Take-Two had sent private investigators to modders homes, filed lawsuits, and banned creators from making GTA-related content. As an example, he cited the original GTA Trilogy on PC, where mods were essential for fixing game-breaking bugs and making the titles playable. He argued that instead of appreciating these contributions, Take-Two cracked down on modders instead of acknowledging their efforts. It should go without saying that importing the game map, as best as can be recreated by a modder, into an older game does not replace the new game. In fact, the attention this mod and those like it have received are a symptom of the thirst the public has for the new game. The company could have used all of this as a free marketing tool for GTA6, if it wanted to. Its not even that hard. Folks, go look at the map if you want. We know youre hungry to play this game and were equally hungry for you to do so. This doesnt reflect the entirety of the new map, the new game, or the experience youll have playing it, but whet your appetites because GTA6 is going to be great. It would have been that easy. But instead, the company has decided to once more slight the modding community that helps drive ongoing interest in Take-Twos new and existing titles. Attacking, as Dark Space put it, their own feet.

[Category: 1, rockstar games, take 2 interactive, copyright, dmca, gta, gta 5, gta 6, mods, video games]

— Otherwise Objectionable: When Congress Ridiculously Tried Merging Censorship With Freedom

 

at 4/2/25 4:59pm

Moral panics come and go, but stupid legislation is forever. At least until the Supreme Court steps in. This week on Otherwise Objectionable, my podcast series about Section 230, we talk about how the moral panic over “porn” online, including Senator James Exon’s infamous blue binder of internet porn, caused the Senate to pass a horrifying censorship bill that would have required the internet be as clean as Sesame Street. Episode 4: The Solution Enter Representatives Chris Cox and Ron Wyden, who recognized that Exons approach wasnt just unconstitutional — it fundamentally misunderstood how the internet worked. Instead of trying to turn every website into PBS Kids, they proposed something radical: trust users to make their own choices about what content they wanted to see, and protect the platforms that gave users those tools. Their proposal, which would become Section 230, was based on a simple premise: the internet would work better if we empowered users rather than censors. Want to keep your kids away from adult content? Great — here are tools to do that. Want to create a family-friendly platform? Fantastic — you wont get sued for trying. Want to build a more open platform? Also fine — you wont get sued for that either. This approach was such obvious common sense that it sailed through the House with overwhelming bipartisan support. But then congressional efficiency (or perhaps laziness) kicked in. Rather than reconcile the House and Senate approaches, leadership simply merged the bills together. The result? Section 230, a law designed to promote free speech and user choice, became part of the Communications Decency Act, a law designed to censor the internet into bland submission. The supreme irony is that when the Supreme Court inevitably struck down most of the CDA as unconstitutional, Section 230 was the only part that survived. The provision that was never meant to be part of the censorship bill turned out to be its only lasting legacy. As Congress once again rushes to protect the children through ham-handed internet regulation, its worth remembering how the last moral panic resulted in terrible unconstitutional nonsense, that accidentally got merged with the very protection that makes a free and open internet possible.

[Category: 1, censorship, chris cox, free speech, james exon, otherwise objectionable, responsibility, ron wyden, section 230]

— Trump’s Buddies At Andreessen Horowitz Want To Help Buy TikTok, Turn It Into A Right Wing Safe Space

 

at 4/2/25 2:48pm

Weve noted more times than I cant count that the push to ban TikTok was never really about protecting American privacy. If that were true, we would pass a real privacy law and craft serious penalties for companies and executives that play fast and loose with sensitive American data. It was never really about propaganda. If that were true, wed take aim at the extremely well funded authoritarian propaganda machine and engage in content moderation of race-baiting political propaganda thats filling the brains of young American men with pudding and hate. Banning TikTok was never really about national security. If that were true, we wouldnt be dismantling our cybersecurity regulators, hosting sensitive military chats over Signal with journalists, voting to cement utterly incompetent knobs in unaccountable roles across military intelligence, and letting run-amok data brokers sell personal info to global governments (including our own). The push to Facebook was about ego, money, and information control. Ego; Trump got mad at TikTok videos making fun of his small crowd sizes. Money: Facebook worked tirelessly to spread bogus moral panics about TikTok in order to kill off a competitor they couldnt out-innovate. Control: the GOP wants to own TikTok so they can ensure its friendly to an essential cornerstone of party power their propaganda. Enter the fine folks at (Trump friendly) Andreesen Horowitz, who are emerging as a late-stage bidder for a big chunk of whatever winds up being left of TikTok alongside (Trump friendly) Oracle: US venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to invest in social media platform TikTok as part of an effort led by Donald Trump to wrest control of the popular video app from its Chinese owners. The venture capital group, whose co-founder Marc Andreessen is a vocal supporter of the US president, is in talks to add new outside investment that will buy out TikTok’s Chinese investors, as part of a bid led by Oracle and other American investors to carve it out of its parent company ByteDance. Thanks to Americas silly and performative ban, ByteDance has until April 5 to sell TikTok to U.S. controlled companies. Theres still no word on what a finalized deal will look like, and ByteDance has had strong reservations in including the companys engagement algorithms as part of any deal. Weve kind of come full circle here. If you recall, Trumps big plan during his first term was to transfer ownership of TikTok to right wing-friendly companies Oracle and Walmart. That plan ultimately fell apart, and Trump has subsequently waffled back and forth on what to do, in part because he was trying to appease right wing billionaire donor and ByteDance investor Jeffrey Yass. Marc Andreessen, who has become increasingly incoherent as he prostrates himself and his empire to King Dingus, clearly wants TikTok ad money, but he also wants information control. Andreessen is already on the board of Meta and one of the investors in Elons takeover of Twitter. If he grabs a large stake in TikTok, an overt authoritarian will have meaningful power over the countrys three biggest social media platforms. That is, you know, bad for a long list of reasons that should be obvious. Other suitors may not be much better. As I was writing this, news emerged that Jeff Bezos (the guy currently making the Washington Post more friendly to authoritarian ideology and hostile to anyone who disagrees) is also putting in a bid for Amazon to acquire TikTok. If his bumbling at WAPO is any indication, his ownership of TikTok wouldnt be much better for free expression. Modern U.S. authoritarians dont want major popular tech platforms engaging in content moderation of right wing propaganda and disinformation, a cornerstone of Trump power (since their actual policies, like letting shitty corporations do whatever they want, dismantling civil and labor rights, and giving billionaires more tax cuts, are broadly unpopular amongst the plebs). But the TikTok ban really cant be separated by the broader GOP quest to dominate the entirety of modern media. You might recall how the GOP spent years successfully bullying tech companies into going soft on race-baiting right wing propaganda, often under the pretense they were doing serious adult business on antitrust reform or trying to combat (completely bogus) censorship of Conservative ideologies. There was, if you recall, a whole three year news cycle where major news outlets propped up the myth that this wasnt about control, propaganda, and forcing unpopular right wing policies down everybodys throat, it was about reining in corporate power and holding big tech accountable. These GOP efforts were, time and time again, portrayed in the press as serious, adult, good faith policymaking. A few years later and everything is completely fucked, regulators are either being stripped for parts or being used to harass companies for not being racist enough, all our biggest tech companies have folded on moderating right wing racism, right wing propaganda is worse than ever, journalism is dying, civil rights and free speech face existential threats, and federal corporate oversight is effectively dead. Really a great job on all fronts, from policymakers to U.S. journalism. Everybody really nailed it. TikTok always heavily trafficked in a lot of right wing engagement bait because, as an amoral algorithmic engagement machine, they like to shovel more of the stuff you already like your direction. But at the same time, I personally found I was more likely to find left wing content on TikTok than I would on, say, Facebooks reels. Ultimately, TikTok has veered even harder right as it tried to appease U.S. authoritarians. However right wing friendly you think TikTok is now, it will be notably worse under Oracle and Andreessen Horowitz, and far more likely to take action against content and creators Trumpism doesnt like. All in service to authoritarian control, and chasing where the real money is in America media right now: telling young angry men all of their worst lizard-brained impulses are correct.

[Category: 1, amazon, andreessen horowitz, bytedance, oracle, tiktok, authoritarian, competition, content moderation, corruption, disinformation, donald trump, jeff bezos, marc andreessen, propaganda, social media, tiktok ban]

— Trump’s Buddies At Andreesen Horowitz Want To Help Buy TikTok, Turn It Into A Right Wing Safe Space

 

at 4/2/25 2:48pm

Weve noted more times than I cant count that the push to ban TikTok was never really about protecting American privacy. If that were true, we would pass a real privacy law and craft serious penalties for companies and executives that play fast and loose with sensitive American data. It was never really about propaganda. If that were true, wed take aim at the extremely well funded authoritarian propaganda machine and engage in content moderation of race-baiting political propaganda thats filling the brains of young American men with pudding and hate. Banning TikTok was never really about national security. If that were true, we wouldnt be dismantling our cybersecurity regulators, hosting sensitive military chats over Signal with journalists, voting to cement utterly incompetent knobs in unaccountable roles across military intelligence, and letting run-amok data brokers sell personal info to global governments (including our own). The push to Facebook was about ego, money, and information control. Ego; Trump got mad at TikTok videos making fun of his small crowd sizes. Money: Facebook worked tirelessly to spread bogus moral panics about TikTok in order to kill off a competitor they couldnt out-innovate. Control: the GOP wants to own TikTok so they can ensure its friendly to an essential cornerstone of party power their propaganda. Enter the fine folks at (Trump friendly) Andreesen Horowitz, who are emerging as a late-stage bidder for a big chunk of whatever winds up being left of TikTok alongside (Trump friendly) Oracle: US venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to invest in social media platform TikTok as part of an effort led by Donald Trump to wrest control of the popular video app from its Chinese owners. The venture capital group, whose co-founder Marc Andreessen is a vocal supporter of the US president, is in talks to add new outside investment that will buy out TikTok’s Chinese investors, as part of a bid led by Oracle and other American investors to carve it out of its parent company ByteDance. Thanks to Americas silly and performative ban, ByteDance has until April 5 to sell TikTok to non-U.S. controlled companies. Theres still no word on what a finalized deal will look like, and ByteDance has had strong reservations in including the companys engagement algorithms as part of any deal. Weve kind of come full circle here. If you recall, Trumps big plan during his first term was to transfer ownership of TikTok to right wing-friendly companies Oracle and Walmart. That plan ultimately fell apart, and Trump has subsequently waffled back and forth on what to do, in part because he was trying to appease right wing billionaire donor and ByteDance investor Jeffrey Yass. Marc Andreessen, who has become increasingly incoherent as he prostrates himself and his empire to King Dingus, clearly wants TikTok ad money, but he also wants information control. Andreessen is already on the board of Meta and one of the investors in Elons takeover of Twitter. If he grabs a large stake in TikTok, an overt authoritarian will have meaningful power over the countrys three biggest social media platforms. That is, you know, bad for a long list of reasons that should be obvious. Other suitors may not be much better. As I was writing this, news emerged that Jeff Bezos (the guy currently making the Washington Post more friendly to authoritarian ideology and hostile to anyone who disagrees) is also putting in a bid for Amazon to acquire TikTok. If his bumbling at WAPO is any indication, his ownership of TikTok wouldnt be much better for free expression. Modern U.S. authoritarians dont want major popular tech platforms engaging in content moderation of right wing propaganda and disinformation, a cornerstone of Trump power (since their actual policies, like letting shitty corporations do whatever they want, dismantling civil and labor rights, and giving billionaires more tax cuts, are broadly unpopular amongst the plebs). But the TikTok ban really cant be separated by the broader GOP quest to dominate the entirety of modern media. You might recall how the GOP spent years successfully bullying tech companies into going soft on race-baiting right wing propaganda, often under the pretense they were doing serious adult business on antitrust reform or trying to combat (completely bogus) censorship of Conservative ideologies. There was, if you recall, a whole three year news cycle where major news outlets propped up the myth that this wasnt about control, propaganda, and forcing unpopular right wing policies down everybodys throat, it was about reining in corporate power and holding big tech accountable. These GOP efforts were, time and time again, portrayed in the press as serious, adult, good faith policymaking. A few years later and everything is completely fucked, regulators are either being stripped for parts or being used to harass companies for not being racist enough, all our biggest tech companies have folded on moderating right wing racism, right wing propaganda is worse than ever, journalism is dying, civil rights and free speech face existential threats, and federal corporate oversight is effectively dead. Really a great job on all fronts, from policymakers to U.S. journalism. Everybody really nailed it. TikTok always heavily trafficked in a lot of right wing engagement bait because, as an amoral algorithmic engagement machine, they like to shovel more of the stuff you already like your direction. But at the same time, I personally found I was more likely to find left wing content on TikTok than I would on, say, Facebooks reels. Ultimately, TikTok has veered even harder right as it tried to appease U.S. authoritarians. However right wing friendly you think TikTok is now, it will be notably worse under Oracle and Andreessen Horowitz, and far more likely to take action against content and creators Trumpism doesnt like. All in service to authoritarian control, and chasing where the real money is in America media right now: telling young angry men all of their worst lizard-brained impulses are correct.

[Category: 1, amazon, andreessen horowitz, bytedance, oracle, tiktok, authoritarian, competition, content moderation, corruption, disinformation, donald trump, jeff bezos, marc andreessen, propaganda, social media, tiktok ban]

— 230 Protects Users, Not Big Tech

 

at 4/2/25 1:11pm

Once again, several Senators appear poised to gut one of the most important laws protecting internet users  Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230).  Don’t be fooled many of Section 230’s detractors claim that this critical law only protects big tech. The reality is that Section 230 provides limited protection for all platforms, though the biggest beneficiaries are small platforms and users. Why else would some of the biggest platforms be willing to endorse a bill that guts the law? In fact, repealing Section 230 would only cement the status of Big Tech monopolies. As EFF has said for years, Section 230 is essential to protecting individuals’ ability to speak, organize, and create online.  Congress knew exactly what Section 230 would do – that it would lay the groundwork for speech of all kinds across the internet, on websites both small and large. And that’s exactly what has happened.   Section 230 isn’t in conflict with American values. It upholds them in the digital world. People are able to find and create their own communities, and moderate them as they see fit. People and companies are responsible for their own speech, but (with narrow exceptions) not the speech of others.  The law is not a shield for Big Tech. Critically, the law benefits the millions of users who don’t have the resources to build and host their own blogs, email services, or social media sites, and instead rely on services to host that speech. Section 230 also benefits thousands of small online services that host speech. Those people are being shut out as the bill sponsors pursue a dangerously misguided policy.   If Big Tech is at the table in any future discussion for what rules should govern internet speech, EFF has no confidence that the result will protect and benefit internet users, as Section 230 does currently. If Congress is serious about rewriting the internet’s speech rules, it must spend time listening to the small services and everyday users who would be harmed should they repeal Section 230.   Section 230 Protects Everyday Internet Users  There’s another glaring omission in the arguments to end Section 230: how central the law is to ensuring that every person can speak online, and that Congress or the Administration does not get to define what speech is “good” and “bad”.    Let’s start with the text of Section 230. Importantly, the law protects both online services and users. It says that “no provider or user shall be treated as the publisher” of content created by another. Thats in clear agreement with most Americans’ belief that people should be held responsible for their own speech—not that of others.    Section 230 protects individual bloggers, anyone who forwards an email, and social media users who have ever reshared or retweeted another person’s content online. Section 230 also protects individual moderators who might delete or otherwise curate others’ online content, along with anyone who provides web hosting services.  As EFF has explained, online speech is frequently targeted with meritless lawsuits. Big Tech can afford to fight these lawsuits without Section 230. Everyday internet users, community forums, and small businesses cannot. Engine has estimated that without Section 230, many startups and small services would be inundated with costly litigation that could drive them offline. Even entirely meritless lawsuits cost thousands of dollars to fight, and often tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Deleting Section 230 Will Create A Field Day For The Internet’s Worst Users   Section 230’s detractors say that too many websites and apps have “refused” to go after “predators, drug dealers, sex traffickers, extortioners and cyberbullies,” and imagine that removing Section 230 will somehow force these services to better moderate user-generated content on their sites.   These arguments fundamentally misunderstand Section 230. The law lets platforms decide, largely for themselves, what kind of speech they want to host, and to remove speech that doesn’t fit their own standards without penalty.   If lawmakers are legitimately motivated to help online services root out unlawful activity and terrible content appearing online, the last thing they should do is eliminate Section 230. The current law strongly incentivizes websites and apps, both large and small, to kick off their worst-behaving users, to remove offensive content, and in cases of illegal behavior, work with law enforcement to hold those users responsible.  If Congress deletes Section 230, the pre-digital legal rules around distributing content would kick in. That law strongly discourages services from moderating or even knowing about user-generated content. This is because the more a service moderates user content, the more likely it is to be held liable for that content. Under that legal regime, online services will have a huge incentive to just not moderate and not look for bad behavior. This would result in the exact opposite of their goal of protecting children and adults from harmful content online. Republished from the EFFs Deeplinks blog.

[Category: 1, content moderation, section 230]

— ICE Is Using Pure Bullshit To Turn People Into Venezuelan Gang Members To Keep Hitting Its Daily Arrest Quota

 

at 4/2/25 11:58am

Donald Trump has decided he cant do immigration enforcement without doing war crimes. Thats where were at now as a country: under the thumb of someone exercising executive war powers to remove anyone looking faintly Mexican from the country under the extremely dubious theory that the people rounded up by ICE are all members of foreign gangs. Of course, its not limited to warriors or wars. The Trump Administration is now just disappearing people for exercising their First Amendment rights. But, in this case, the outlandish claim is that everyone who was arrested and flown (in violation of a federal injunction!) to El Salvador to rot in that countrys prisons is a member of gangs like MS-13 and um Tren de Aragua. Oh wait. You havent heard of Tren de Aragua, a.k.a. TdA? Dont blame your service provider and/or your social media feeds. The gang Trump (sort of) declared war on is something new. Its not MS-13. Apparently, its the new most dangerous thing ever, even if theres nothing that demonstrates TdA is making the sort of inroads into America that MS-13 has. But Trump has always been able to round up rubes to help with the duping. Thats where New York City mayor Eric Adams a recent recipient of Trump largesse comes into play, as Max Rivlin-Nadler reports for Hell Gate. The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport more than 200 Venezuelans to a massive prison in El Salvador without any due process. How has the president justified using a 227-year-old law that has only been wielded during actual wars to override the Constitution? He claims these men are members of the gang Tren de Aragua. [] [T]he NYPD and Mayor Eric Adams [] spent much of 2024 pushing a narrative that New York, which is home to thousands of recently-arrived Venezuelan migrants, is somehow being inundated with members of a small, relatively new regional gang that is named for the Tocorón prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua.  [] We believe they are participating in illegal behavior, and theyre the source of some of the increases in robberies and pattern robberies, particularly on scooters. And we continue to monitor the situation, but it is alarming, Adams said. He added that Tren de Aragua was a very dangerous gang, and that he had sent his NYPD deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism to Colombia to gather information.  Scooter robberies? Vague illegal behavior? Well, no wonder Trump deployed his war powers to rid this country of a threat incapable of being coherently defined by the NYC mayor in the presidents back pocket. Supposedly the easiest way to identify members of a gang no one had really ever heard of before Trump started sending planeloads of non-white people to prisons in El Salvador is by their tattoos. After all, MS-13 is notorious for its inking and its members inability to blend into any society that isnt currently bathing itself in bathtub meth money. In fact, ICE has its own guide [PDF] for identifying TdA members by their tattoos. But as American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick pointed out on Bluesky, the guidelines are somewhat even worse and more lax than the bullshit regular cops use to place people in (domestic) gang databases. This nomination system uses points. Eight points is all it takes to get you labeled as someone fast-tracked for an indefinite prison sentence in a nation you werent even born in. A lot of this relies on tattoos. Four points for gang tattoos. Four points for any tattoo an ICE officer believes is a gang tattoo. Six points for texting anyone ICE thinks is a TdA member and 3 points for sending funds (via Cash app or other services) to anyone whose tattoos are presumed to be TdA-related. Even if someone fails to hit the 8-point threshold for immediate expulsion to El Salvador (and, remember, were dealing with alleged Venezuelan gang members here), points can be added by any ICE officer or supervisor willing to put their thumb on the scale. Aliens scoring 6 or 7 points may be validated as members of TDA; you should consult with a supervisor and OPLA, reviewing the totality of the facts, before making that determination; if you determine an alien should not be validated at this time as a member of TDA, when available, you should initiate removal proceedings under the INA. This ICE guidance obtained by the ACLU relies heavily on identifying TdA members by their tattoos. But theres a massive logical flaw here: unlike MS-13, TdA doesnt treat tattoos as a basis for entry or a sign of loyalty. ICE already knows this. So does the DHS. [I]nternal U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI documents obtained by USA TODAY reveal federal authorities for years have questioned the effectiveness of using tattoos to identify members of Tren de Aragua, also known as TdA. “Gang Unit collections determined that the Chicago Bulls attire, clocks, and rose tattoos are typically related to the Venezuelan culture and not a definite (indicator) of being a member or associate of the (TdA),” reads a 2023 Situational Awareness bulletin on the criminal gang written by the U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s El Paso Sector Intelligence Unit. In another DHS document, titled “ICE Intel Leads,” a former Venezuelan police official interviewed by authorities said tattoos are “the easiest but least effective way” of identifying members of the criminal gang.  Everyone who hasnt been completely corrupted by their association with Trump knows the accepted method of identifying gang members doesnt actually work. Everyone in the inner circle doesnt care. And ICE has never given a shit one way or the other, so long as its able to hit the ever-escalating expulsion benchmarks set by the administration and backed by barely-sentient FEDZ® doll Kristi Noem, who decided to issue a tough on crime statement in front of an overcrowded El Salvadoran prison cell while prominently displaying her $50,000 Rolex watch. Between the bizarre invocation of the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the abuse of Japanese US residents during World War II made it unfashionable and ICEs enthusiasm for rounding up any foreigners officers come across, its no surprise areas where Latin Americans are a majority of the population are considered target-rich environments. What is surprising, however, is that some local law enforcement agencies are viewing ICE as the enemy and the people they serve as people worth protecting from federal government overreach. In Santa Fe County, N.M., last month, local police leaders stood before a packed auditorium and showed photos of their uniforms so residents would know what they look like — and, more pointedly, what ICE does not. Whatever happens around the country, whoever is president, you are our community. We are your officers, Santa Fe Police Chief Paul Joye said with the help of a Spanish interpreter. It is a fundamental human right that you feel safe in your home regardless of where youre from. [] Many police chiefs have opted to risk the ire of the federal government in an attempt to preserve trust with immigrant communities – a bond that can be tenuous even in the best of times. In Boston, when police commissioner Michael Cox pointed out last month that his agency doesnt have the authority to enforce immigration law, Trumps border czar, Tom Homan, said hed bring hell to the city. On March 24, ICE arrested more than 300 people in Massachusetts. Its nice to know that at least a few cops arent on board with Trumps anti-immigrant warfare. Theres still no unified front pushing back against ICE but every little bit helps. Unfortunately, none of this will matter to the Trump administration. Its incapable of being shamed and its fine with massive amounts of collateral damage as long as its intended targets are included in the body count.

[Category: 1, dhs, donald trump, due process, gang databases, ice, immigration, kristi noem, tattoos, tren de aragua]

— Daily Deal: LabsDigest Subscription

 

at 4/2/25 11:53am

LabsDigest is built for those who learn best by doing. Whether youre preparing for a CompTIA certification or diving into Python development, our platform offers interactive labs that simulate real-world tasks—no passive watching or reading, just real experience. Work through performance-based exercises for CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, and more, or sharpen your coding skills with hands-on Python projects. Learn by solving problems, fixing bugs, and applying your knowledge in practical scenarios that prepare you for the real world. Its on sale for $30. 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.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

— But His Gmail: National Security Advisor Waltz’s Private Email Hypocrisy

 

at 4/2/25 10:26am

Remember Mike Waltz? The National Security Advisor whos spent the last few weeks demonstrating his profound inability to handle basic security? First, there was the illegal Signal chat where he accidentally added a journalist while discussing potential war crimes. Then we learned about his completely exposed Venmo contacts and leaked passwords. And now, in a twist that would be too on-the-nose for fiction, it turns out the same official who previously demanded DOJ action over private email use… has been conducting government business through Gmail. Ah, but her emails. All this seems less than great for the top “security” official in the administration. Members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and interviews with three U.S. officials. The use of Gmail, a far less secure method of communication than the encrypted messaging app Signal, is the latest example of questionable data security practices by top national security officials already under fire for the mistaken inclusion of a journalist in a group chat about high-level planning for military operations in Yemen. A senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict, according to emails reviewed by The Post. While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show. This is, needless to say, pretty fucking bad. First, theres the basic security incompetence: the National Security Advisor conducting sensitive government business through a commercial email service. Even if Gmail has robust security, its completely inappropriate for handling government communications — giving Google potential access to sensitive national security discussions that should never leave secured government systems. But more concerning is what this reveals about Waltzs (lack of) judgment. As National Security Advisor, hes one of the highest-value targets for foreign intelligence services. Every personal account, every commercial service he uses represents another potential vulnerability for adversaries to exploit. And given his demonstrated pattern of security failures — from exposed Venmo contacts to leaked passwords — its clear hes making their job easier. The National Security Councils response is a masterclass in missing the point (or, more accurately, misdirecting from the point). When pressed about sensitive military matters being discussed over Gmail, their spokesperson offered this gem: Hughes said NSC staff have guidance about using “only secure platforms for classified information.” This attempt at reassurance actually reveals the depth of the problem. The distinction isnt just between classified and unclassified information — its about maintaining basic operational security for all sensitive government communications. And as if to underscore how little they grasp this, we learned from a WSJ article that Waltzs infamous Signal chat wasnt a one-off mistake. Two U.S. officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations The scale of security failures here should be absolutely disqualifying for any administration official, let alone Americas top national security advisor. But what makes this situation particularly galling is Waltzs own history of grandstanding about private email use. Here he is in a tweet that remains up from less than two years ago: Yes, thats the same Mike Waltz demanding DOJ action over private email use by a previous National Security Advisor. The hypocrisy would be merely annoying if the stakes werent so high. But this isnt just about scoring political points — its about the fundamental security of our nations most sensitive communications. By Waltzs own standard, articulated in that still-visible tweet, the DOJ should be investigating his wanton use of private commercial messaging services. But more importantly, someone needs to ask: if this is how carelessly our National Security Advisor handles basic operational security, what other vulnerabilities has he created that we dont yet know about?

[Category: 1, but her emails, communications, gmail, mike waltz, national security]

— A Bipartisan Roster Of Former FCC Officials Say Trump FCC Boss Brendan Carr Is Taking A Giant Dump On The First Amendment

 

at 4/2/25 6:23am

Last October, Trump sued CBS claiming (falsely) that a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris had been “deceitfully edited” to her benefit (they simply shortened some of her answers for brevity, as news outlets often do). As Mike explored in a post at the time, the lawsuit was utterly baseless, and tramples the First Amendment, editorial discretion, and common sense. CBS/Paramount is looking for regulatory approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance (run by Larry Ellison’s kid David). Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr quickly zeroed on on this, and began using merger approval as leverage to bully CBS into even more feckless coverage of the administration. Its part of a broader effort by Carr to abuse FCC authority to harass companies that arent suitably deferential to Trump, arent racist and sexist enough for the administrations liking, or might get the crazy idea of calling out the Trump administrations bullshit. Carrs increasingly unhinged behavior continues to attract a growing roster of critics, including a bipartisan coalition of former Republican and Democrat officials who say Carr is taking a giant, heaping dump on the First Amendment with the CBS inquiry. That includes Republican Alfred Sikes, the FCC chair from 1989 to 1993, and Democrat Tom Wheeler, the FCC chair from 2013 to 2017. In a filing submitted to the FCC last week, the former commissioners all make it clear Carr is abusing the FCCs news distortion rules to attack journalism: The Commission is signaling to broadcasters that it will indeed act at the behest of the White House by closely scrutinizing the content of news coverage and threatening the regulatory licenses of broadcasters whose news outlets produce coverage that does not pass muster in the President’s view. We recommend the Commission reverse course, closing this proceeding without further action and reaffirming its long-held commitment to acting as an independent agency rather than the White House’s personal censor. How polite. The former commissioners are careful to suggest the Carr FCC may be seeking to censor the news media in a manner antithetical to the First Amendment, not that theyre actually and obviously censoring the news media and trampling the First Amendment, lest somebody get upset. Carr is trying to claim that the minor edits done by CBS violate a longstanding “Broadcast News Distortion” policy that’s almost never enforced by the agency, which has largely given up on media regulations under both parties. The policy in question says violations must involve clear distortion of “a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report.” That means hard proof of something like a bribe by a company or politicians to change news coverage, and that clearly doesn’t apply here. Trumpism is just making baseless accusations against CBS, knowing that even if CBS isn’t actually found guilty of anything, it allows the vast GOP propaganda machine to generate entire news cycles suggesting that 60 Minutes did something nefarious. That further props up the right wing victimization machine, forging greater hostility to real journalism or anybody who might be inclined to poke holes in authoritarian propaganda. All while authoritarians pretend that protecting free speech is among their top priorities.

[Category: 1, authoritarian, brendan carr, fcc, first amendment, free speech, journalism, media, mergers, propaganda]

— Measles & Vitamin A Toxicity: How RFK Jr. Is Compounding The Outbreak Problem

 

at 4/1/25 9:15pm

The measles outbreak is not going away and RFK Jr. is making it worse. There is no need for equivocation in that statement. The facts are plain for all to see. Through a combination of half-hearted statements on getting the MMR vaccine followed up first by a pivot to nutrition, then another pivot to purposeful exposure being the best course, only for there to be another pivot to so-called alternative treatments for measles such as Vitamin A and cod liver oil, the Secretary for Health and Human Services is on a course to make the humans under his care less healthy. The last time I wrote about this topic was in the last week of March. Here was the measles outbreak data at the time of that writing. And here it is today, roughly a week later. Over a 100 more confirmed cases, with more likely unconfirmed out there, in a week. The biggest jump in those numbers are among children, while the overwhelming percentage of the impacted by the disease are unvaccinated. Were currently on pace to have the most total measles cases in America since 2019, when there were 1,274 cases, also as a result of outbreaks among the unvaccinated, largely in the south and in certain religious groups in New York. Cases this year are tracking well above the 285 cases reported for all of 2024 and are at the highest level since 2019 when 1,249 cases were reported. Most of those cases were reported in underimmunized, close-knit communities, including two outbreaks in New York’s Orthodox Jewish communities. The surge in cases that year, the highest since 1992, threatened the United States’ measles elimination status. The problem, of course, is that were only in the beginning stages here. Its April and were already eclipsing the total annual cases of the previous year. It may seem like were tracking under the 2019 numbers, but thats only if you ignore the exponential nature of outbreak growths that arent properly managed. Infectious diseases, as it turns out, typically have trouble obeying the speed limit. RFK Jr. is compounding the problem in multiple ways. His hesitancy on vaccination, to put it unbelievably mildly, is preventing the best cure for this outbreak from being implemented. His advocacy and garbled imprecise language around alternative treatments that didnt result in measles being officially obliterated has led to other negative healthcare outcomes, such as Vitamin A toxicity. Again, in children. Dr. Anita Patel and Joel Bervell are among many concerned that RFK Jr.s inability to understand either the science or how to communicate to the public is garbling the message. She rightly notes that concentrated application of Vitamin A in a hospital setting by medical professionals can indeed serve as a treatment for measles post-infection. But that is where the agreement ends. “The kernel of truth is that he’s right. Vitamin A at very high doses — high doses that you would never administer by yourself at home — but high-dose vitamin A administered in the hospital has shown to reduce both mortality and duration and severity of [measles] illness,” Patel said. “The lack of truth in the statement he made is that giving vitamin A in the form of cod liver oil as like a panacea for all the people in Texas is unequivocally wrong,” Patel added. More, taking too much of any vitamin, including vitamin A, can lead to complications and toxicity, Bervell said. “It can cause liver damage to fatigue to hair loss and headaches.” According to Texas Public Radio, the hospitalized children who are now being treated for vitamin A toxicity have abnormal liver function. Vitamin A also can interact with other medications, which can lead to more problems, Patel said. Im going to keep stating this for as long as it takes: none of this is necessary. We have the preventative cure for measles: the MMR vaccine. Its been employed for decades. The scientific community and studies done indicate the vaccine is safe for most people. Far safer than, say, measles. Public policy has to be made in ways that are extremely clear. The average American doesnt have the training to know that the amount of Vitamin A in cod liver varies wildly. They dont know that there is such a thing as too much Vitamin A. They dont know what herd immunity is or why its important. And they have no memory of a time when measles was rampant, nor the devastating consequences it can bring, even for those that survive it. RFK Jr. has demonstrated that he is either completely incapable of leading on this issue, or else hes too ego-driven to reverse his stance on vaccinations to put an end to it. And while Im not one who thinks compulsory vaccinations should be mandated, its also simply the case that the man doesnt have to offer up any alternative treatments or crackpot theories about how to combat it, either. Someone must do something better on this. Or else we could see Warp Speed 2 put in place. Only this time, instead of an effort to manufacture a vaccine, it will be an industrial effort to build tiny coffins.

[Category: 1, health, health and human services, measles, mmr, outbreak, rfk jr., vaccines]

— The Normalization Of Autocracy

 

at 4/1/25 4:33pm

The White House Correspondents Association has just capitulated to pressure from the Trump administration by removing comedian Amber Ruffin from its annual dinner. Their stated reason? “To ensure the focus is not on the politics of division.” This seemingly minor capitulation reveals something profound about how democracy dies—not through dramatic confrontation, but through a thousand small surrenders dressed up as civility, bridge-building, and institutional preservation. Lets be absolutely clear about what happened: A comedian called members of an administration implementing policies that deport people to face torture without due process “murderers” who arent “human beings.” The administration demanded she be removed. And instead of defending the principle of free expression—supposedly the cornerstone value of a press organization—the WHCA unanimously backed down. Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And no amount of high-minded rhetoric about “re-envisioning our dinner tradition” can disguise what this represents: the normalization of autocracy through the quiet surrender of institutions that should be democracys strongest defenders. This pattern has become distressingly familiar. Institutions faced with authoritarian pressure justify their capitulation as pragmatism, as bridge-building, as focusing on what “really matters.” But with each surrender, the space for democratic resistance narrows. With each concession, autocratic behavior becomes more normalized. With each institutional compromise, the cost of standing firm increases. What makes this particular surrender so revealing is how it exposes the moral compromise at the heart of institutional responses to democratic backsliding. The WHCA isnt some random organization—its a body explicitly dedicated to protecting press freedom. Its very purpose is to defend the right to speak truth to power. Yet when actually confronted with powers displeasure, they didnt just modify their approach—they unanimously abandoned it. The language of their surrender is particularly telling. By framing a comedians criticism of an administration implementing objectively cruel policies as “the politics of division,” they implicitly position resistance to autocracy as equivalent to autocracy itself. This both-sides framing, where calling out authoritarian behavior is treated as equally problematic as the behavior itself, reveals a profound moral confusion about what democracy requires. Democracy doesnt depend on everyone being polite to each other. It doesnt require critics of power to moderate their language so that those in power dont feel uncomfortable. What democracy absolutely requires is that power be held accountable—that its abuses be named clearly, that institutions stand firm against authoritarian pressure, that the right to criticize those in power be defended even when that criticism is harsh. Whats most disturbing about the WHCAs capitulation is how it reflects a broader pattern of institutional surrender. From media organizations that prioritize access over accountability, to universities abandoning academic freedom in the face of political pressure, to corporations quietly accommodating authoritarian demands to maintain market position—our democratic institutions are failing at precisely the moment when they should be standing firm. This dynamic creates what political scientists call “democratic erosion”—a process where democracy isnt overthrown in a dramatic coup, but gradually hollowed out from within as its institutional guardians surrender its core principles one by one. Each surrender is justified as a practical necessity, as avoiding unnecessary conflict, as focusing on what “really matters.” But what could matter more than defending democracy itself? The WHCAs decision reflects a profound misunderstanding of the current moment. They appear to believe that by removing a potential source of conflict, theyre preserving their institutional role. But in an autocratic system, institutions dont maintain their independence by accommodation—they survive only as long as theyre useful to power. By demonstrating their willingness to self-censor in response to government pressure, the WHCA hasnt preserved its independence; it has signaled its fundamental malleability. What makes this particularly dangerous is how it shifts the Overton window of acceptable government behavior. When an administration can successfully pressure a press organization to remove a critic, that success becomes a precedent for more aggressive interventions. Today its removing a comedian from a dinner; tomorrow its demanding the firing of reporters whose coverage is deemed unfair. Each successful intervention makes the next one easier. To frame this capitulation as “bridge-building” rather than surrendering to power is, to use a term I dont employ lightly, gaslighting. Its attempting to convince us that defending basic democratic principles is somehow divisive, that holding power accountable is somehow partisan, that standing firm against authoritarian pressure is somehow counterproductive. This isnt bridge-building—its burning the bridges of democratic accountability while pretending to strengthen them. Its abandoning the very principles that make a free press possible while claiming to celebrate them. Its normalizing autocracy while pretending to preserve democracy. The institutions weve trusted to defend democratic norms are failing us—not because theyre being violently overthrown, but because theyre voluntarily surrendering their independence in the name of civility, access, and institutional preservation. Theyre choosing the appearance of normality over the reality of resistance, prioritizing their short-term institutional comfort over their long-term democratic purpose. Whats perhaps most distressing is how quickly this surrender happened. One complaint from a White House official about harsh criticism, and an institution ostensibly dedicated to press freedom unanimously abandons its plans. When resistance collapses this easily, what hope is there for holding the line against more significant authoritarian pressures? We must recognize these small surrenders for what they are: not pragmatic accommodations, but moral abdications that cumulatively threaten democracy itself. Every institution that bends to authoritarian pressure makes it harder for others to stand firm. Every principle abandoned in the name of civility weakens the foundations of democratic governance. Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And no amount of institutional compromise will protect democracy if the institutions themselves abandon the principles they were created to defend. The path to autocracy isnt paved with dramatic confrontations but with quiet capitulations justified as reasonable accommodations to power. The WHCAs surrender is a warning—not just about a dinner or a comedian, but about how democracy dies. Not with a bang, but with a careful, consensus-driven press release explaining why principled resistance to power is simply too divisive to maintain. Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. Originally published at his Notes From the Circus.

[Category: whca, amber ruffin, capitulation, correspondents dinner, free speech, press freedom, truth to power, white house]

— Techdirt Podcast Episode 413: Ron Wyden On Chutzpah

 

at 4/1/25 2:30pm

Support us on Patreon » If youre a Techdirt reader, youre probably familiar with Senator Ron Wyden. In January, he released his new book It Takes Chutzpah, offering up a call for political boldness that feels even more relevant with every day that passes. This week, Senator Wyden joins Mike on the podcast to talk about the book and the political moment we find ourselves in. You can also download this episode directly in MP3 format. Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

[Category: 1, podcast, politics, ron wyden] [Link to media]

— Sorry, You Don’t Get To Declare ‘Case Closed’ On War Crime Planning Over Signal

 

at 4/1/25 1:11pm

Remember when government officials discussing sensitive information over unsecured channels was treated as a national crisis worthy of endless investigations? Apparently, those days are over. While Hillary Clintons email server spawned years of investigations and Attorney General Pam Bondi is still trying to rehash it, the White House wants us to simply forget about top officials planning potential war crimes over Signal just last week. The contrast is striking. Clintons email server triggered multiple congressional investigations, FBI probes, and years of lawsuits. Yet when it comes to senior officials casually discussing military targeting plans over a consumer messaging app, were told theres nothing more to see here. And this isnt just about partisan hypocrisy from the lock her up crowd, though thats certainly on display. This is about national security officials casually planning military operations over a consumer messaging app — operations that may constitute war crimes in their targeting of civilian objects. The only reason we even know about this massive security breach is their stunning incompetence in adding Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to their illegal chat group. Even some top Republicans recognize this deserves serious investigation. But the White House has other plans. The White Houses response? A dismissive wave of the hand and a case closed declaration from press secretary Karoline Leavitt: This case has been closed here at the White House as far as we are concerned, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday. There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again, and were moving forward, she said. And much of the media seems content to simply parrot this talking point: Lets be clear: uncritically reporting the White Houses nothing to see here stance isnt journalism — its stenography. The press secretarys statement isnt just meaningless, its an active attempt to sweep serious actual violations under the rug. This White Houses strategy is clear: lie, mislead, and deflect until the story dies. Weve seen it with Bondis desperate but her emails deflection last week, and were seeing it again with this premature case closed declaration. But there are plenty of things in this story that require investigation: How did multiple senior officials decide it was totally acceptable to plan military operations over a consumer messaging app? What other sensitive discussions have happened on unsecured channels such as Signal? Have these conversations been recorded, as required under the Federal Records Act? Have other illegal commercial chats been scrubbed to see how many outsiders were allowed in to them like Goldberg was? How did they fuck up so badly to add an external person (incredibly, a reporter) to this illegal chat? Who approved targeting civilian infrastructure, and what was their legal justification? What steps have been made to prevent this from happening again, and why should we trust them? The medias job isnt to parrot White House talking points — its to uncover the truth. And the truth here is explosive: top government officials casually planned what appear to be war crimes over an unsecured channel, and we only know about it because they accidentally included a journalist in their illegal discussions. If the White House (and Congress) wont investigate, then the media must. The administration clearly doesnt care if we know theyre wielding national security laws as political weapons while ignoring actual security breaches. But the public should care deeply about this cynical abuse of power. When national security becomes just another partisan cudgel, were not just undermining the rule of law — were creating a system where real threats to national security go uninvestigated while manufactured scandals consume years of attention and resources.

[Category: signal, investigations, jeffrey goldberg, karoline leavitt, mike waltz, pete hegseth, signal chat, signalgate, war crimes]

— More History To Be Erased As Trump Strips Smithsonian Funding For Anything ‘Anti-American’

 

at 4/1/25 11:51am

Anything that doesnt jibe with Donald Trumps white male-centric worldview must go. Whatever is deemed woke no matter its basis in factual history must be excised. If tossing aside DEI means pretending blacks, women, and other non-white, non-male people never contributed anything to this country, so be it. If stroking off the far right and its quasi-theocracy aspirations means turning the US into King Georges Great Britain, I guess thats just the price we have to pay to live in a free society. The latest assault on history by this administration is a bit more horrific than its previous efforts. Wiping out DEI initiatives caused considerable (and deliberate) collateral damage to documentation of the contributions of immigrants, non-whites, women, and LGBTQ+ to the rich tapestry that is American history. This one is more targeted, but that only means there will be no collateral damage. Everything harmed here will be deliberate. In this recent executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution, Trump plainly states hes here to rewrite US history in his own image. The Order directs the Vice President, who is a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo. The Order directs the Administration to work with Congress to ensure that future Smithsonian appropriations: (1) prohibit funding for exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race, or promote ideologies inconsistent with Federal law; and (2) celebrate women’s achievements in the American Women’s History Museum and do not recognize men as women. The Vice President will work with congressional leaders to appoint members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents who are committed to advancing the celebration of America’s extraordinary heritage and progress. Thats from the fact sheet accompanying the executive order. And, unfortunately, theres a stooge right there waiting to be activated: JD Vance, who as Musks understudy/nominal Vice President is granted a position on the Smithsonians board of regents. Its a government entity, but one that has rarely seen direct federal government interference in its day-to-day work. The second paragraph of the fact sheet is extremely disturbing. It targets things that degrade shared American values a list that would certainly include Americas century of slavery and the several decades of segregation that follows it. It would also include anything detailing the United States treatment of Native Americans, which includes genocide, rampant racism, and ongoing attempts to strip away what few rights Native Americans still possess. It might also highlight the routine abuse of immigrants, wartime internment camps, war atrocities, CIA coup attempts, police violence, child labor, and the refusal to treat all citizens as equal for most of Americas history. All of these things are part of American history. And every single one of these could be described as degrading American values and promoting ideologies inconsistent with federal law. And yet, those are things most likely to be removed first or, at the very least, denied funding by Trump and Vance. While theres a bone being thrown to women (although I doubt Trump is here to champion abortions rights or the success of the womens suffrage movement), its only there to ensure that men do not get recognized as women. Why is this such a problem? And why does Trump think the Smithsonian should be stripped of funding for exhibits straddling this men/women thing that seems to unduly trouble the worlds last consumer of whatever is the Aqua Net of spray tanning agents? Its all explained (I guess?) in the actual executive order. And that order opens with a sentence that proves the adage every accusation is an admission. Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.  This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.  Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed. Over the past decade? From what Ive seen, its only been over the past three months that Ive witnessed a concerted effort to rewrite our Nations history. The stuff making Trump so angry someone else wrote up an entire diatribe, called it an executive order, and asked him to drag his Sharpie across the signature box, includes all the things people say about Trump, his loyalists, his cabinet, and his voters. And, to a person, theyll agree with these assertions when hanging out with their own. But, once again, everything listed as problematic is just something Trump doesnt actually think is wrong. For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum today features “The Shape of Power:  Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” an exhibit representing that “[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.”  The exhibit further claims that “sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism” and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating “Race is a human invention.” The National Museum of African American History and Culture has proclaimed that “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are aspects of “White culture.”  The forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum plans on celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women’s sports. The only way to read this is to take Trump at his word. The only reason he would want this removed or censored is because he truly believes white people should be able to do what they want to whoever they want, especially if those on the receiving end arent white and male. He doesnt have a problem with the US government using race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement. He actually wants white culture to be the dominant force in America. And he seems to have a particular hard-on for something that happens so infrequently it doesnt even amount to a statistical rounding error: male athletes participating in womens sports. Contrary to what some commenters believe about me, I actually think the United States is a great nation, or at least has the potential to become one. It isnt one at the present and I dont have a whole lot of hope for its future, given how things have gone over the last 15 years. But its a deeply flawed nation that has, historically, at least tried to eliminate its worst traits. But Trump wants to bring all the bad stuff back, and he wants to erase our history of improvement on the civil liberties front. Its far more than disappointing. Its sickening. Its a retcon in which all the things that make this country better than it was will be buried and all the things that held us back will be treated as peaks of achievement, rather than the valleys of failure they always were and always will be.

[Category: 1, bigotry, censorship, donald trump, erasing history, hate, jd vance, racism, smithsonian]

— Daily Deal: The Complete 2025 Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking Training Bundle

 

at 4/1/25 11:46am

The Complete 2025 Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking Training Bundle has 9 courses to help you learn to fight back against cyber threats. Courses include hands-on lessons on penetration testing for AWS, IoT, and web apps, along with hacking basics and a few certificate exam prep courses. Its on sale for $50. 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.

[Category: 1, daily deal]

As of 4/3/25 3:49pm. Last new 4/3/25 10:53am.