Crooked Bough News Round-up

— AI Could Create A Massive Problem For Valve’s Steam

 

at 4/17/26 8:39pm

Two trends that Im very interested in are about to collide and its going to be a mess. By now, some of you will be tired of my calling for a more nuanced discussion about the use of AI and machine learning tools in the video game industry. I get it, but Im also not going to pretend like I dont still hold that very same view. AI tools are just that: tools. If the tools are good and used at the behest of the artists in the industry to make better games, thats a good thing. If they upend artistic intent or simply suck, thats a bad thing. And on the matter of jobs within the industry, if there is a net reduction in jobs, thats bad! If AI lowers the barriers of entry for otherwise creative people and the result is even more jobs within the industry spread over more studios and, importantly, more cultural output in the form of games, thats good! Except when its not. And even if the AI evangelists are right, or those of us who see the possibility that AI use will ultimately result in more people in the industry and more games released to the public are right, that can still present very real problems within the industry. And I think there could be a serious one looming for storefronts like Steam. This concern calcified in my head somewhat when I came across indie publisher Mike Rose, known for producing Yes, Your Grace, talking about just what all of this output could mean on Steam specifically. From a publisher perspective specifically, its mega annoying, Rose tells GamesRadar+ in an interview, echoing other publishers like Hooded Horse. If we thought the number of games being launched on Steam was crazy before, now its just impossible. During the last Next Fest, it seemed like around 1/3 of the demos had either AI generated key art, and/or AI-generated content. So now we have that to compete with too. Hurray! Publishing lead John Buckley of Palworld developer Pocketpair called out the same AI trend in the latest Steam Next Fest. Steam, as a focal point for the more open PC gaming market, is the clearest barometer for the rising quantity of games, with over 20,000 releases fighting for space every year. Even with Valve sticking to AI content disclosures for games listed on Steam, the rise of AI tools will only contribute to the torrent of content flooding the platform as games – or at least AI-made things game-shaped enough to be sold – become easier to produce. Claims that there are too many games being released on Steam certainly isnt new, nor has it historically been tied to anything to do with artificial intelligence. There have been complaints about this, as well as Valves apparent lack of interest in playing any real curation role, going back to 2023. Wait, make that 2020. Oh, wait, it actually goes back to 2015. But while Steam hasnt yet collapsed under the weight of its own volume of releases on the platform to date, the through line to all of that criticism has been Valves stoic apathy towards keeping up with the volume when it comes to helping its customers navigate the flood. And that could be a very real problem for the platform. Steams value to the consumer, besides being the most recognizable outlet for PC gaming, is in its curation capabilities. To date, other than providing some search filters and a few tools to personalize the recommendations it makes for new titles to you, Steam has mostly left curation up to the customer themselves, or third-party list-makers. Meanwhile, the process for listing a game on Steam has not changed appreciably in the past several years. Its still the same $100 entry fee to get your title listed. You still have to jump through all the registration steps with Steamworks, generate an app ID, build the store page, upload your assets. Then you wait for Valve to do its own review before you can publish your game, but that mostly amounts to ensuring that youre compliant with Steam policies, that the game can launch successfully, and thats about it. With a potential flood of PC games coming, that sure doesnt feel like enough to keep the platform from becoming an unnavigable wasteland where you cant tell the gems from the slop. And, barring any new rules limiting to what degree AI can be used in game creation, that tidal wave is coming. On this point, Rose focuses on the elephant in the room here: Its probably never going away again. People can now make stuff by telling a bot to make it for them, and you know, the thing is that humans are mega lazy, he reasons. I dont even mean that as an insult! We just are. So for a lot of people, if theres a choice between spend a bunch of time and money making a cool thing, vs type some prompts into a program and the thing is made for me very quickly – the average person is going to pick the latter. And thats the thing really: Our feelings on it dont matter. It doesnt matter that a bunch of us dont like genAI. Its gonna get used now, and itll get used more and more. As the kids say: Video games are cooked. I dont think that video games are cooked, but his point that AI will be in use in the industry is the one Ive been making for months now. We have to be talking about how it will be used, not if. That ship has sailed. And if Steam is still going to be of any value at all to the consumer, Valve better be thinking right damned now how its going to get more involved in the curation of what shows up on its platform.

[Category: 1, valve, ai, curation, filtering, steam, video games]

— Trump Is Literally Negotiating With Himself Over How Much Taxpayer Money He Gets Because His Taxes Were Leaked

 

at 4/17/26 4:17pm

Back in January, we covered Trumps audacious lawsuit demanding $10 billion from his own IRS over the 2019-2020 leak of his tax returns by IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn (who is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for the leak, meaning the system that Trump claims failed him actually worked just fine). Its also worth remembering that every major party presidential nominee since Nixon had voluntarily released their tax returns — Trump was the exception, not the rule, and the harm he suffered was exposure to the same transparency his predecessors embraced without incident. The original piece laid out why the whole thing was a scam: Trump is the plaintiff, the IRS and Treasury are the defendants, and the DOJ defending those defendants is stocked with Trumps former personal attorneys who have made clear they still consider themselves his personal attorneys — a problem that has only gotten worse with Todd Blanche now serving as acting AG. The fix was obviously in. The only real question was how brazenly the parties would go about it. We now have an answer, and it turns out the answer is: extremely brazenly, and in writing, on the public docket. Earlier today, the parties filed a consent motion for a 90-day extension explaining why they needed the Court to hit pause on the litigation: Good cause exists to grant an extension in this matter while the Parties engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation. This limited pause will neither prejudice the Parties nor delay ultimate resolution. Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently. [] The Parties are engaging in discussions and need time to work through how to ensure those discussions can take place productively to avoid protracted litigation. This brief period will allow the Parties to initiate and structure those discussions in a manner that best serves the interests of all Parties and the Court. Read that the normal way youd read any consent motion, and its mundane. Two adversarial parties are exploring settlement. Courts love this. Judicial economy! Everyone wins. Now read it again with the actual parties in mind. The plaintiff is the sitting President of the United States. The defendants are two agencies of the executive branch that the plaintiff (again, the President of the United States) runs. The lawyers representing those defendants report, through a chain of command, to Trumps former personal lawyers. The Parties are engaging in discussions means Trumps lawyers are negotiating with Trumps other lawyers over how much of your money Trump gets to take home. The interests of all Parties reduces, functionally, to the interests of one guy. The phrase avoid protracted litigation means skip the part where a judge or a jury or any actual adversarial process might interfere with the predetermined outcome. Real negotiations require two sides with opposing interests. This is just a man haggling with his own wallet over how much of your money to take. The filing notes that there hasnt even been an attempt at a defense from the government yet: None of the Parties will suffer prejudice: the case is newly filed, no scheduling order has issued, and the Government has not yet answered or otherwise responded on the merits. An extension will conserve judicial and party resources and avoid piecemeal litigation that could arise if the Parties are forced to proceed without first exploring these discussions. The consent motion even includes, with a straight face, the boilerplate certification that plaintiffs counsel conferred in good faith with the very people he effectively works for: Pursuant to Southern District of Florida Local Rule 7.1(a)(3), Daniel Epstein, co-counsel for Plaintiffs, certifies that he conferred in good faith with counsel for Defendants on April 15, 2026 by telephone regarding the relief sought in this motion. Defendants consent to the requested extension. The only party with an actual adverse interest here — the American public — has no seat at the table and no lawyer in the room. The structure of the scam is clear. Step one, filed back in January: sue your own government that you control for $10 billion over something that wasnt its fault, using a complaint so flimsy it quotes the leaker himself saying Trump suffered little harm — and demanding damages for being exposed to information that every other modern presidential candidate simply released voluntarily. Step two, filed this week: get the defendant you control to agree with you that litigation should pause so you can work out a deal. Step three, coming soon to a docket near you: announce a settlement in which the taxpayers cut a check to the president for some eye-watering sum, with the DOJ loudly proclaiming that this was the responsible outcome that avoided wasteful litigation. At each step, the paperwork will look perfectly normal, indistinguishable from thousands of other consent motions on other dockets. The corruption lives entirely in the gap between what the documents say and who is actually on each side of them. This is worth naming plainly: whats happening here is exactly the kind of self-dealing abuse of public office that the impeachment clause was written to address. Hamilton, in Federalist 65, defined impeachable offenses as those: A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. If a sitting president negotiating a multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded payout to himself — through agencies he controls and lawyers loyal to him personally, over damages he demonstrably did not suffer (he is richer than he has ever been and won re-election after the leak) — does not qualify as an abuse of public trust, then the phrase has no meaning. But none of that matters, because the political machinery that would be required to act on any of this has been thoroughly captured or cowed. Congress has largely abdicated. The Supreme Court, as noted in January, has made it clear theres not much the courts can do about presidential self-dealing. The DOJ is, for these purposes, Trumps law firm. And so the scheme proceeds on schedule, in plain sight, with everyone involved politely pretending that the Parties are engaging in discussions describes something other than what it is. Well almost certainly be back for part three when the inevitable settlement drops. You already know roughly what it will look like. The only real variables are the size of the number and how straight a face whoever is serving as Attorney General at that point manages to keep while announcing it.

[Category: 1, corruption, doj, donald trump, irs, tax returns, todd blanche]

— Inside Trump’s Effort To “Take Over” The Midterm Elections

 

at 4/17/26 2:15pm

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. In mid-December 2020, federal officials responsible for protecting American elections from fraud converged in a windowless, dim, fortified room at the Justice Department’s downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters. They had been summoned by Attorney General William Barr. Over the preceding weeks, Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election had been stolen from him had reached a crescendo. He’d become obsessed with a conspiracy theory that voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, had switched votes from him to Joe Biden.  With each day, Trump ratcheted up the pressure to unleash the might of the federal government to undo his defeat.  Barr interrogated experts from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, crammed in beside top FBI officials around a cheap table. He needed the group of around 10 to answer a crucial question: Was it really possible the 2020 presidential vote had been hacked? ProPublica’s description of the previously unreported meeting comes from several people who were in the room or were briefed on the gathering. Everyone understood that the meeting represented an important moment for the nation, they said. Barr, who did not respond to requests for comment, had walked a delicate line with Trump, instructing the FBI to investigate allegations of election irregularities while declaring publicly there had been no evidence “to date” of widespread fraud. The nonpartisan specialists from CISA, backed by their FBI counterparts, explained they’d unravelled what had happened in Antrim County. A clerk had made a mistake when updating ballot styles on machines, leading to a software problem that initially transferred votes from Republicans to Democrats, they said. There was no fraud, just human error — which would soon be publicly confirmed through a hand count of the county’s ballots. Listening intently, Barr seemed to understand both the truth and that telling it to the president would almost certainly cost him his job.  At the end of the meeting, Barr turned to his top deputy, made hand motions as if he was tying on a bandana and said he was going to “kamikaze” into the White House.  What happened next is well known. When Barr met with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 14, the president launched into a monologue about how the events in Antrim County were “absolute proof” that the election had been stolen. Barr waited to get a word in edgewise before telling his boss what the experts from CISA had told him. Then Barr offered his resignation letter, which Trump accepted. Barr left believing he’d done his part to preserve democratic norms.  “I was saddened,” Barr wrote of Trump in his memoir. “If he actually believed this stuff he had become significantly detached from reality.” Barr was one of many federal officials — most of them Trump appointees — who refused to bend to the president’s demands, which only intensified after Barr was gone. Although rioters inspired by Trump managed to delay the certification of his defeat by storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, ultimately the institutional guardrails of American democracy held — barely. But if faced with the same tests today, the guardrails and people that held the line would largely be missing, an examination by ProPublica found.  ProPublica scrutinized what happened the last time Trump lost a national election. Some of that happened in plain sight: After a cascade of defeats in court, Trump began pressuring state and local officials to overturn the results. But more happened behind the scenes, like the meeting that helped persuade Barr to hold the line. Our reporting uncovered previously undisclosed aspects of a federal effort to safeguard the results of the 2020 vote, which involved at least 75 people across several agencies. Today, nearly all of those people are gone, having resigned, been fired or been reassigned, particularly in the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. That included the cybersecurity specialists who had established that the Antrim County allegations were false and reported their findings to Barr.  The people we identified as resisting attempts to overturn the 2020 results have been replaced by roughly two dozen people Trump has installed in positions that could affect elections. Ten of them actively worked to reverse the 2020 vote, and the rest are associates of such people. In some cases, ProPublica found, officials have been hired from activist groups that are pillars of the election denial movement. Experts warn that shows the movement has merged with the federal government. These new officials could influence how Trump reacts to the upcoming midterms as polling shows Republicans are approaching what could be a significant electoral loss, with the president’s approval rating nearing record lows, and public concern growing about the weak economy, the administration’s mass deportation effort and the war on Iran. Seemingly in preparation to head off such a blow, Trump has stepped up his efforts to “nationalize” the 2026 elections, saying that Republicans need “to take over” the midterms. Democrats who monitored Trump’s attempts to block his 2020 loss have begun to question whether he will allow a “blue wave,” particularly if it flips control of a House of Representatives that impeached him twice in his first term. ProPublica’s examination reveals new details on how the president has unleashed his loyalists to transform elections. This includes the background of this year’s FBI raid in Georgia to seize 2020 election materials and how they are using federal resources to search for noncitizens voting. Ultimately, ProPublica’s reporting shows how thoroughly and expansively the Trump administration has overhauled the federal government into what some fear is a vehicle for making sure elections go his way. ProPublica’s reporting is based on interviews with roughly 30 current or former executive branch officials familiar with the work of Trump loyalists installed in election roles. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they fear retribution, including those knowledgeable about the December 2020 Barr meeting.  The Trump administration maintains its actions will make U.S. elections fairer and more secure — and keep those prohibited from voting, such as noncitizens, from doing so. “Election integrity has always been a top priority for President Trump,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “The President will do everything in his power to defend the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that only American citizens are voting in them.” Spokespeople for the DOJ and DHS emphasized that their departments are focused on ensuring elections are free and fair, and that they are working closely with the states to achieve those goals. Contentions to the contrary, they say, are false. A few guardrails have endured, preventing Trump from fully realizing his agenda for elections. Judges have blocked key parts of a March 2025 executive order in which Trump attempted to exert greater federal control over aspects of voting, and some Republican state officials have fought back against Justice Department lawsuits demanding state voter rolls.  Late last month, Trump issued another executive order on elections that attempts to exert unparalleled federal control over mail-in voting and voter eligibility, which Democrats and voting rights groups are challenging in court. Experts say 2026 will serve as an unprecedented stress test of the integrity of American elections.    “Our election system withstood” Trump’s “attacks following the 2020 election,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who has led the pushback to the administration’s actions on elections, “but this will be an even tougher test, with more election deniers having access to federal power than ever before.” The Dismantling Barr has said that in the high-stakes days following the 2020 election, he felt like he was playing Whac-A-Mole with Trump’s “avalanche” of false election claims. The investigators at DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency supplied intelligence that disproved many of them, not just those involving Antrim County. CISA was created by Trump in his first term to counter cyber threats in the aftermath of Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 vote. It soon came to provide crucial expertise and support to thousands of local election officials grappling with increasingly sophisticated attacks.  After the 2020 election, it also played a crucial part in puncturing fallacies spread by Trump supporters, producing a “Rumor Control” website to rebut them. And it partnered with state officials and technology vendors to release a statement calling the election “the most secure in American history.” Trump swiftly fired Chris Krebs, whom he had appointed to lead CISA, but Krebs’ defense of the election’s soundness reverberated widely in the media and on Capitol Hill. Among Trump’s first actions upon returning to the Oval Office was eviscerating CISA.  Starting in February 2025, DHS leadership put employees focused on countering disinformation and helping safeguard elections on leave. The leadership also froze the agency’s other election security work, which included assessing local election offices for physical and cybersecurity risks, and disseminating sensitive intelligence information on threats. Eventually, all three dozen or so CISA employees specializing in elections were fired or transferred to work in other areas.  “It took years of dedicated, bipartisan, cross-sector partnership to build the security infrastructure we’ve had, and dismantling CISA leaves a gaping hole,” said Kathy Boockvar, an elections security expert who served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of state from 2019 to 2021. “We are making the job of securing our democracy exponentially harder.” A DHS spokesperson told ProPublica that the changes at CISA were in response to “a ballooning budget concealing a dangerous departure from its statutory mission,” which included “electioneering instead of defending America’s critical infrastructure.” The spokesperson said that CISA’s mission is still to coordinate protection of critical infrastructure, including by supporting local partners against cyber threats. It isn’t just CISA that’s been gutted.  The Trump administration has discarded or diminished other federal initiatives with roles in protecting election integrity or blocking foreign interference. While many of these actions have been reported, together they reveal the full sweep of the changes.  First, the administration got rid of the National Security Council’s election security group, which convened departmental leaders to coordinate federal actions related to voting. Then in August, the administration dismantled the Foreign Malign Influence Center, a branch of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that had stymied efforts by Russia, China and Iran to interfere in the 2024 election.  A spokesperson for ODNI said the center was redundant and that its functions were folded into other parts of the office’s intelligence apparatus in ways that “arguably makes our ability to monitor and address threats from foreign adversaries stronger, more efficient and more effective.” However, former national security officials, including one who had worked at the center, told ProPublica that its functions had largely ceased. Caitlin Durkovich, who led the NSC’s election security work during the Biden administration, said that under Trump the federal government has “abandoned” its traditional role in preserving election integrity and security. “Nearly every program and capability to stop bad actors and support election administrators has been dismantled,” she said. “Heading into the midterms, this leaves states and localities exposed, without the intelligence support or federal coordination they need to detect and respond to threats in real time — precisely when the stakes are highest.” The early months of the second Trump administration also brought seismic changes to three parts of federal law enforcement with central roles in elections. Kash Patel, the FBI’s new director, dismantled the public corruption team, which had been deployed in previous administrations to help monitor possible criminal activity on Election Day. The Foreign Influence Task Force, which aimed to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics, was also disbanded. (An FBI spokesperson said the bureau “remains committed to detecting and countering foreign influence efforts by adversarial nations.”) Furthermore, the Justice Department substantially reduced the role of its Public Integrity Section, which had been responsible for making sure the department’s inquiries weren’t improperly influenced by politics.  After the 2020 election, senior lawyers in the section warned against having the FBI investigate fraud claims raised by Trump allies, saying that the agency’s involvement could damage its reputation and appear motivated by partisanship. In this instance, they were overruled by Barr and his deputies, but former officials said this was a rare case in which their guidance was ignored. The need to directly overrule the unit, they said, made it a roadblock — one that no longer exists. A month after Trump returned to the Oval Office, the unit’s top staff resigned when agency leaders directed them to dismiss corruption charges against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams. More resigned later or were transferred. The 36-person section was reduced to two. The administration no longer mandates that it review politically sensitive cases, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Another key DOJ office, the Civil Rights Division’s voting section, had enforced federal laws that protect voting rights, particularly those that combat racial discrimination. In December 2020, the assistant attorney general overseeing the Civil Rights Division was one of the many department leaders who said they would resign if Trump promoted Jeffrey Clark, a leader who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, to head the department after Barr’s resignation. This mass threat of resignation ultimately led Trump to not promote Clark. But now, nearly all of the section’s roughly 30 career lawyers have resigned or been moved. This largely started last spring after Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, put out a memo saying their mission would shift from ensuring voting rights to enforcing Trump’s executive order on elections. The Trump administration then filled the section with conservative lawyers who are now litigating against the lawyers they replaced. At least four of those newly appointed lawyers participated in challenging the 2020 vote or have worked with people who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election. “It’s just a shocking and depressing reversal of the federal government’s role in making real the promise of nondiscrimination in voting and racial equality,” said Anna Baldwin, an appellate attorney for the Civil Rights Division who resigned last year and is now one of those litigating against the Justice Department in a new role at Campaign Legal Center. The Justice Department didn’t respond to specific questions about the dismantling of the Public Integrity Section or the change in mission for the Civil Rights Division. In all, at least 75 career officials who’d played important roles in elections work at DHS, DOJ and other departments have left or been fired, ProPublica found. Team America Late last summer, after the Trump administration had forced out most of the career specialists, a small group of political appointees began convening at the Department of Homeland Security’s headquarters.  The group — which once called itself “Team America,” according to sources familiar with the matter — looked for federal levers it could pull to make Trump’s March executive order about elections a reality, an effort that has not been previously reported.  They represented the new type of people running the show. Its core members included David Harvilicz, a DHS assistant secretary tasked with overseeing the security of election infrastructure, including voting machines, and three of his top staffers. As ProPublica has reported, Harvilicz had co-founded an AI company with an architect of Trump’s claims about Antrim County. Despite the setbacks the executive order had met with in court, there “was not a whole lot of discussion or disagreement” about acting on the directive from Harvilicz or one of his deputies, said a former federal official who interacted with group members. “It was just us saluting to do it.”  This small group was part of a wider team at DHS, DOJ and the White House seeking to push forward the president’s agenda. Some of Trump’s new guard are well known: After the 2020 election, Patel pressured military officials to help investigate a conspiracy theory about voting machines, according to a former Justice Department official. (Patel did not respond to a request for comment but claimed in congressional testimony that he did not recall the event.) Others, like Harvilicz, are more obscure but still wield consequential powers. These newcomers are seeking to carry out Trump’s executive orders and are unlikely to push back against his false claims that American elections are rife with fraud.  Team America members have echoed or spread such material themselves.  Heather Honey, who serves under Harvilicz in a newly created position focused on elections, falsely asserted that there were more ballots cast in Pennsylvania than voters in the 2020 presidential election. Trump cited this claim, which has been traced back to her, while exhorting his followers to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  At least 11 administration appointees, including Honey, have ties to the Election Integrity Network, a conservative grassroots organization seeking to transform American elections. It is led by Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. Gineen Bresso, who holds a top job in the White House counsel’s office, coordinated with the network’s leadership in 2024 as the Republican National Committee’s election integrity chair, ProPublica has reported. Since moving into government, Honey has maintained close ties to Mitchell’s organization, and she and at least two other federal officials have given its members private briefings.  Experts say these former activists who helped forge a movement built on the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump are seeking to make sure that does not happen again. “The election denial movement is now interwoven within the federal government, and they are working together toward a shared goal of reshaping elections” in ways that undermine the freedom to vote, said Brendan Fischer, a director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, pro-democracy legal organization. “It’s not just last-minute slapdash attempts to overturn the results” as in 2020, “but more systematic efforts to influence how elections are run months ahead of time.” In response to questions sent to DHS, Harvilicz and Honey, a DHS spokesperson disputed that they were seeking to use the department’s powers to advantage Trump, writing that its employees “are focused on keeping our elections safe, secure, and free” and working to “implement the President’s policies.” In response to questions about their ties to the election denial movement, the spokesperson wrote, “To meet the diverse and evolving challenges the Department faces, we hire experts with diverse backgrounds who go through a rigorous vetting process.” Mitchell did not respond to detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House answered questions sent to Bresso about her connection to Mitchell’s network by reiterating its commitment to making American elections secure.  Through the fall and winter, as the Justice Department demanded that states turn over confidential voter roll information, Team America worked to solve problems hindering the use of digital tools to comb the lists for noncitizens who had illegally registered to vote. Honey and others ironed out the technical details of merging information from different agencies and crafted data-sharing contracts. When Honey or others hit roadblocks, they’d go to the White House or senior DHS leaders who “would come in hot” to clear her path, said officials who interacted with them.  Initially, the plan was to run voter information obtained by DOJ through a Homeland Security tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system.  More recently, according to two people familiar with the matter, Team America has worked to harness a more powerful tool used by another branch of DHS, Homeland Security Investigations, to increase its ability to search for noncitizen voters and bring criminal charges against them.  While DHS told ProPublica that SAVE has identified more than 21,000 potential noncitizens on voter rolls in the past year, officials who have checked those results in detail have found vast inaccuracies, as ProPublica has reported. Most states — including those with millions of voters — have eventually marked only a few to a few hundred potential noncitizens as registered to vote, and far less have ever voted. The DHS spokesperson also called SAVE “secure and reliable.” As the election approaches, current and former officials and election security experts expressed concerns that Harvilicz and Honey, who’ve espoused debunked conspiracy theories about elections, are in positions to control the narrative around the vote’s soundness.  It’s hard to debunk false claims “coming with the seal of the federal government,” said Derek Tisler, counsel and manager with the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program. “I certainly worry what damage that could do to voters’ confidence.” Red Flags Perhaps nothing better reflects the breakdown of the guardrails that thwarted Trump’s rashest impulses in 2020 than his creation last fall of a special White House post reinvestigating his loss to Biden.  In December 2020, just days after Barr rebuffed Trump’s Antrim County claims, lawyers in the White House counsel’s office helped prevent the president from heeding activists’ call to essentially declare martial law to seize voting machines. This multihour shouting and cussing match has been called the craziest meeting of the first Trump administration. But the lawyer whom Trump hired in 2025 as his director of election security and integrity, Kurt Olsen, had worked to overturn Trump’s loss in court in 2020 and was later sanctioned by judges, including for making baseless allegations about Arizona elections. Olsen’s work in the second Trump administration has breached the firewall between the White House and DOJ officials, established after Watergate to prevent law enforcement officers from making decisions based on political pressure, said Gary Restaino, a former U.S. attorney in Arizona. “This is not a constitutional or even a statutory requirement,” Restaino said, “but it’s a democracy requirement to make sure that citizens throughout America understand that decisions about life and liberty are being made in an objective and consistent manner.” In a previously unreported series of events, around the end of 2025, Olsen flew to Georgia to meet with Paul Brown, the head of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, according to people familiar with the matter.  Olsen wanted the FBI to seize 2020 ballots from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, and gave Brown a report he claimed would justify the extraordinary action. Brown and his team emphasized to Olsen that any investigation his team did would be independent and fair.  When Brown and his team examined the report, they found that Georgia’s election board had already looked into its allegations, dismissing many altogether, and concluding that others came down to human error, not criminal wrongdoing. The report had been assembled by a longtime ally of Olsen’s and participant in the Election Integrity Network who had a history of discredited claims, ProPublica has reported. Based on their own investigation, Brown’s team submitted an affidavit to their superiors at DOJ that did not make a strong enough case to move forward with what Olsen wanted. Soon after, Brown was offered a choice: retire or be moved to a new office, people with knowledge of the exchange told ProPublica.  Olsen did not respond to requests for comment. An FBI spokesperson said that Brown “elected to retire” and that its “work in the election security space is entirely consistent with the law.” Brown’s ouster after refusing to carry out the seizure of 2020 election materials has been reported, but Olsen’s involvement and the details of their interactions leading to Brown’s retirement have not been previously disclosed.  With Brown gone, the case moved ahead under his replacement.  Trump administration officials also took another step to keep control of the investigation.  Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi chose Thomas Albus, whom Trump had appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, to prosecute the case even though it fell far outside his usual regional jurisdiction. Albus had been meeting with Olsen since around the time the White House lawyer was hired, ProPublica has reported. (Albus declined a request for comment.) In late January, the FBI carried out an unprecedented raid in Fulton County — and the agency’s affidavit, put together by Albus and Brown’s replacement, cited a version of the report Olsen gave to Brown as evidence supporting the seizure. ProPublica was part of a news coalition that sued to unseal the affidavit. An FBI spokesperson said that its agents “followed all procedure to ensure everything was in proper order, and FBI evidence team had the necessary court-authorized search warrant before they arrived on site.”  Ryan Crosswell, who worked in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section for around half a decade, handling a number of election cases, called Brown’s replacement and Albus’ involvement a “red flag” because of the unusual circumstances of their appointments.  “They’re just moving through people until they find someone who’s willing to do exactly what they want,” Crosswell said. The Justice Department did not respond to a question about Crosswell’s comment.   The extraordinary raid was also enabled in a previously unreported way by the destruction of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section. Multiple former lawyers for the section said they likely would have tried to block the Fulton County investigation because it lacked strong evidence, had a clear political slant and went against department directives that actions should not be taken “for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”  Crosswell said, “Based on everything we know, if PIN was still there, we’d say no.” John Keller was principal deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section from 2020 to 2025 and was acting chief when he resigned in early 2025. He worries that allegations of irregularities in the upcoming election will be handled on a partisan basis.   “Without that review and without apolitical, objective, honest brokers involved in the process, there is a much greater risk for intentional manipulation or inadvertent interference,” Keller said. “Dismantling the Brain” The week the FBI seized Fulton County’s ballots, about half of the nation’s secretaries of state converged on Washington, D.C., for their winter conference.  They had urgent questions about elections for Bondi, then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other luminaries who had promised to appear at the event. But none of the headline names showed, leaving conference attendees staring at an empty podium, until the session was abruptly canceled. The breakdown was emblematic of a widening chasm between state officials and the parts of the federal government that had, until recently, worked with them to secure American elections. Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, said in an interview that the trust between the Trump administration and states is “absolutely demolished.”  This loss of trust reflects that election deniers have assumed so many top roles at federal agencies. Honey sometimes represents DHS on cross-departmental conference calls with state election chiefs, an unsettling reality for those who spent years countering the false claims she made from outside the government.  On a February call, state officials expressed confusion about whether the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would still assess their election systems for physical and cyber vulnerabilities. Honey said it would, but Bellows said she’d been told it wouldn’t.  Two DHS officials told ProPublica CISA’s remaining staff avoids election work, afraid they could lose their jobs if they engage with state and local officials. “In CISA, elections are a toxic poison,” one said.  A DHS spokesperson said state and federal officials are still working together “every single day” to protect elections and that “The claim that DHS has a broken partnership with states and made our elections less secure is simply false.” The cuts to career election specialists and their divisions have eliminated information channels that spotlighted threats as voting took place, including Election Day command posts run by the Justice Department and FBI. Another information channel, which DHS used to fund, will still operate but will be available only to state and local election offices, not the federal government. Jessica Cadigan, a former FBI intelligence analyst who investigated Election Day threats, said FBI headquarters’ command post was critical to her cases. “That is dismantling the brain, if you will,” she said. “They are the ones that piece the whole thing together.” An FBI spokesperson said the agency will still have capabilities to monitor the situation on the ground through designated election crimes coordinator experts in all its field offices. Jena Griswold, Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, has come to see the federal government as adversarial to elections and election administration, rather than a partner.  Colorado is one of around 30 states the Justice Department has sued for confidential voter roll information. At least four courts that have fully considered those cases so far have dismissed them, although the Justice Department has appealed most of the decisions. (The others are pending.) Griswold told ProPublica she has added another lawyer to her staff to fight whatever comes next from the Trump administration. “Donald Trump,” she said, “has made American elections less safe.”

[Category: 1, democracy, donald trump, elections, midterms]

— A First Amendment Legend Eviscerates Brendan Carr With Substance And Style

 

at 4/17/26 12:03pm

Weve been covering Brendan Carrs censorial ambitions for a long time now. When Trump first picked him to chair the FCC, we warned people that the free speech warrior branding was a total sham. We later dug into the letter from a massive coalition of 80+ legal scholars, former FCC officials, and civil liberties groups detailing how Carrs threats fly in the face of the First Amendment. Hell, just this morning Karl wrote about how Carr is still plotting to punish Jimmy Kimmel for mocking President Trump. Meanwhile, Carr has responded to the criticism with smirking emojis and culture-war memes on X, treating the whole thing as performative trolling for an audience of one. But now, First Amendment lawyer Bob Corn-Revere has published an open letter to Carr that is, frankly, one of the most devastating things Ive read in years. And you really should go read the whole thing. While Carr has mostly laughed off or ignored criticism of his many First Amendment violations, a letter from Corn-Revere (beyond the incredible prose of the letter) may hit a bit different given his stature within the First Amendment world. He has famously spent decades fighting in the trenches of the hardest, most politically uncomfortable First Amendment cases in the country. He represented Larry Flynts Hustler Magazine in the landmark Hustler v. Falwell case. He defended 2 Live Crew in the obscenity prosecution over As Nasty As They Wanna Be. He was counsel in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, the Supreme Court case that effectively ended the FCCs broadcast indecency regime. There are many more famous cases on his resume as well. This is someone who has spent his entire career defending speech, including in cases where it was genuinely offensive, deeply unpopular, and legally novel — because thats what actual First Amendment commitment requires. Oh, and he served as Chief Counsel to former FCC Chairman James Quello, so he knows how the FCC works from the inside. So when this person tells Brendan Carr that he has betrayed his professed values, it carries a weight that Carrs thumbs-down emojis cant dismiss. The letter opens by pointing to the cautionary tale of Pam Bondis sudden firing as Attorney General: Pam Bondi’s sudden and ignominious end as Attorney General is an important cautionary lesson about what happens to officials in this administration who over-promise in order to curry favor with the man they see as their boss, but who under-perform because of the limits of their authority. Bondi promised the President she would prosecute his political enemies and failed miserably. The President rewarded her misplaced loyalty by denying her the graceful exit she sought, and instead fired her during a cross-town limo ride to watch a Supreme Court argument. You have recently threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters who air what you call “fake news,” which apparently includes any skeptical reporting about the war in Iran—something you know you cannot do legally. My advice? Don’t get into a car with the president anytime soon. That line sets the tone for everything that follows — a pointed warning from someone whos been inside the institution and watched Carrs transformation up close, not someone lecturing from a safe distance. From there, Corn-Revere walks through exactly how Carr has become the precise opposite of the person he used to claim to be, quoting Carrs own prior statements back at him: As you may recall, shortly after you were named to head the Federal Communications Commission, I offered you some unsolicited advice in the form of an open letter entitled “A Plea for Institutional Modesty.” I suggested you should be circumspect in your assertions of power over broadcasters because “you don’t have as much power as you may think,” and flexing your regulatory muscles would conflict with both the Communications Act and the Constitution. But as was clear from your initial acts as chairman and statements you made while campaigning for the job, your quest for political advancement overrode any previous commitment to First Amendment values. Gone were the days when, as a commissioner, you said things like “a newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them,” or that “inject[ing] partisan politics into our licensing process” is “a deeply troubling transgression of free speech and the FCC’s status as an independent agency.” I never expected you would heed my gratuitous advice, but had no idea how thoroughly you would betray your former (professed) values. Instead, you emerged as a Bizarro World caricature of yourself, threatening owners of broadcast networks with summer stock Don Corleone impressions and devoting much of your social media activity to jawboning. It is as if you set out to prove that the real mental health crisis in America isn’t about teens on Instagram, but public officials on X. If someone of BCRs stature said any of that about me, I might log off the internet forever. The letter is full of these moments where Corn-Revere combines deep legal knowledge with rhetorical skill matched by very few. Take his description of Carrs reliance on the long-dormant news distortion policy — a regulatory zombie that only exists because the FCC never formally killed it off after eliminating the Fairness Doctrine decades ago: The news distortion policy is like a phantom limb after the FCC amputated the fairness doctrine—it is not really there in substance, but you still seem to feel you can walk on it. Your smug social media posts about how broadcasters will be held to their public interest obligations “on your watch” ignores this history, but your claim that “the opposition to holding broadcasters accountable to the public interest comes increasingly from those unfamiliar with longstanding FCC precedent” is even worse, because you know it is a bald-faced lie. The letter also hammers home a point weve made repeatedly: the actual, messy consequences of Carrs performative bullying, and shows how spectacularly it has backfired over and over again. After Carr strong-armed Disney into suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live: Protesters picketed outside the gates of the Magic Kingdom, and an estimated 7.1 million people cancelled subscriptions to Disney-owned streaming services Disney+ and Hulu over the controversy—at about twice the usual churn rate. ABC affiliate group owners Sinclair Broadcasting and Nexstar Media Group, who had business before the Commission, and who dutifully followed your demand, also lost money. It turns out that advertisers will not pay as much for spots during reruns of Celebrity Family Feud as during Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Sinclair revenue dropped a reported 16 percent for the quarter. Nexstar also suffered losses, although the amounts were not disclosed. The result? The suspension ended a little more than a week after it began and Kimmel triumphantly returned to the air to his highest viewership in over a decade. Kimmel’s comeback garnered 6.3 million broadcast viewers and roughly 20 26 million views on social media within 24 hours. His attempt to manipulate equal opportunity rules to silence Stephen Colbert went even worse: In January, you caused the FCC staff to reinterpret whether candidate interviews on certain talk shows were exempt from the equal opportunities rule, reversing decades of precedent. You apparently were miffed that candidate interviews on certain TV shows did not trigger “equal time” requirements for their opponents under exemptions to the rule Congress adopted in 1959. Yet mysteriously, you said there was no need to apply your reinterpretation to conservative talk radio interviews. But your main target of this move, Stephen Colbert, outsmarted you. He ridiculed your reinterpretation of the equal opportunities rule on air, and gleefully transmitted his interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico on The Late Show’s YouTube channel, which is beyond the FCC’s jurisdiction. The interview got over seven million views overnight (more than three times the on-air viewership), Talarico immediately received $2.5 million in campaign contributions, and won his primary. Carrs tactics are unconstitutional and tactically stupid. He keeps creating the very outcomes hes supposedly trying to prevent — even as some less strong-willed news orgs buckle under his threats or pre-censor themselves to avoid his performative wrath. But the part of the letter that really sticks with me is the section on Carrs legal knowledge — specifically, the massive gap between what Carr actually knows and what he pretends to believe. Corn-Revere lays out the full chain of Supreme Court precedent cutting back on the FCCs assumed authority over broadcast content — and then lands this: But you know all this. Just as you know the FCC eliminated the fairness doctrine four decades ago, which is the regulatory progenitor of the “news distortion policy” you now love to cite (but only against broadcasts you perceive as critical of this administration). This matters because it removes the escape hatch of ignorance. When politicians misstate the law, you can at least entertain the possibility they just dont know better. Carr has been an FCC commissioner for nearly a decade. He practiced communications law. He knows what hes doing is legally indefensible, and he knows his smug social media posts about the law is clear are, as Corn-Revere puts it, a bald-faced lie. The letter ends by looking at what all of this does to Carrs legacy, and it lands with a quiet brutality that no amount of trolling can deflect: Your recent appearance before the Conservative Political Action Conference is a prime example, where you explained the president is “winning” against the media by listing several media personalities who have left their jobs, including (as you put it) “sleepy eyed Chuck Todd.” I should not have to remind you of this, but it is a poor and pathetic leader who measures “winning” by what he thinks he has destroyed rather than by what he has managed to build. And: As I wrote in my first open letter, selling out your (professed) values represents short-term thinking. I noted that “officials who have tried to muzzle the press for short-term political gain have not been treated well by history,” and “if I were your adviser, this is not how I would want history to remember you.” Now, to the extent you will be remembered at all, it will most likely be mainly as a South Park character. I wish you had listened. Carr will likely ignore this, much like he brushed off the coalition letter, his own past statements, and basically every legal guardrail he’s encountered since taking the chair. Thats his whole game — the threats, the memes, the emojis, the audition tape for whatever comes next. Still, the record is there now, written by someone whose First Amendment track record makes Carrs look like a cheap Halloween costume. And unlike Carrs social media posts, this letter will age well. Theres a lot more in the letter. Go read the whole thing. You wont regret it, even if Brendan Carr would likely wish to censor it like he wishes to censor Jimmy Kimmel.

[Category: 1, 1st amendment, bob corn-revere, brendan carr, donald trump, fcc, free speech, jimmy kimmel, news distortion]

— Daily Deal: Python Crash Course

 

at 4/17/26 11:58am

The Python Crash Course is a guide on how to get started in Python, why you should learn it, and how you can learn it. The syntax of the language is clean and the length of the code is relatively short. In this comprehensive course, you will get in-depth knowledge in data types, loops, python command lines, docstrings, and much more. It’s fun to work in Python because it allows you to think about the problem rather than focusing on the syntax. If all this excites you, then join this python coding course today! Its on sale for $11. 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 Still Pretending The Most Dangerous Domestic Terrorists Are People Who Don’t Like Fascism

 

at 4/17/26 10:26am

Just to be clear, when I refer to Trump in terms of his administration, Im referring to the collective hive mind of dangerous enablers he employs. Trump, by himself, is incapable of closing an umbrella. Its the people around him that are dangerous, since theyre able to convert his rants and brain stem impulses into action. While its understandable that an aspiring autocrat like Trump would feel threatened by a movement dedicated to opposing fascists, its only now that hes returned to office that he can do anything about it. Deliberately ignoring the fact that the most dangerous domestic terrorists are located on the far right of the political spectrum (including the hundreds of people he pardoned for assaulting police officers and raiding a federal building following his 2020 election loss), Trumps administration is once again attempting to turn protected First Amendment activity into terroristic acts worthy of lengthy minimum federal sentences. The United States was as concerned as always about Islamist terrorism, said the official, Monica A. Jacobsen, according to a copy of her prepared remarks reviewed by The New York Times and three officials briefed on the meeting. But, she told her counterparts from Europe, Canada and Australia, the Trump administration also wanted more attention on what it believed was an insidious, underestimated threat: the far left. Western governments must combat “antifa and far-left terrorism,” Ms. Jacobsen’s prepared remarks asserted, casting the effort as an evolution in counterterrorism following the “global war on terror.” Her prepared speech defined far-left terrorism to include threats from communists, Marxists, anarchists, anticapitalists and those with “eco-extremist” and “other self-identified antifascist ideologies.” As always is a nice touch. Its always a good idea to keep an Islamist scapegoat in the yard, especially when youre busy losing a war with Iran. Not only does it generate steady work for bored FBI agents, but it also allows Trump to continue pretending the mass deportation of hardworking, tax-paying non-whites is somehow contributing to the effort to root out an alleged 1,700 Iran sleeper cells in the United States. (No sleeper cell has been broken up or deported despite Trump claiming the government already knows who these sleepers are and where theyre located.) As evidence of the dangerousness of far left terrorists, Jacobsen pointed to a single protest in Milan, Italy, in which police and protesters clashed the favorite euphemism deployed by people who wish readers to believe protesters were just as violent as law enforcement officers. Meanwhile, the administration cant actually find any hard evidence to back up its assertions about the supposed violent threat posed by far left activists. In November, the State Department took the first major step in the strategy by designating four leftist groups in Europe — two in Greece, one in Germany and another in Italy — as terrorist organizations. None of the groups has been known to have plotted attacks on Americans in the past decade, which is usually a criterion for such a designation. All it can do as it did late last year when Trump unilaterally declared antifa a terrorist organization is disappear any evidence to the contrary something it did less than 48 hours after Charlie Kirk was killed by gunman during a campus appearance. Even if you were to decide that whats being claimed about far left terrorism in Europe by this administration is somehow true, you cant ignore the facts on the ground here in the United States: Over the past decade, right-wing extremists have killed 112 people across 152 terrorist attacks in the United States, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan research institution. Over the same period, left-wing extremists killed 13 people over 35 attacks, according to the analysis, while jihadist attacks left 82 dead. Even if Trump hadnt spent his entire term so far routinely insulting and berating our European allies, its still unlikely he would have been able to convince them to ignore the reality of the situation for the sole purpose of future abuses of civil liberties and rights. Trump has been pounding this table since late last year, but now hes finding fewer world leaders willing to indulge his fantasies or nod politely as Trumps emissaries literally make shit up about left-wing activist groups. The State Department wants to bring foreign law enforcement officials from at least 17 countries to The Hague in May for a workshop on how to fight far-left groups like antifa. [] Formal invitations had not been sent as of last week, in part because Congress had to approve funding. U.S. officials told The Times that foreign governments had expressed less interest in the events than the State Department had hoped. Once again, lets pause to reflect on these claims. Antifa simply stands for anti-fascist. You barely have to move left at all to oppose fascism. All you would have to do is move to the left just far enough to align with I dont know Ronald Reagan? And yet this administration is so stupid and thuggish that it actually thinks it can portray people opposed to fascism as more dangerous than US citizens who actively support it. Everything else on Trumps list of domestic threats is just a lazy rip-off of McCarthyism. Far left supposedly covers Communists, Marxists, anti-capitalists (yet another tell), and eco-extremists. In other words, people who disagree with this particular president and his policies. Free speech is what it is. But Trump and his enablers want people to go away for decades by turning dissent into terrorism. Meanwhile, the true terrorist threat that is the extremely foreseeable result of the war in Iran is being back-burnered in favor of locking up people who just want to see this country remain a democratic republic. Fortunately for us, the rest of the world is no longer interested (Israel, Hungary, and Russia aside) in pretending Trump poses less of a threat than the people he wants to punish.

[Category: 1, antifa, domestic terrorists, donald trump, eu, far right extremists, fascism, free speech, insurrection, january 6, trump administration, white christian nationalists]

— Brendan Carr Cooking Up New Sham Investigation Of Jimmy Kimmel

 

at 4/17/26 6:28am

As the boss of the countrys media and telecom regulators, theres plenty of corporate malfeasance and corrupt shenanigans Brendan Carr could be targeting on any given day at the countrys biggest media and telecom companies. But because Carrs never been all that interested in the public interest, hes once again spending his time trying to hurt a comedian who made fun of our unpopular president. After an embarrassing failure at his attempt to censor Jimmy Kimmel for criticizing Donald Trump last year, Policyband notes that Carr is cooking up a new inquiry to ensnare Kimmel. This time, Carr is pretending he cares about financial conflict of interests, and is looking to revisit long‑standing conflict‑of‑interest rules for broadcasters (and Kimmel): A lot of people don’t know this, but there’s conflict‑of‑interest rules that apply to broadcasters, both personal financial, but also personal political,” he said. Carr — who had a blow up with Kimmel last September over the comic’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination — did not mention Kimmel by name. But he really did not need to because of the existence of a conflict of interest complaint pending against the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! (via an ABC station) at the FCC. Its been abundantly clear that the Trump administration is one giant, lumbering financial conflict of interest, though obviously Carrs not actually interested in any equal application of financial conflict of interest rules. Instead, hes leveraging FCC rules to single out Kimmel and a $23,000 payment Kimmel made to Democrat Adam Schiff’s campaign a year before Schiff appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Trumps friend Larry Ellison has already taken out one late night TV host, Stephen Colbert, who was abruptly fired by CBS. Now Trump continues to try and leverage his lapdog at the FCC to find new and creative ways to make life difficult for any remaining late night hosts, tramping the First Amendment at every and any opportunity. Carr is the same guy who recently (and illegally) ignored any remaining media consolidation limits to help his friends at right wing TV broadcasters merge, something only scuttled after court intervention. Whether its a conflict of interest inquiry, a free speech complaint, or cybersecurity reforms, absolutely nothing Carr does is in good faith; something our press struggles to make evident. The exception has been outlets like Wired, which recently reported that a right wing activism group, the Center for American Rights (CAR), had direct access to Carr, bypassing all standard staff interactions. CAR was integral in helping Carr shape some of his hollow complaints against Kimmel and ABC in relation to his abuse of the antiquated FCC equal time rule. With that bogus censorship effort thwarted, Carr has moved on to creatively crapping all over the First Amendment in equally creative, but likely equally fruitless ways.

[Category: 1, abc, disney, 1st amendment, brendan carr, censorship, fcc, financial conflict of interest, free speech, jimmy kimmel, sham investigation, trump]

— Rockstar On Latest Potential Hack & Information Leak: Meh, We Don’t Care

 

at 4/16/26 8:59pm

Several years ago, Rockstar Games suffered an intrusion into its corporate network. During that intrusion, a trove of data, files, and information about the in-development and unfinished Grand Theft Auto 6 game was exfiltrated. Under monetary threat of that data leaking, Rockstar completely lost its mind and went on a DMCA takedown campaign to try to remove any leaked content or footage that was being teased by the hacker in circulation. Readers here will already know that this kind of DMCA whac-a-mole never works and instead served only to Streisand the whole story into wider consciousness, working directly against Rockstars purposes in the first place. Today, Rockstar is under threat of a similar leak. The company has acknowledged that hacking group ShinyHunters gained access to Rockstar information through a third-party data breach, namely that of Anodot, and has threatened to leak all that data if it isnt paid by Rockstar. ShinyHunters claim to have breached Rockstars outsourced Snowflake cloud storage system by way of a third-party analytics tool, Anodot, which reportedly suffered its own breach recently. With authentication tokens from Anodot, ShinyHunters would not have needed to crack Snowflakes security directly⁠. They would have just been recognized as an authorized party and let in through the front door, like Agent 47 in a security guard outfit. ShinyHunters claims to have had access to Rockstars database for a significant amount of time before it was realized anything was amiss. Your Snowflake instances were compromised thanks to Anodot.com. Pay or leak, ShinyHunters wrote in a post on their site. This is a final warning to reach out by 14 Apr 2026 before we leak along with several annoying (digital) problems thatll come your way. Make the right decision, dont be the next headline. Unlike the previous hack and threat of a leak, however, Rockstar appears to be taking a completely different tactic. In addition to once again refusing to pay any ransom, which is absolutely the correct course of action, the company has also basically shrugged its shoulders over this entire situation. Rockstar quickly responded to Kotaku saying that while “a limited amount of non-material company information was accessed,” the incursion would have “no impact on our organization or our players.” There’s still no clear idea of what data has been taken, but Rockstar is certainly playing it very cool. ShinyHunters, should it go through with plans to publish the information, will likely post it to its dark web pages from which it’ll eventually filter to the wider public. Now, I want to be careful to not give Rockstar any undue credit here. As discussed below, the type of data that was gained in this particular breach is far more banal than the previous one, which included actual unfinished game footage, and perhaps its that which explains this change in stance. But I would argue that this is mostly the right course even if that werent the case. You cant bottle up the genie once the leak is out there, so you might as well put your PR hat on and engage with the public in a way that puts the company and the product in the best light, while also acknowledging the thirst for more information on the unreleased game. This is something weve advocated for for years now. Its a simple as putting out a statement roughly like: Hey, everyone! We know there might be a leak about our company and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto title coming out soon and we know youre interested in anything you can get your hands on about the game. We are too! We want you to see the game, but we do prefer you see it in its finished state. But if you cant wait that long, we understand. Please just also understand that we are something of a victim in all of this. It kind of hurts and is frustrating to have our plans for this release get derailed by this kind of criminal activity, but all we ultimately care about is making sure you know just how awesome the next GTA is going to be! Good will would abound, the hackers wouldnt get the payout that wished for, and the company could appear awesome, and, more importantly, human. I very much hope that this response from Rockstar thus far is an indication that thats where the company is headed with all of this. In this case, ShinyHunters did eventually release the leaked info, and you can see why Rockstar didnt care: Looking at the structure of the data, it does appear to come from automated exports generated by analytics pipelines. The files are compressed CSV outputs, commonly used for batch reporting in cloud data platforms like Snowflake. This supports earlier reporting that the access point was not Rockstar’s core network but a third-party analytics integration, believed to involve Anodot. Some of the files also reference internal monitoring and testing. For example, dataset names linked to cheat detection models and platform-level revenue mismatches suggest the data includes operational insights used by Rockstar teams to manage gameplay balance and detect abuse. There are also references to Zendesk ticket metrics and customer support reporting, indicating visibility into service operations rather than individual player accounts. What is not present in the leaked material is just as important. There are no player credentials, account data, or unreleased game assets such as GTA VI content. That aligns with Rockstar’s earlier statement that the breach involved limited company information and did not impact players. So perhaps Rockstars reaction is more explained by the lack of any really problematic content in the leak. But, still, it is a reminder that you dont have to completely freak out over every leak.

[Category: 1, rockstar games, breach, grand theft auto, hack, leak, shinyhunters]

— Ctrl-Alt-Speech: The Silence Of The LLMs

 

at 4/16/26 5:06pm

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. In this weeks round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: The Darkest Web (BBC) Federal agencies skirt Trump’s Anthropic ban to test its advanced AI model (Politico) Anthropic Opposes the Extreme AI Liability Bill That OpenAI Backed (Wired) Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says (Politico EU) Statement by President von der Leyen with Executive Vice-President Virkkunen on the digital age verification app (European Commission) Apple threatened to remove Grok from the App Store over sexualized deepfakes, letter says (NBC News) A fake Ledger app on the Apple App Store drained $9.5 million in crypto (Coindesk) India’s Decentralized System of Internet Censorship (Tech Policy Press) As Social Media Tears Society Apart, a New Crop of Scary Movies Focuses on the Horror of Content Moderation (Variety) We’re still yet to find a Ctrl-Alt-Speech 2026 Bingo Card winner — could this week be your lucky day? Play along!

[Category: 1, anthropic, apple, twitter, x, xai, app stores, child safety, content moderation, grok, india]

— The Right Wing Origins Of Age Verification Laws Don’t Disappear Just Because They’re Going Bipartisan.

 

at 4/16/26 2:05pm

I think its important to understand that, despite claims to the contrary, age verification is, inherently, a right-wing effort. While its currently true that age verification laws are being supported globally by those on the political right and left, they started as very much a right wing effort to suppress disliked speech by claiming it was harmful to children. Even if some of the laws now have bipartisan support, we need to understand its origins. People will point to the bipartisan nature of many of these current laws to push back on the idea that its truly a right wing effort. Australias monstrosity of age-gating laws was adopted by the collective efforts of center-left and left-wing political parties part of the ruling government. The Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom was the brainchild of Conservative Party MPs under former Prime Minister Theresa May, but the Labour government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now carrying out the policies of the sweeping digital regulatory measures in national law. But age verification laws, today, originate from right-wing and far-right efforts to restrict access to porn and other content that could be classified as “harmful to minors.” As documented extensively by academics, cybersecurity experts, folks here at Techdirt, and in my own investigative journalism, these laws define content as “pornographic” or “harmful to minors” under such broad definitions. For example, the age verification law in Kansas defines the material on the internet covered by the harmful classification to include “acts of homosexuality.” That terminology is a clear nod to the not-too-long-ago era of unconstitutional state sodomy laws that made it a criminal offense to have same-sex sexual activity. The Texas age verification law intended to compel online adult entertainment platforms to plaster public health warnings about the ostensibly addictive nature of watching pornography. There is no accepted evidence of this. It is also worth noting that out of the 26 U.S. states with age verification laws that explicitly target pornography and adult content on the books, are regarded as “red” states with Republican-controlled state legislatures. Many have a one-party rule in both the legislative and executive branches, such as in Missouri, where I am based. All 26 states that enacted porn age-verification laws as of 2026 voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election, indicating a strong geographic overlap with red states. While I do hold that this doesn’t suggest strong ideological clustering, it shows a strong partisan alignment. Many of the age verification laws that cover pornography originated in Republican-controlled legislatures, but a few Democratic governors — including the one who signed the first such law in Louisiana — approved them. This reflects bipartisan expansion in some capacity, but this is certainly not a consistent statement of bipartisan effort. Rather, it is partisan pressure patterns. If you consider the bipartisan adoption of age verification laws, this could reflect a familiar pattern of support during the passage of the FOSTA-SESTA statute.  Early religious conservative and right-wing efforts to curtail sex trafficking on the internet built up broader support as political pressures mounted on left-wing politicians by organizations like SWERF feminist groups to be early supporters to the law as well (e.g. Richard Blumenthal). While this does not prove that Democratic officials supported such measures because of clear pressure, the political pressure dynamics rely on the framing that age verification laws should be a no-brainer in protecting kids across the internet. The simple reality is that the right wing strongly backs age-verification laws in the United States. It is a major enterprise dominated by social conservatives, MAGA supporters, Christian nationalists, and anti-LGBTQ+ activists, among others. Yes, they have convinced some centrists and progressives to join in, but its difficult to ignore where this entire push came from and who supported it initially. Case in point: Project 2025 and the coalition of organizations tied to the Heritage Foundation-led effort. Much has been written on the Project 2025 and its so-called “proposals” to outlaw online pornography and deprive such speech of First Amendment protections. One of the architects of Project 2025, Russ Vought, was caught on hidden camera explaining how age verification laws could be used as a “backdoor” to adopt the demanded porn prohibitions nationally. Through this lens, the backdoor approach seems to be working, and those on the left wing further advance the efforts by further encompassing entire swaths of the internet that aren’t even remotely classified as pornographic and “adults-only.” The trade group representing many of these age verification companies has openly lobbied alongside many of these groups in favor of age verification laws. And the efforts are now proving successful, despite the clear implications on freedom of speech, especially for individuals who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is openly endorsing an Australia-style social media ban for individuals under the age of 16. Evidence continues to grow that Aussie-style bans can easily be circumvented, proving age gating is still not a “settled” tech. It is not “settled,” despite what proponents of these laws and the companies that develop this technology continue to claim. Congressional proposals like the Kids Online Safety Act were introduced with bipartisan co-sponsorship led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. Blackburn, specifically, began courting anti-LGBTQ+ groups to back the Kids Online Safety Act by presenting the proposal as a means to block forms of LGBTQ+ speech—all expression with First Amendment protections. And once these types of frameworks exist, the history suggests they rarely remain limited to their original targets. Obviously, not every supporter of age verification laws shares the same goals and ideology. But it does mean we should be honest about where these laws came from and who built the playbook that others are now following. Bipartisan support doesn’t erase these glaring origins and how right wing religious groups have laundered this into more progressive spaces by claiming its all about protecting children. Is it currently and exclusively right-wing? No. Is it right-wing in nature and origin? Yes. If these policies do carry the DNA of earlier right-wing efforts to regulate sexuality and expression, then we should not be surprised when they expand beyond pornography and into other forms of the lawful speech we all consume. There is a real danger here—not just who supports these laws today, but what they are capable of becoming tomorrow. Bipartisan support may change the optics, but it does not change the reality: this is still, at its core, a right-wing effort. Nothing changes that. Michael McGrady covers the tech and legal sides of the online porn business.

[Category: 1, age verification, censorship, left wing, protect the children, right wing, speech control]

— The Right Wing Origins Age Verification Laws Don’t Disappear Just Because They’re Going Bipartisan.

 

at 4/16/26 2:05pm

I think its important to understand that, despite claims to the contrary, age verification is, inherently, a right-wing effort. While its currently true that age verification laws are being supported globally by those on the political right and left, they started as very much a right wing effort to suppress disliked speech by claiming it was harmful to children. Even if some of the laws now have bipartisan support, we need to understand its origins. People will point to the bipartisan nature of many of these current laws to push back on the idea that its truly a right wing effort. Australias monstrosity of age-gating laws was adopted by the collective efforts of center-left and left-wing political parties part of the ruling government. The Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom was the brainchild of Conservative Party MPs under former Prime Minister Theresa May, but the Labour government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now carrying out the policies of the sweeping digital regulatory measures in national law. But age verification laws, today, originate from right-wing and far-right efforts to restrict access to porn and other content that could be classified as “harmful to minors.” As documented extensively by academics, cybersecurity experts, folks here at Techdirt, and in my own investigative journalism, these laws define content as “pornographic” or “harmful to minors” under such broad definitions. For example, the age verification law in Kansas defines the material on the internet covered by the harmful classification to include “acts of homosexuality.” That terminology is a clear nod to the not-too-long-ago era of unconstitutional state sodomy laws that made it a criminal offense to have same-sex sexual activity. The Texas age verification law intended to compel online adult entertainment platforms to plaster public health warnings about the ostensibly addictive nature of watching pornography. There is no accepted evidence of this. It is also worth noting that out of the 26 U.S. states with age verification laws that explicitly target pornography and adult content on the books, are regarded as “red” states with Republican-controlled state legislatures. Many have a one-party rule in both the legislative and executive branches, such as in Missouri, where I am based. All 26 states that enacted porn age-verification laws as of 2026 voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election, indicating a strong geographic overlap with red states. While I do hold that this doesn’t suggest strong ideological clustering, it shows a strong partisan alignment. Many of the age verification laws that cover pornography originated in Republican-controlled legislatures, but a few Democratic governors — including the one who signed the first such law in Louisiana — approved them. This reflects bipartisan expansion in some capacity, but this is certainly not a consistent statement of bipartisan effort. Rather, it is partisan pressure patterns. If you consider the bipartisan adoption of age verification laws, this could reflect a familiar pattern of support during the passage of the FOSTA-SESTA statute.  Early religious conservative and right-wing efforts to curtail sex trafficking on the internet built up broader support as political pressures mounted on left-wing politicians by organizations like SWERF feminist groups to be early supporters to the law as well (e.g. Richard Blumenthal). While this does not prove that Democratic officials supported such measures because of clear pressure, the political pressure dynamics rely on the framing that age verification laws should be a no-brainer in protecting kids across the internet. The simple reality is that the right wing strongly backs age-verification laws in the United States. It is a major enterprise dominated by social conservatives, MAGA supporters, Christian nationalists, and anti-LGBTQ+ activists, among others. Yes, they have convinced some centrists and progressives to join in, but its difficult to ignore where this entire push came from and who supported it initially. Case in point: Project 2025 and the coalition of organizations tied to the Heritage Foundation-led effort. Much has been written on the Project 2025 and its so-called “proposals” to outlaw online pornography and deprive such speech of First Amendment protections. One of the architects of Project 2025, Russ Vought, was caught on hidden camera explaining how age verification laws could be used as a “backdoor” to adopt the demanded porn prohibitions nationally. Through this lens, the backdoor approach seems to be working, and those on the left wing further advance the efforts by further encompassing entire swaths of the internet that aren’t even remotely classified as pornographic and “adults-only.” The trade group representing many of these age verification companies has openly lobbied alongside many of these groups in favor of age verification laws. And the efforts are now proving successful, despite the clear implications on freedom of speech, especially for individuals who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is openly endorsing an Australia-style social media ban for individuals under the age of 16. Evidence continues to grow that Aussie-style bans can easily be circumvented, proving age gating is still not a “settled” tech. It is not “settled,” despite what proponents of these laws and the companies that develop this technology continue to claim. Congressional proposals like the Kids Online Safety Act were introduced with bipartisan co-sponsorship led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. Blackburn, specifically, began courting anti-LGBTQ+ groups to back the Kids Online Safety Act by presenting the proposal as a means to block forms of LGBTQ+ speech—all expression with First Amendment protections. And once these types of frameworks exist, the history suggests they rarely remain limited to their original targets. Obviously, not every supporter of age verification laws shares the same goals and ideology. But it does mean we should be honest about where these laws came from and who built the playbook that others are now following. Bipartisan support doesn’t erase these glaring origins and how right wing religious groups have laundered this into more progressive spaces by claiming its all about protecting children. Is it currently and exclusively right-wing? No. Is it right-wing in nature and origin? Yes. If these policies do carry the DNA of earlier right-wing efforts to regulate sexuality and expression, then we should not be surprised when they expand beyond pornography and into other forms of the lawful speech we all consume. There is a real danger here—not just who supports these laws today, but what they are capable of becoming tomorrow. Bipartisan support may change the optics, but it does not change the reality: this is still, at its core, a right-wing effort. Nothing changes that. Michael McGrady covers the tech and legal sides of the online porn business.

[Category: 1, age verification, censorship, left wing, protect the children, right wing, speech control]

— All But 3 Of The 4,499 Refugees Admitted To The US Under Trump Are White South Africans

 

at 4/16/26 12:03pm

Weve got a throwback administration that wants to bring us back to halcyon days of early 1950s America, that preceded Supreme Court-ordered school desegregation. If it could, Im sure it would go back even further, taking at least another 100 years off the clock. The Trump administration has no problem with embracing bigotry. That much has been made clear by the guy at the top of the org chart. While most presidents no matter how racist would at least try to present something statesmanlike when talking to the public, Trump has delivered his hatred of non-whites in press conferences and social media tweets. He has frequently referred to non-white countries as shitholes and their citizens as low IQ. He has claimed Latin America and South America are sending the US nothing but terrorists, drug dealers, and rapists. He has also asked publicly why we cant get more immigrants from predominantly white countries, like Switzerland, Norway, and other countries where blue eyes and blond hair are commonplace. (The answer, of course, is that citizens of those countries actually like the nations they reside in, what with their sensible governments, the prioritization of social safety nets over golden parachutes, and affordable health care. They also prefer their government not be run by criminals and rapists, nor overly forgiving of certain terrorists.) In hopes of replacing the browner people hes actively displacing in his War on Migrants, Trump reached out to the supposedly persecuted white people of South Africa, which has only recently made steps towards treating Black people like human beings, rather than possessions or low-level subordinates. Having seen some out-of-context viral video, Trump was convinced white South Africans were being oppressed by Black South Africans, much in the same way he became convinced Haitian refugees were eating peoples pets and/or local water fowl. All of this racism is now traceable. Its in the official numbers, as Alex Ip pointed out on Bluesky. The latest refugee numbers compiled [PDF] by the State Department (and released every month) show theres a new replacement theory in operation here one that hopes to fill the US with as many white people as possible. Between October 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026, 4,499 refugees were admitted to the US. All five pages (10 states each) tell the same story: every single refugee admitted during this six-month period was from South Africa. The only exception? Three Afghan refugees who are now residing in Colorado and who arrived here last November. Since last November, every refugee has been from South Africa. While it may be presumptive to assume that every South African admitted was white, its the kind of assumption thats safe to make because this administration publicly stated its only interested in rescuing white South Africans from largely imagined racial violence. The state-by-state breakdown makes it clear the South Africans who have taken advantage of this refugee status are there because Trump rolled out the white carpet for them. The two states with by far the largest numbers of South African refugees are Texas (551) and Florida (331) both deeply red states that are fully MAGA cooked. California runs a close third with 316, but thats because California has always attracted arrivals from foreign countries, much in the same way it has attracted US citizens from all over the nation, with its promises of beaches, warm weather, and plenty of places to work while you wait for your script to be optioned. The only thing working against the administration is all the efforts its made to prevent non-citizens from having any rights, much less an opportunity to vote. Im sure the White Houses finest legal minds (smash cut to a million monkeys with typewriters and Trump U law degrees) are busy finding a way to speed run the naturalization process, but only for refugees admitted to this country since last November. The other irony is some South Africans whove taken advantage of this are now claiming theyd rather go back to living in the country they fled from because it seems far less dangerous than remaining in a country run by people who prefer fascism to democracy. This is about as openly racist as it gets. And yet, its just going to end up being more bigoted flotsam that will be pushed aside by the next burst of awfulness by this administration. There will be more where this came from. Sooner or later, some of it will manage to break the surface.

[Category: 1, bigotry, dhs, ice, immigration, mass deportation, racism, south africa, trump administration, white boy summer, white christian nationalism]

— Daily Deal: The Ultimate Python & Artificial Intelligence Certification Bundle

 

at 4/16/26 11:58am

The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to help you take your Python and AI knowledge to the next level. Youll learn about data pre-processing and visualization, artificial neural networks, how to use the Keras framework, and more. Its on sale for $40. 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]

— Oh Look, The MAGA FTC Built The Censorship Industrial Complex It Was Screaming About

 

at 4/16/26 10:29am

Weve been covering the Trump administrations escalating campaign against NewsGuard for a while now. It started with the House Oversight Committees absurd investigation of the company for the crime of expressing opinions about news reliability. But then there was the FTCs burdensome fishing expedition and blocking of the merger of two advertising giants — Omnicom and IPG — unless they stopped working with NewsGuard. That one prompted NewsGuard to sue the agency. Now the FTC, joined by a coalition of eight red states, has finished the job, getting the three other big ad agencies to agree not to use NewsGuard (or the Global Disinformation Index). That means every single one of the five major advertising agency holding companies in the United States has now been successfully pressured by the federal government to stop using NewsGuards ratings. All of them. Entirely because NewsGuard expressed opinions about conservative news outlets that some powerful people found inconvenient. I seem to recall some fairly dramatic freakouts from supposed free speech absolutists about government pressure on media organizations constituting a massive First Amendment crisis. Strange that none of those people are speaking up about this. Many seem downright supportive. I also seem to recall that in NRA v. Vullo, just two years ago, the Supreme Court said that government employees are not allowed to threaten companies not to do business with others because of disfavored opinions. The MAGA crowd celebrated that ruling. And now theyre doing the exact same thing that Vullo was accused of, except even more directly. The United States government has successfully prevented a private journalism organization from doing business with the entire major advertising industry. All because NewsGuard expressed opinions about the reliability of news sources, and some of those opinions hurt the feelings of conservative media outlets — most notably Newsmax. The FTC is leaning hard on an extraordinarily stretched interpretation of antitrust law to pull this off. The FTCs complaint alleges that the three remaining major ad agencies — WPP, Publicis, and Dentsu — colluded through trade associations to establish common brand safety standards, and that this collusion constituted an illegal restraint of trade under the Sherman Act. Since theyd already gotten the other two, Omnicom and IPG, to agree to stop using NewsGuard as a condition of their merger approval, the full set is covered. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who promised when he took the job to end politically motivated investigations (he meant Lina Khans, not his own), offered some truly rich language in the press release: “The ad agencies’ brand-safety conspiracy turned competition in the market for ad-buying services on its head,” said Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. “The antitrust laws guarantee participation in a market free from conduct, such as economic boycotts, that distort the fundamental competitive pressures that promote lower prices, higher quality products and increased innovation. “As we explain in our complaint, the brand-safety agreement limited competition in the market for ad-buying services and deprived advertisers of the benefits of differentiated brand-safety standards that could be tailored to their unique advertising inventory,” he continued. “This unlawful collusion not only damaged our marketplace, but also distorted the marketplace of ideas by discriminating against speech and ideas that fell below the unlawfully agreed-upon floor. The proposed order remedies the dangers inherent to collusive practices and restores competition to the digital news ecosystem.” The marketplace of ideas — thats a fun phrase to invoke while using government regulatory power to prevent private companies from subscribing to a journalism ratings service because you dont like what the ratings say. Ferguson is claiming to restore the marketplace of ideas by directly removing a participant from it. Strip away the out-of-context, ominous-sounding internal email quotes, and the complaint describes something far less scandalous than the FTC wants you to believe. The advertising industry, through trade associations (the 4As Advertiser Protection Bureau and the World Federation of Advertisers GARM initiative), developed common standards for what kinds of content advertisers might not want their brands associated with. This is a practice that has existed in advertising forever — brands dont want their logos next to terrorist recruitment content, pornography, or content promoting illegal activity. Thats what brand safety means. The industry then expanded those standards over time to include categories like misinformation — and, in doing so, some individual agencies chose to use NewsGuards ratings, among other tools, to help implement those standards. The complaint makes this sound terrifying through selective quoting. The most dramatic bit is this, from GARM, cautioning participants about discussing their coordination publicly: The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. Thats a colorful quote! But its also a joke. Fairly obviously. What it describes — trade associations encouraging discretion about internal industry discussions — is routine. What matters is whether the underlying conduct is actually anticompetitive in a way the Sherman Act cares about. And thats where the complaint falls apart. This was about setting brand safety standards. Not about preventing competition. In a real antitrust case involving a cartel, youd see competitors agreeing to fix prices, divide markets, or restrict output to inflate profits at consumers expense. What the FTC describes here is companies subscribing to the same third-party ratings service and incorporating it into their own, independent brand safety strategies. Thats like saying five banks are running an illegal conspiracy because they all use FICO scores and independently decided not to lend to borrowers with scores below 600. Common inputs dont equal coordinated outputs. The FTCs own complaint includes evidence of the agencies competing on brand safety — a Publicis executive explicitly strategized about creating a better brand safety guide than WPPs, and recommended distributing it only internally to maintain competitive advantage: She further recommended, with emphasis, only distribut[ing] this internally and for clients, not putting it publically on our website as GroupM [WPP] did. Thats competition. Thats exactly what a market without collusion looks like. Companies see what their rivals are doing, and try to do it better. The complaint acknowledges that the Interactive Advertising Bureau itself recognized that Advertising quality is in the eye of the beholder and recommended a nuanced approach rather than blocking entire content categories or keywords. The agencies were, in fact, trying to develop exactly such nuanced approaches — and the evidence the FTC presents shows them debating and disagreeing about how to handle misinformation as a category. One agency executive described the topic as complicated and important and suggested tabling it. Others had a ton of back and forth discussion and were close, but not 100% there. This is just what happens when industry participants work through a difficult issue. It can look an awful lot like what the FTC calls conspiracy if you strip away enough context and squint hard enough. The real tell, however, is the remedy. If the FTC genuinely believed the problem was anticompetitive coordination between ad agencies, the remedy would be straightforward — stop coordinating and compete independently on brand safety standards. Make your own decisions. Develop your own tools. Compete. Thats not what the consent decree says. Instead, the order will ensure that each of the biggest U.S. advertising agencies are prevented from engaging in agreements that would set common brand safety standards or restrict advertising based on biased and politically motivated criteria. And in the Omnicom/IPG merger conditions, the language was even more explicit: The merged company was prohibited from using any service that reflects viewpoints as to the veracity of news reporting and adherence to journalistic standards or ethics. That is entirely about punishing companies that ranked conservative news sources as untrustworthy. Its about punishing speech. The government is prohibiting private companies from using services that express viewpoints about the veracity of news reporting. Thats a content-based restriction on speech, imposed through regulatory coercion, targeting specific viewpoints the government disfavors. In any other context, the people pushing this would call it censorship — because thats exactly what it is. And we know this remedy was specifically tailored to target NewsGuard because Newsmax told us so. As we covered when NewsGuard filed its lawsuit against the FTC, when the original Omnicom/IPG merger conditions didnt quite capture NewsGuard, Newsmax swooped in to fix that. As detailed in the lawsuit: Newsmax was not subtle about its aim. Its fourteen-page letter mentioned NewsGuard more than a dozen times. Newsmax echoed Chairman Fergusons repeated statements that NewsGuards reviews and ratings of news sources based on journalistic standards were biased because some conservative­-leaning websites and publications scored poorly. Not content to rely on the official FTC comment process, Newsmax took to the internet to lobby Chairman Ferguson, members of Congress, and the President. In posts on X directed to Chairman Ferguson, Newsmax asserted the FTCs proposed order was inadequate because it makes no mention of censorship or targeting conservatives and [f]ully allows Omnicom to use left-wing NewsGuard. The FTC, in its own press release, stated that it revised the order “in response to public comments,” though the only significant revision that matched a public comment was that one from Newsmax about NewsGuard. They didnt revise the order in response to the First Amendment scholars and free speech organizations who submitted comments pointing out the obvious constitutional problems. Only in response to Newsmax whining about NewsGuard calling out their failures in journalistic behavior. The government regulatory agency changed its order at the direction of a media company that was mad about its review score. And now has applied the same framework across the entire industry. This whole pattern — the origin story of this campaign — deserves emphasis because it exposes the mechanism. NewsGuard, founded by Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz (the former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, which makes the woke leftist framing particularly absurd), rates news sources based on disclosed journalistic criteria. Even if you disagree with NewsGuards criteria, its still just their opinion. Their speech. Some conservative outlets scored poorly. Those outlets complained to sympathetic politicians. Those politicians launched investigations. The FTC chair, who had already publicly stated he intended to use the FTCs tremendous array of investigative tools and coercive power to make companies Do what we say, sent NewsGuard a sweeping subpoena for essentially every document the company had ever produced — including reporters notes and sources — while refusing to even tell NewsGuard what law it allegedly violated. Then the FTC used its merger review authority to ban NewsGuards biggest potential customers from doing business with it. And now, with this latest action, the ban extends to every major ad agency in the country. As NewsGuards lawsuit put it: By accusing NewsGuard of providing biased evaluations of news sites, Chairman Ferguson has inverted the relationship between the government and the First Amendment. NewsGuard is a private business that offers assessments of the quality of news sites based on disclosed journalistic criteria. As a matter of law, NewsGuard cannot be a censor. But by asserting FTC control over the market for NewsGuards services, Chairman Ferguson has embraced the censors role. This claim that critical speech of favored individuals or organizations is censorship is at the heart of the modern GOPs entire approach to free speech. Private companies expressing opinions they dont like? Censorship. The government using regulatory power to punish private companies for expressing those opinions? Restoring the marketplace of ideas. Up is down. Speech is censorship. Censorship is freedom. And just to put a final bow on the cynicism here: this complaint was filed in the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division. If that court sounds familiar, its because its the favored venue for conservative forum-shopping, home to Judge Reed OConnor, who has been the go-to jurist for everything from challenges to the ACA to Elon Musks SLAPP suit against Media Matters. The FTC almost certainly chose this seemingly random venue because they know exactly what kind of judicial scrutiny theyll face, which is to say: none worth worrying about. The Commission vote on this action was 1-0-1. Because, remember, Donald Trump illegally fired the two Democratic FTC members and has made no real move to replace them. All thats left is Chairman Ferguson and the also problematic Mark Meador, who recused himself from this vote. In other words, this vote was simply Ferguson agreeing with himself, approving what amounts to a government-imposed blacklist of a journalism company, backed by the attorneys general of eight states, all for the offense of expressing opinions about news quality that some powerful people found inconvenient. For the record: Ive been somewhat critical of NewsGuards methodology in the past. To me, their rating system has real limitations, and I think people should take any individual rating with appropriate skepticism. In response to me saying that, some at the company have expressed their own displeasure about my criticism of their methodology. But thats kind of the whole point. My criticism of NewsGuard is more speech. NewsGuards ratings are more speech. Advertisers choosing whether or not to use those ratings are exercising their own rights. Every layer of this is speech and association, all the way down. The one layer that has no business being here is the federal government deciding which speech-about-speech private companies are allowed to subscribe to. The party that spent years screaming about the censorship industrial complex — a supposed conspiracy between government and private entities to suppress disfavored speech — just built an actual censorship apparatus targeting a journalism organization. They used a tortured antitrust theory as the weapon, out-of-context trade association emails as the pretext, and a hand-picked court as the rubber stamp. And they did it all while claiming to defend free speech.

[Category: dentsu, garm, global disinformation index, ipg, newsguard, newsmax, omnicom, publicis, world federation of advertisers, wpp, 1st amendment, andrew ferguson, antitrust, censorship, ftc, journalism, opinions, ratings, vullo]

— The Wall Street Journal Wonders Why There Are Suddenly So Many Sleazy Fees

 

at 4/16/26 6:27am

I cut my teeth as a telecom reporter, so I spent a lot of time writing about how broadband monopolies and cable TV giants rip off consumers with sleazy, misleading fees. I also spent a lot of that time writing about how lobbying and regulatory capture have ensured that big companies see no meaningful penalties should they falsely advertise one price, then sock you with a bunch of spurious surcharges. The Biden administration, for its faults, at least tried to tackle some of this. The Biden FTC considered new and popular rules outlawing junk fees. The Biden FCC also implemented rules that didnt ban sleazy fees (unfortunately), but forced broadband ISPs to clearly list them out at the point of sale (something recently dismantled by the Trump administration). The Trump administration (and its courts) has taken an absolute hatchet to U.S. consumer protection on regulatory autonomy, ensuring that the problem of predatory fees is much worse across every sector you interface with. So it was funny to see Wall Street Journal reporters recently openly wondering why there are so many shitty fees all of a sudden (non-paywalled alternative): An extra 3% for paying with a credit card. A 5% involuntary contribution to a restaurant’s employee wellness fund. $25 a month in addition to rent for trash collection.   Consumers already weary of rising inflation are now contending with a new crop of costs that are hidden in plain sight. New fees or surcharges are popping up everywhere as companies search for ways to recoup their own rising costs while blaming outside pressures. The WSJ reporters and editors decided to cover soaring sleazy fees, but at no point in the article do they mention (even in passing) that Trump has dismantled most of the (already fleeting) efforts to rein in such predation. Or that the Trump Supreme Court has issued numerous rulings effectively making it almost impossible for regulators to fine corporations or hold them accountable for bad behavior. The article mentions that the Trump FTC did grudgingly implement the Biden-era plan to ban junk fees, but they dont think its worth mentioning that the Trump administration refuses to enforce it: The Federal Trade Commission banned drip pricing in short-term lodging and live-event ticketing in 2025, citing research showing that consumers were manipulated by low initial prices even when the full cost was eventually disclosed. They also dont think its worth mentioning that the worst offenders of this kind of stuff, like Ticketmaster, were recently let off the hook by the Trump FTC via a piddly settlement (that left states, which had partnered with the FTC legally, high and dry). Theyve chosen to cover consumer protection, but not really. Not with any sort of interest in full, contextual reality. While this particular instance is the Wall Street Journal, youll notice this same habit across most of corporate media. Theyre dedicated to an alternate reality where Trump isnt historically corrupt, and the regulators youve historically trusted to be at least semi-present to police the worst offenses are still dutifully on the beat protecting the public interest. Its of course a reflection of ownership bias seeping into editorial (most media owners are affluent Conservatives or Libertarians who like tax cuts, rubber stamped merger approvals, and mindless deregulation). But its also a form of weird normalization bias, where the reporters assume that because regulators have always been there (with natural partisan ebb and flow) theyll always be there. But theyre not there anymore. The damage will likely be deadly and permanent, impacting far more than just shitty, sneaky fees. And the press is doing a terrible job informing the public of that fact. This is particularly amusing because the Wall Street Journals own reporting recently highlighted how even the semi-consistent folks within MAGA who sometimes supported things like functional antitrust reform have been easily ousted by lobbyists, but the reporters exploring why are we getting ripped off more than ever by predatory corporations arent willing to make the obvious connection.

[Category: 1, antitrust, consumer protection, corruption, fees, ftc, hidden fees, junk fees, regulations, surcharges, trump]

— Nintendo’s Haphazard ‘Mario Maker 2’ Takedown Process Rife With Abuse

 

at 4/15/26 8:56pm

Weve talked for many years about Nintendos shotgun approach to IP enforcement, as well as its heavy-handed ToS enforcement policies that can include bricking customer consoles and/or banning their accounts if they do something Nintendo doesnt like, even if its not strictly illegal. This has all set up an ecosystem where being a Nintendo fan and customer can feel like a dangerous prospect, where navigating a capricious company is supposed to be half the fun. But when that same ecosystem is setup in a way that is wide open to abuse, the fun really begins. That appears to be what is happening right now as Nintendo is removing hundreds of Mario Maker 2 levels made by fans. The common denominator for these level deletions appears to be the inclusion of a hashtag for TeamShell, which is a Discord server dedicated to sharing codes for levels made within the game. Notices about the removal from Nintendo indicate that they were deleted for including advertising, which is against Nintendos terms of service. There is no indication that any money is changing hands here. Calling a hashtag to denote that a level was made with a specific Discord server in mind advertising is stretching the definition to the point of absurdity. On top of all of this, many of these levels are years old, causing the community to wonder why in the world this was suddenly happening now. Then someone found this on another Discord server dedicated to the Mario Maker games. So, who is LMT? Turns out, the YouTube account linked to LMT’s Discord profile bears the pseudonym of someone called MT94. As explained in a post on AtWiki, MT94 was, at one point, the second-highest-rated Super Mario Maker player in the world. Turns out that MT94 cheated their way to that ranking, and they achieved this by using three separate Nintendo Switch consoles. By consistently challenging their own accounts to co-op battles in the game, they managed to boost themselves up the rankings. After the community found out and reported them, MT94’s accounts were banned. Now, Ive seen some content out there indicating it was TeamShell that had a hand in exposing MT94s alleged cheating, but nothing solid enough that I consider firm ground. But its clear that there is some kind of vendetta at work here. And, while most of you probably view the deletion of some Mario Maker levels as a tame story at most, it is having very real consequences due to how Nintendo conducts it business. The truly sad thing is that Super Mario Maker users are also reporting that their Nintendo Switch accounts are being suspended as well, as there seems to be a sort of automatic system in place that suspends a Nintendo Switch account if it’s been associated with a certain number of reports. Nintendo has a choice. It can remain heavy-handed in this manner when it comes to account suspensions for takedowns, but then it needs to actually investigate claims like this to ensure they arent falling for abusive takedown requests. Or it can ease up on the severity of its actions and allow for a counternotice system, or another manner for those falsely accused to avoid consequences. What it should not be allowed to do is continue to let its own customers suffer severe consequences merely because the system it set up is so wide open for this kind of gleeful abuse.

[Category: 1, nintendo, fans, mario maker, takedowns, teamshell]

— War As A Pretext: Gulf States Are Tightening The Screws On Speech—Again

 

at 4/15/26 4:16pm

War does not only reshape borders. It also reshapes what can be seen, said, and remembered.  When governments invoke “misinformation” during wartime, they often mean something simpler: speech they do not control. Since the escalation of conflict between the United States, Israel, Iran, and related spillover attacks in the Gulf, several governments have intensified efforts to silence dissent and restrict the flow of information. Journalism under pressure For journalists, the space to operate—already constrained in much of the Gulf—is narrowing further. Across the region, several countries (including the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan) have restricted access to conflict areas, warned of legal consequences for publishing footage, and drawn red lines around wartime reporting. These measures weaken independent coverage, elevate official narratives, and make it harder for the public to get an accurate account of events on the ground. Reporters Without Borders has documented an intensifying crackdown on journalists across Gulf countries and Jordan, including restrictions on reporting, legal threats, and heightened risks for those who deviate from official narratives. This aligns with the broader warning from the UN that repression of civic space and freedom of expression has significantly deepened across the region during the war. Criminalizing speech, one post at a time For ordinary internet users, the restrictions are just as severe. Since February, hundreds of people have reportedly been arrested across the region for social media activity linked to the war. In many Gulf states, the legal infrastructure enabling this is already well-established: expansive cybercrime and media laws criminalize vaguely defined offenses such as “spreading rumors,” “undermining public order,” or “insulting the state”. In wartime, these provisions become catch-all tools: flexible enough to apply to nearly any form of dissent. In Bahrain, authorities have reportedly cracked down on people who protested or shared footage of the conflict online. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights has reported 168 arrests in the country tied to protests and online expression, with defendants potentially facing serious prison terms if convicted. In the UAE, authorities have arrested nearly 400 people for recording events related to the conflict and for circulating information they described as misleading or fabricated. Police have claimed this material could stir public anxiety and spread rumors, and state-linked reporting has described the crackdown as part of a broader effort to defend the country from digital misinformation. Saudi Arabia has also intensified restrictions, issuing a statement on March 2 banning the sharing of rumors or videos of unknown origin, and issuing a campaign discouraging residents from taking or posting photos. The campaign included a hashtag that reads “photography serves the enemy.” Journalists have been prevented from documenting the aftermath of airstrikes on the country. Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan have adopted similar restrictions on wartime imagery and reporting. Qatar’s Interior Ministry has arrested more than 300 people for filming, circulating, or publishing what the ministry deemed to be misleading information. Taken together, these measures show how quickly wartime speech is being folded into existing legal systems designed to punish dissent. The regional playbook What’s striking is how consistent these measures are across different countries. As we recently wrote, governments across the broader region have enacted sweeping cybercrime and media laws over the past fifteen years, which they are now putting to use. Across different countries, the same tools are being used: existing laws, fresh bans on sharing wartime imagery, and tighter restrictions on journalists and reporting. The vocabulary changes slightly from place to place, but the logic is the same: national security, public order, rumors, and social stability are justifications for control. This is not just a series of isolated incidents. It is a regional playbook for silencing critics and narrowing the public record. Gulf states have long relied on censorship and surveillance; the war has simply made those methods easier to justify and harder to challenge. From “digital hopes” to digital control As we’ve documented in our ongoing blog series, digital platforms were once seen—at least in part—as spaces that could expand public discourse in the region. But as we’ve also argued, those early “digital hopes” have given way to systems of regulation and control.  The current crackdown is a continuation of that trajectory, not a temporary departure from it. States are not just reacting to the war; they are leveraging it to consolidate long-standing ambitions to dominate the digital public sphere. It may be tempting to see these measures as temporary, but emergency powers—like the one enacted in Egypt following the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat that lasted for more than three decades—have a way of sticking around. Legal precedents that are set during wartime often become normalized—or reinvoked during times of crisis, as occurred in 2015, when France brought back a 1955 law related to the Algerian War of Independence amidst the Paris attacks. And the stakes are high. As we’ve seen in Syria and Ukraine, regulations and platform policies can cause wartime human rights documentation to disappear. When journalists are constrained and eyewitness footage is criminalized, accountability is weakened. And when arrests become widespread, people learn to self-censor. Protecting freedom of expression in times of conflict is a requirement for accountability, not a concession to disorder. When people can document, report, and share information freely, it becomes harder for abuses to be hidden behind official narratives. Even in wartime, the public interest is best served by defending the space to tell the truth, not by silencing speech. Reposted from the EFFs Deeplinks blog.

[Category: 1, bahrain, free speech, gulf states, internet, journalism, qatar, saudi arabia, uae, war]

— ACAB: Cops Are Bringing ‘Delinquency Of A Minor’ Charges Against Adults Who Assist Students During Anti-ICE Protests

 

at 4/15/26 2:15pm

While the Trump administrations extremely aggressive, thoroughly bigoted attempts to eliminate as many non-white people from this country as possible have resulted in some periodic push back from law enforcement officials, we can never forget that federal law enforcement officers are still just law enforcement officers. And, more often than not, theyll always have the support of their brothers in blue, even though most federal officers prefer camo and face masks these days. Law enforcement is self-selecting. The people who feel drawn to law enforcement are generally the last people you would want to become law enforcement officers. Its rarely about being given the chance to serve, protect, and be an active part of your community. Its almost always about having a badge, a gun, and accountability thats inversely proportional to the amount of power you immediately obtain. So, it comes as no surprise that cops who shouldnt have any skin in the anti-ICE game are stepping up to punish people for daring to criticize the actions of those federal officers. And theres probably a bit of backlash involved here as well, as this following report details the actions of California law enforcement officers who (one assumes) arent thrilled the states residents have managed to reclaim much of the power that has always been owed to the people. Despite the administrations on/off surges in blue states, the furor over ICE and its actions hasnt died down, not even in California, where the administration rolled out its martial law beta test. At first, it was easy to pretend people protesting ICE were woke radicals or antifa or paid organizers or lazy trans everywhere college students or whatever. But it just kept going and expanding, clearly demonstrating a significant portion of the population wasnt on board with roving kidnapping squads and murders of activists by jumpy recruits recently introduced to the wholly domestic War on Migrants. Now that its everyone rather than just the usual left-wing agitprop cliches federal and local officers expected to confront during protests, cops in California are deciding its time to start arresting everyone. The Clovis Police Department on Tuesday referred Alfred Aldrete, 41, for one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for his role in a February high school student walkout.  “During the investigation, Aldrete was identified as being present during the walkout and allegedly involved in directing student activity and entering the roadway, which impacted traffic flow,” Clovis police said in a press release. “Investigators also identified Aldrete as being present during a separate student gathering in Clovis on Feb. 5 that occurred outside of school hours.” Yep, thats what the Clovis PD actually did: it equated an adult ensuring students made it to their planned protest safely with the sort of horrors harboring runaways, providing drugs and alcohol to minors, etc. people usually associate with the crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Those would be the sorts of crimes actually prosecuted by county prosecutors under this statute. This stat may explain why the Clovis PD thought it should explore the fringes of this statute for the sole purpose of punishing someone for speech they (and they people they serve, apparently) dont care for: [C]lovis, population 128,000, where Donald Trump won every precinct in the 2024 presidential election — some with more than 70% of the vote.  That tracks. Fortunately, it doesnt track as far as the District Attorneys office: A representative for Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp in a written statement said prosecutors would not file charges against Aldrete. Hooray for prosecutorial discretion, but in the non-pejorative sense! Its an unexpected twist that only makes this further twist even more inexplicable: Within a day of the walkout, Clovis police said they were considering charges against up to six adults under Section 272 of the California Penal Code, which is most often used to prevent chronic truancy. The Los Angeles Police Department has also said it’s considering charges against people who joined immigration-related protests under the same penal code section.  At the beginning of Trumps first martial law-esque surge, the LAPD (and the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department) were opposed to the insertion of National Guard units and other federal officers into the mix. Stating that they were capable of handling whatever minimal violent protests they had actually encountered, law enforcement officials made it clear that this federal interloping would only make a manageable problem unmanageable. More than a year later, the LAPD has flipped the script from blue to red, declaring its willing to charge students for truancy (along with the adults who assist them) for participating in walkout that, at best, lasts a few hours. Its not like these kids are quitting school to pursue a career in protesting. And its not like these adults are harming kids by helping them engage fully with their First Amendment rights. Its one thing to be the main characters in a pro-Trump town. Its quite another to be part of the second-largest police force in the United States and decide its worth your time, money, and attention to punish people for peacefully protesting. Fuck right off, LAPD. And take the Clovis PD with you.

[Category: 1, 1st amendment, acab, alfred aldrete, california, clovis pd, free speech, ice, lapd, mass deportation]

— Judge Tosses Trump’s Ridiculous $10 Billion Defamation Suit Against Rupert Murdoch

 

at 4/15/26 12:08pm

Back in January of last year, the Wall Street Journal published a story about a leather-bound birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell had assembled for Jeffrey Epsteins 50th birthday in 2003. The book included letters from various associates, and one of them bore Donald Trumps name. According to the article, it featured a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman with typewritten text inside. The page was signed with a recognizable squiggly Donald signature positioned to mimic pubic hair and closed with the ridiculously creepy line: Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret. Trump denied writing the letter and called it a fake thing before suing the Journal, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp, and the two reporters for a mere $10 billion. Each count asked for at least $10 billion, because apparently thats the going rate for Donald Trumps hurt feelings these days. On Monday, federal judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Trump hadnt come anywhere close to adequately alleging actual malice, the standard required for a public figure to win a defamation claim. For those who follow this stuff, thats about as unsurprising as it gets. The actual malice standard, established in New York Times v. Sullivan decision, requires a public figure to show that the defendant either knew the story was false or published it with reckless disregard for the truth (which courts have interpreted to require that the publisher actually harbored serious doubts about whether the statement was true). It does not mean, as many people assume, the colloquial meaning of malice: that they just dont like the person. Trumps complaint was heavy on boilerplate language about malice and light on, well, anything resembling actual facts supporting it. Judge Gayles was blunt about the gap: The Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite. The quite the opposite is the fun part. Trumps own complaint described the reporters reaching out to him, as well as the FBI and the Justice Department, before publication. Trump gave them a denial, which they printed; the DOJ didnt respond and the FBI declined to comment. Trumps argument was essentially that since he told the Journal the letter was fake before publication, running the story anyway proved they had serious doubts about its truth and therefore acted with actual malice. You hear this a lot from SLAPP defamation filers, pretending that a mere denial by them means that anyone printing what theyre accused of is actual malice. But thats not how any of this works. Just because you deny something, doesnt automatically mean the journalists have to believe its false. Their evidence can (and often does) reveal that the subjects of their reporting are lying in their denials. A denial is not proof of falsity. Its just proof that youre denying something. The court wasnt buying any of it: To establish actual malice, “a plaintiff must show the defendant deliberately avoided investigating the veracity of the statement in order to evade learning the truth.” As the judge noted, printing Trumps denial alongside their own journalistic findings demonstrated responsible reporting — the opposite of actual malice, which would require evidence that the reporters had serious doubts about the letters authenticity and deliberately avoided investigating further. Then printing the denial alongside the evidence, again, was the opposite of actual malice: The Article also informed readers that President Trump decried the Letter as a fake and denied writing it. By “allowing readers to decide for themselves what to conclude from the [Article], any allegation of actual malice [is] less plausible.” Turner, 879 F.3d at 1274. See also Michel, 816 F.3d at 703 (holding that “reporting perspectives contrary to the publisher’s own should be interpreted as helping to rebut, not establish, the presence of actual malice.”) The judge also, somewhat gently, reminded Trumps lawyers that actual malice is an actual legal standard, not just they dont like me. President Trump’s allegation that Defendants acted with ill-will is insufficient to plead actual malice. Aside from being conclusory and without factual support, “ill-will, improper motive or personal animosity plays no role in determining whether a defendant acted with actual malice.” Meanwhile, as this lawsuit wound through the courts, the very letter Trump claimed didnt exist surfaced publicly. The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Epstein estate and obtained the birthday book. They released it publicly, and wouldnt you know it, theres a page that matches the Journals description of the letter exactly: The judge couldnt consider the produced letter at this stage of the litigation because Trump disputes its authenticity, which is his right procedurally. And the judge has to treat the claims in the complaint as true. But the rest of us sure can look at it. And judge for ourselves. The court gave Trump until April 27 to file an amended complaint, and a spokesman for his legal team promised he would refile this powerhouse lawsuit. I suppose if you squint hard enough at a complaint a federal judge said comes nowhere close to meeting basic legal standards, powerhouse is one word you could use for it — just probably not in the way they mean. The Journals defense team also sought attorneys fees under Floridas anti-SLAPP statute. The judge denied the fee request for now, since Trump gets a chance to amend. But that request can be renewed, which means if the amended complaint fares no better, Trump could end up paying for the privilege of having sued the Journal over a story that appears to be true. This is also a reminder of why we need stronger anti-SLAPP laws in every state, as well as a federal anti-SLAPP law. This case isnt over yet, but the judge clearly sees it as just as weak as we said it was when it was filed last year. As always, Trump files these vexatious lawsuits knowing none of them have a real shot — the goal is to burn time and money for media organizations, and scare some of them into softening their coverage or thinking twice before calling out his behavior. The guy who presents himself as a champion of free speech remains the most anti-free speech president weve had in any of our lifetimes, consistently abusing the judicial system as a way to punish those who make him look bad.

[Category: news corp., wsj, actual malice, darrin gayles, defamation, donald trump, jeffrey epstein, rupert murdoch, slapp]

— Daily Deal: Geekey Multi-Tool

 

at 4/15/26 12:03pm

Geekey is an innovative, compact multi-tool like nothing seen before. It’s truly a work of art with engineering that combines everyday common tools into one sleek little punch that delivers endless capability. Geekey features many common tools that have been used for decades and proven essential for everyday fixes. Its on sale for $23. 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]

— Administration Apparently Planning To Blow Off FISA Court’s Ordered Fixes For Section 702

 

at 4/15/26 10:30am

It wasnt all that long ago that GOP legislators were collectively stonewalling a clean reauthorization of Section 702. Three years ago, these legislators were seeking to end the FBI (and other IC components) access to Americans communications via backdoor searches of the NSAs supposedly foreign facing collections. It wasnt that the Republicans cared that Joe Public was being subjected to warrantless domestic surveillance. It was that they were being subjected to warrantless searches of their communications something that came to light as the result of multiple investigations pertaining to Trumps first administration. Now that the GOP has control of the White House again, Republicans are back to not caring about the warrantless searches of US persons communications enabled by FISA loopholes very few congressional reps seriously want to see closed. Another Section 702 reauthorization attempt is only weeks away. Reps who want more of the same thing weve been subjected to for decades have until the end of April to push a clean reauthorization through. Unfortunately for them, the FISA Court while allowing the program to continue whether or not Congress can pass an extension has made it clear the program needs to be overhauled because its still being routinely abused to perform warrantless searches targeting Americans communications. The annual recertification, issued last month in a classified ruling, means that the program can continue to collect phone calls and emails through March 2027 — even if Congress fails later this month to renew the statute that underlies it. But the judge who issued the March 17 ruling also objected to tools that agencies with access to the raw data — like the C.I.A., F.B.I. and National Security Agency — have created to allow analysts to process messages, according to unclassified talking points the administration sent to lawmakers in recent days. The main issue is the filtering tool utilized by agencies with access to the NSAs collections. The filter allows analysts to drill down the data to only return results pertaining to specific people who have communicated with a foreign person. It would appear agencies like the FBI are using this filter to search for US persons something thats supposed to be subjected to additional limitations. From the talking points detailed by the New York Times, it seems that isnt the case, which is why the FISA Court is ordering the government to re-engineer the filter to force analysts to comply with restrictions pertaining to access of US persons communications. The Trump administration is allegedly weighing whether or not to comply with this FISA court order. The only thing that could make it comply would be to codify the order during the reauthorization process. This administration simply isnt willing to do that. The Trump administration wants Congress to extend the statute without changes.  And thats why Senator Ron Wyden is, again, letting the American public know the current administration is actively arguing against the privacy interests of millions of American citizens: “The compliance problems are bad enough, but, incredibly, rather than fix them, the Trump Administration is considering appealing the court ruling so that they never have to. This is a highly aggressive and unusual move indicative of an administration that would exploit every angle to expand its surveillance at the expense of Americans’ rights. “Instead of addressing these problems, opponents of reform are going to try to jam a straight reauthorization of section 702 through Congress next week, while the American people are still in the dark. That’s unacceptable. This court ruling needs to be declassified so that Americans can understand what the Trump administration is actually up to. And Congress must vote for real reforms to protect Americans’ rights.” I wont even factor in Trumps opinion here, because it doesnt really matter. He doesnt know enough about anything to be considered qualified to engage in this discussion. Further, this isnt even necessarily a Trump thing. Pretty much every presidential administration has been unwilling to upset this particular apple cart, even when plenty of evidence of extensive rot has been made public. But this ones particularly problematic for the GOP, which spent most of the Biden years claiming Section 702 abuse was evidence of a deep state conspiracy against Trump and his congressional supporters. Now, theyre arguing the opposite: that the deep state it so recently opposed should be allowed to do what it wants for as long as it wants to so long as its not sweeping up their communications. Status quo seems likely to prevail yet again, especially with the Trump Administration clearly interested in increasing the amount of domestic surveillance perpetrated by Intelligence Community components. After all, without it, the worst of worst day laborers and factory workers cant be kidnapped by federal officers and members of the fearsome, centrally organized terrorist group known as antifa cant get caught in dragnets that are supposed to be targeting foreign adversaries. Its going to be more abuse for the stupidest imaginable reasons because thats just how things are going to go as long as this iteration of the GOP remains in power.

[Category: 1, backdoor searches, fbi, fisa, fisc, nsa, ron wyden, section 702, trump administration, warrantless searches]

As of 4/18/26 1:10pm. Last new 4/17/26 9:16pm.