I wrote about the House hearing today, how Congress is trying to strip anonymity from the Internet, and the devastating effects that has for journalists, whistleblowers, LGBTQ ppl, immigrants, civil rights activists, abortion providers and anyone challenging power for @theintercept.com
Government Surveillance 🤝 Corporate Surveillance
This explains my childhood reading addiction.
THREAD: Whenever imperialist governments go to war, they become more authoritarian at home.
That makes censorship bills like KOSA, ID checks, and attacks on Section 230 even more dangerous.
Online protest, documenting war crimes, even news articles could be suppressed.
www.badinternetbills.com
All the MAGA conservatives that claimed to care about antitrust suddenly really quiet.
Every president since Clinton has probably seen Wag the Dog and every president since Clinton has basically done the thing in the movie so I can unironically say that the movie probably has the highest death toll of any movie ever made
A sweet millennium falcon 3d puzzle on a stand on a record player.
The world kind of sucks but I did put together a puzzle my mom found while moving.
I'm seeing a lot of conservatives suddenly disavowing the freedom of private citizens and entities to contract with whomever they choose over this Anthropic thing.
I love Section 230 but I think that user reviews were a mistake and that professional reviewers are underappreciated.
I'm honored to join the Cato Institute and my wonderful co-panelist today at 2:35pm ET to speak about Section 230 and Generative AI! Livestream here: www.cato.org/events/secti...
New: The FBI subpoenaed the Grok prompts a man used to create more than 200 nonconsensual sexual videos of a woman he was obsessed with
www.404media.co/fbi-subpoena...
Cancer drug Revlimid is one of the bestselling pharmaceutical products of all time, with total sales of over $100 billion.
It’s also extraordinarily expensive, costing nearly $1,000 for each pill, even though that pill costs just 25 cents to make.
(Published May 2025)
Microsoft Teams Play Together is the most cursed thing in the software universe.
Palantir's software would be a dangerous tool even in the hands of an extremely responsible immigration agency, EFF’s Cindy Cohn said, but “a powerful tool in the hands of an irresponsible and human rights-violating agency is a toxic mix.” www.notus.org/money/tom-s...
The tension between wanting another coffee and having an acid reflux flair-up.
My goal in life is to get @iwriteok.bsky.social to do an episode of Behind the Bastards on Carl Byoir, who among other things started The March of Dimes for the most insane reason.
You may be tempted to roll your eyes and say that this was obvious, but there is a substantive difference between pointing out there is a slippery slope and having solid evidence that Ring's CEO is planning to expand Search Party beyond lost pets. Kudos to 404 Media.
EFF sent a letter to the entire Wisconsin Legislature urging them to reject S.B. 130 / A.B. 105, an age-verification bill that effectively bans VPN access to certain websites and censors lawful speech. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
Amidst everything, I'm going to be participating in ROMChip's fundraiser stream on Saturday (full schedule: donate.romchip.org/2026-schedul...) and man, do @lainenooney.bsky.social and I have a treat for y'all!
Tax-funded surveillance systems have targeted people seeking abortions, protesters exercising First Amendment rights, and communities impacted by discriminatory policing. Find out how your community can push back on 2/19 at "Get the Flock Out of Our City." RSVP today at www.eff.org/livestream-....
I've been taking a break from antitrust policy because the people running most of the antimonopoly movement are ill prepared to work in a Trump admin and MAGA environment. I wish them the best but I'm not trying to work with anti-trans Ferguson because he said the right thing about big tech once.
time to pass out a bunch of “fell for it again” awards bsky.app/profile/sbag...
I don't know how Valve did it but people in Deadlock are like kind to each other? Or maybe I'm just in the nice person queue.
Maybe that's why matchmaking takes so long
So yeah everything is stupid and we do what we can. Abolish ICE and end DHS surveillance.
But instead what will happen is that those vital agencies will run out of money and their employees will be expected to work without pay while ICE sits on $75 billion already allocated, which is 7.5 times their normal budget.
So while I'm a big fan of this and actively work on putting pressure on exactly this, I'm also frustrated because the correct solution is admitting DHS was a bad post-911 idea, spinning out Coast Guard and FEMA, and rethinking TSA.
This is a good example of why politics sucks and policy is so messy. DHS should be abolished but they put FEMA, Coast Guard and TSA in there. And the first two are underfunded and will run out of money (coast guard rescues people at sea). And people can't fly without the last one operating.
The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday is essential listening. It's like a window into a world where Gen Xers became Millennials instead of Boomers.
We always find energy for spite and FRT.
"The world is too on fire for anyone to meaningfully oppose us."
Oy.
