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This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system.
Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and...
On Tuesday, I wrote about how we were upgrading our daily email newsletter—the one we’ve had for decades but never actually promoted. Thousands of you had signed up just by spotting the little email icon. We figured more might be interested if we actually talked about it. We’d upgraded the tech, written a whole post about it, and figured people would start signing up.
And then… crickets. For two...
When Reddit sued “data scraper” companies and AI firm Perplexity earlier this week, I assumed it was another predictable skirmish over AI training data—the kind of case we’ve been tracking as companies try to wall off the open internet and set up toll booths. But reading the actual complaint made it clear this is something far more dangerous: Reddit isn’t just going after scrapers. It’s mounting...
This 3-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charging Pad integrates three charging modules for cell phones, headphones, and watches—a maximum power of 15W for cell phone charging, 5W for Airpods charging, and 2.5W for Apple Watch charging. Charge three devices at the same time, conveniently and efficiently. To add more, this charging pad can be folded and used as a phone stand. It’s slim and compact, easy to...
Kristi Noem Lies, Says Stupid Shit While Defending ICE From ‘Demonization’ By Press, Gov’t Officials
Earlier this year, Donald Trump declared (without facts in evidence) that Chicago was a crime-ridden hellhole that could only be saved by sending in the literal troops. This happened during a year which has been one of the safest (in terms of crime rates) in Chicago’s recent history. And, of course, actual crime rates were far beside the point. The real reason for Trump’s declaration of war was...
U.S. media mergers always follow the same trajectory. Pre-merger, executives promise all manner of amazing synergies and deal benefits. Post-merger, not only to those benefits generally never arrive, the debt from the acquisition spree usually results in significant layoffs, lower quality product, and higher rates for consumers. The Time Warner Discovery disaster was the poster child for this...
Several years ago, DC Comics opposed the trademark sought by Unilever for the term “Wonder Mum” with the UKIPO over its trademarks for “Wonder Woman”. Now, DC Comics is notoriously draconian when it comes to policing its IP, trademarks included, but this one was fairly ridiculous, as the UKIPO pointed out. There is no actual branding comparison here. No color schemes or tradedress that would...
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s 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 week’s round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben...
Sequoia Capital just showed us exactly what “institutional neutrality” means—when billions are at stake.
Sumaiya Balbale—the firm’s chief operating officer, a Shake Shack board member, someone “well regarded internally and by the start-ups she worked with as an experienced operating executive”—resigned in August after complaining about partner Shaun Maguire’s Islamophobic posts. Senior partners...
Ryan Walters is no longer the Superintendent of the State of Oklahoma, but he’s still at work doing his nonsensical performative shtick. After vacating his government position in the middle of his mandates for schools to carry copies of the Trump Bible and requiring transplant teachers to take a Prager U developed woke-test to get certified, Walters has since moved on to try to “destroy” teacher...