Enshittification News

Late last year we wrote about a new startup that was flooding the internet with AI-generated podcast slop. Featuring fake hosts having fake discussions, the startup proudly stated it was creating about 3,000 new AI-generated podcasts every single week. The owners of the startup (who called critics...

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

Lawmakers in both houses of Congress are demanding answers from the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) after KrebsOnSecurity reported this week that a CISA contractor intentionally published AWS GovCloud keys and a vast trove of other agency secrets on a public GitHub...

Critics note a lack of factual support in lawsuit filed by US Senate candidate.

Executive Summary: The Information reports that OpenAI generated $5.7bn in revenue for the first quarter of 2026 based on discussions with sources familiar with its financials. With adjusted negative margins of -122%, this means that for every dollar of revenue OpenAI made, it lost an additional...

At Google I/O, new features bring AI agents into the inbox and YouTube in ways that further strain the relationship between publishers and platforms

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. In October, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued pharmaceutical companies tied to Tylenol in state court, repeating claims made a month earlier by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy...

Elon Musk, business genius. When Elon Musk announced his plans to buy Twitter, some of his billionaire friends rushed to text him to say they’d throw whatever money they wanted into the deal. Larry Ellison casually offered “a billion… or whatever you recommend.” Marc Andreessen offered $250...

The post California Teacher Previously Fired for Sexual Harassment Is No Longer in the Classroom After New Complaints appeared first on ProPublica .

The post Louisiana’s Tough-on-Crime Policies Stand to Cost Taxpayers Millions More for Years to Come appeared first on ProPublica .

This week, we discuss Spencer Pratt, bricking phones, and the FTC.

One of the best demonstrations that an obsession with protecting copyright’s intellectual monopoly drives politicians insane is the French law known as Hadopi, an acronym for ‘Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des oeuvres et la protection des droits sur internet’ (High Authority for the...

Unlock a world of knowledge with a Headway Premium subscription. This exclusive deal gives you unlimited access to Headway’s massive library of 1500+ book summaries, with 30-50 new ones added monthly. Cover any topic you can imagine, from personal development and business strategies to health and...

Today's links Shopping isn't politics: The personal isn't political. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Neither arphid nor RFID; Gor novel sex slave cult; Violent economist sex criminals; Vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuo; "We Stand on Guard";...

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...

A group used Anthropic’s Mythos AI model to help find a kernel memory corruption vulnerability and exploit on Apple’s M5. News article .

Yesterday, Access Now and ten other civil society organizations filed an amicus brief in the U.S.’ Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals calling to protect encryption from NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware and to keep the lower court’s permanent injunction forbidding NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp or its...

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about how Anthropic is “about to have its first profitable quarter,” specifically an operating profit, or EBITDA profitability: Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of

Zillow asked for a preliminary injunction as real estate industry fight heats up.

The post The Trump Administration Is Facing Scrutiny for How It’s Handing Out Billion-Dollar Border Wall Contracts appeared first on ProPublica .

The post This Sheriff’s Office Says Racial Profiling Reforms Are Too Costly. Auditors Found It Misused $163 Million. appeared first on ProPublica .

Cookie Banners The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) must amend its cookie banner on ORF.at to bring it into line with the GDPR. This has now been decided by the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG), thereby upholding a decision made by the Austrian Data Protection Authority in 2024....

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division announced today that it will require Taiheiyo Cement Corporation and its subsidiary CalPortland Company to divest three ready-mix concrete plants along with related assets to address antitrust concerns arising from CalPortland’s proposed $712 million...

Sheriff loses fight with man he jailed for 37 days for posting a Trump meme on Facebook.

The post Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia and the UAE appeared first on Access Now .

"I can’t take it anymore. The threats," the treasurer said. The planned data center is part of OpenAI and Oracle's Stargate initiative.

Today, the Department of Justice announced that during the course of the Antitrust Division’s ongoing investigation into exclusionary conduct in corn and soybean seed markets, Bayer CropScience LLC has removed potentially anticompetitive provisions from its loyalty program. These changes benefit...

The chip was added to a list of banned goods at China’s customs checkpoints last Friday.

The post Tell Us About Your Experience With Kentucky’s Addiction Recovery Care appeared first on ProPublica .

The post Ken Paxton Wanted to Crack Down on Forum Shopping. Now Lawyers Say He’s Improperly Seeking Out Favorable Courts. appeared first on ProPublica .

The post This Gun Shop Stayed Open Despite Repeated Violations. Then a Cop Was Killed With One of Its Guns. appeared first on ProPublica .

The electoral left won a marquee primary in Philadelphia, while the establishment and progressives united around a firefighters’ union chief in the Lehigh Valley. The post Pennsylvania Results: Chris Rabb to Join the Squad in Congress as Bob Brooks Tries to Flip Key Seat appeared first on The...

When it comes to keeping our texts, chats, and other digital messages safe from prying eyes, we have a powerful tool: end-to-end encryption. Used correctly, end-to-end encryption turns our conversations online into secret messages that can only be decoded by their intended recipients. In our latest...

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

For years, civil society organizations, workers, journalists, and human rights experts have warned that major technology companies risk enabling grave human rights abuses when they provide cloud computing, AI, and surveillance infrastructure to governments implicated in violations of international...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPIC Counsel Suzanne Bernstein testified Thursday before the New Jersey Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee in support of a AB 4085, a bill that would protect New Jersey consumers from surveillance pricing.

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

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

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

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

On Thursday, EPIC and the National Consumers League, along with five other public interest groups, submitted comments to the FTC supporting its efforts to eliminate unfair and deceptive fees in its online food delivery services Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM). The comments also urged...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of monopoly news, as usual.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A message to the Apple faithful

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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