We have long had our doubts about the Trump Phone. Since its very first debut, the device – technically called the Trump Mobile T1 Phone 8002 – has seemed utterly impossible to execute as advertised. The Trump Mobile team has also spent the last eight months rapidly moving the goalposts, changing specs and making increasingly […]
One year and nearly 2,000 pages of documents later, a group suing to uncover what the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was doing at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says the agency has withheld relevant documents “in bad faith” and is asking a court to allow discovery and depositions to draw out the information. “Thus […]
Live Nation executives have reportedly sidestepped the Justice Department’s antitrust division to negotiate directly with more sympathetic senior officials in the hopes of avoiding a monopoly trial. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” Semafor reports that some talks have excluded antitrust chief Gail Slater, who has pushed for a trial to take place in March […]
Thirty years ago today, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a bill credited with creating the groundwork for the modern internet, became law and set off a chain of events that would make it a lightning rod for the techlash. The statute has survived everything from the dot-com bubble to a Supreme Court challenge […]
300 journalists have lost their jobs at The Washington Post. Over 300,000 readers have canceled their subscriptions. Owner Jeff Bezos, who purchased the legendary publication in 2013, has driven his reputation into the ground by using his vast empire to churn out content designed to make President Donald Trump happy: Amazon MGM Studios spent $40 […]
Fortnite developer Epic Games says the account some people believed to be linked to Jeffrey Epstein is a “ruse.” In a reply on X, the developer writes, “an existing Fortnite account owner changed their username” to “littlestjeff1,” an alias spotted in several emailed receipts from YouTube in the Epstein files. The email suggests that “littlestjeff1” […]
He might be dead, but it sure seems like Jeffrey Epstein won. Sure, Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking minors. Sure, he died in jail. (I am not going to wade into the debate about how.) But he subscribed to a racist, misogynist ideology that meant rich white men like him could do […]
EU regulators have declared that TikTok’s “addictive design” may put it in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA), in the preliminary results of an ongoing investigation into the social media app. If those findings are confirmed, TikTok could face a major fine and be required to “change the basic design of its service” in […]
When Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos entered the Senate office building on Tuesday, he got thrown a curveball. What started as a standard antitrust hearing relating to the Warner Bros. merger quickly devolved into a performative Republican attack about the spread of “woke” ideology on the streaming service. At the same time, arguably a much more […]
Kamala Harris’ social media strategy in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election was filled with Gen Z dog whistles: viral branding based on pop music, memes, camo hats that were a double entendre. It was an effective way to get attention and news coverage, as well as a mountain of user generated content online. […]