Large EU Internet Retailer Whines That It Shouldn’t Have To Comply With The DSA’s Most Stringent Rules

Legal Issues

from the wait,-no-one-told-us-this-might-apply-to-eu-companies-too! dept

A few months ago, when the EU designated 17 companies as “VLOPs” — Very Large Online Providers — subject to the most stringent regulations, one name that I heard lots of folks in the US be confused about was Zalando, which is a large EU-focused online retailer. It was also one of only two companies actually based in the EU to be designated as such (Booking.com was the other). And it seems that Zalando was just as surprised as everyone else, as it has now sued to challenge that designation.

Germany’s Zalando on Tuesday contested the labelling methodology and took its case to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union, Europe’s top court.

The company said the Commission had failed to take into account the hybrid nature of its business model and the fact it does not present a systemic risk of disseminating harmful or illegal content from third parties.

“The European Commission misinterpreted our user numbers and failed to acknowledge our mainly retail business model. The number of European visitors who connect with our Partners is far below the DSA’s threshold to be considered as a VLOP,” Zalando CEO Robert Gentz said in a statement.

Of course it does seem at least somewhat eyebrow raising to see an EU company as the first one to challenge this law. It almost feels like they naturally assumed that this law was only supposed to apply to those foreign internet companies, rather than the EU’s own companies.

The response from the EU’s internet czar, Thierry Breton (who always comes off as a bit too smug and gleeful about his power to suppress speech) is pretty laughable as well, claiming that he thinks companies should be happy to face his ridiculous, speech suppressing, compliance-nightmare-inducing regulations:

“Complying with the DSA is not a punishment – I encourage all platforms to see it as an opportunity to reinforce their brand value and reputation as a trustworthy site,” he said in a statement.

That’s just disconnected from reality. If it was simply an “opportunity to reinforce their brand value and reputation as a trustworthy site,” then you wouldn’t need to have a regulation with massive potential fines backing it up. Companies already have plenty of incentive to “reinforce their brand value” without having to hire a shitload of compliance lawyers.

Filed Under: designation, dsa, eu, thierry breton, vlop
Companies: zalando

Disney Deletes Months Old Film From Disney Plus, Ostensibly For More Tax Benefits

Culture

from the back-in-the-vault! dept

Here we go again. It was only a month ago that Karl Bode wrote about Disney’s absolutely and totally cool process of removing a bunch of content from its Disney Plus streaming platform not because the content sucks and nobody liked it, but because it gets to play accounting tricks as to its assets in order to receive giant tax breaks. To some extent, a big media company prioritizing quarterly profit reports over providing customers value in its streaming platform is very much “Dog Bites Man” territory. However, it appears Disney isn’t particularly shy about taking this practice to absurd levels.

Crater is a Disney film that was released on Disney Plus in the ancient times of this past May, nearly two months ago. Despite that short lifespan, and what are apparently not terrible viewership numbers and reviews, Disney has already removed the movie from the platform and stuck it in the vaunted Disney vault.

The plan—and Disney hasn’t confirmed Crater was wiped for this, but why else would it be—works like this: media companies have learned that by removing TV shows and movies from their streaming platforms they can write down the value of their “content assets”, which in turn reduces their overall tax bill. It also reduces the licensing fees these companies are paying.

Until last week, the shows and movies being culled—at Disney and other studios—had included those released somewhat recently, but for whatever had underperformed vs expectations, like 2022’s Willow and Y: The Last Man (which I liked!). That was bad, but Disney’s decision to wipe Crater—released just seven weeks ago—is taking the piss.

Seven weeks. And it’s important to keep in mind that streaming services were supposed to be what put a major damper on film and show piracy. Here’s the thing though: streaming services don’t tamp down on piracy when providers refuse to stream things. Shocking, I know. Disney is as anti-piracy as it gets, of course, but it appears it has prioritized playing shell games with its books over providing the public with the content it wants in its own streaming service.

But now it’s just gone. There’s no way to legally view this film. It’s as though it never existed. One of the key selling points for streaming services was that they were going to eliminate piracy. Now here we are, just a few years later, and piracy is going to be the only way a ton of TV shows and movies are ever going to be saved.

This again points out how content providers aren’t keeping up with their end of the copyright bargain in far too many cases. Granting Disney copyright on this film only to have them refuse to make it available so shortly after release is as anathema to the point of copyright law as it gets.

Filed Under: crater, culture, deleted films, disney plus, streaming, tax breaks
Companies: disney

Reddit Tells Protesting Mods It Will Remove Them If They Don’t Stop, As Reddit’s Subreddit For The Blind Can No Longer Be Moderated By Blind Users

Failures

from the so-much-for-democracy dept

As you’ll recall, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman whined about what he called the “landed gentry” among moderators of subreddits that were protesting his ridiculous extractive API changes. He insisted that perhaps things should be more democratic. In response, many subreddits took a vote on how subscribers to those subreddits wanted the mods to handle things, and many urged the moderators to continue protesting.

But, Huffman apparently couldn’t handle that kind of democracy. So he’s spent the last few weeks threatening mods. The ultimatums ramped up over the weekend, after Reddit made it official that protesting mods who changed their subs to be labeled as NSFW (“not safe for work” meaning no ads can show) would be removed unless they changed back.

However, Reddit has sent messages to the mods of those subreddits saying they must “immediately correct” their NSFW labeling, claiming each community “has not historically been considered NSFW nor would they under our current policies.” If the designation isn’t corrected, any moderators involved in that decision will be removed. Those mods may be “subject to additional actions,” such as losing the ability to join future moderator teams.

Much democracy, very freedom.

It appears some mods have caved, saying they don’t know what else to do. But some are still holding out.

As of Thursday evening, r/PICS had dropped the NSFW designation, along with r/military.

In an email to The Verge, a moderator for the military subreddit said that the mods decided to revert the NSFW designation because the community is a helpful resource for veterans experiencing mental health crises. The mod said that if Reddit removed the team, it could put the community at risk.

The moderators r/PICS discussed remaining NSFW and awaiting removal, but decided instead to explore “alternative ways of adhering to Reddit’s vague and contradictory mandates and policies,” a mod wrote in a Reddit DM to The Verge. “To be clear, reverting the NSFW setting technically constitutes a violation of the site-wide rules (as they are currently written), but since Reddit has insisted, we have been left with no other option.”

The mods of r/Askwomenadvice, who also received the warning, instead plan to keep the designation and potentially face removal. “Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could do a quick look at the top posts, whether it’s by week, month, year, or all time, and see that our sub is peppered with NSFW topics,” one moderator wrote. “Our ethics won’t allow us in good faith to lie to you so Reddit can make a buck. So when the sub gets turned over to whatever scab steps forward, we hope they have the decency to run it in a way that keeps you safe.”

Meanwhile, now that the API changes have been put in place, and a bunch of tools have had to shut down, moderators for the /r/blind subreddit announced that their blind mods can no longer moderate the sub.

Since the latest “accessibility” update to the Reddit app, the amount and magnitude of new accessibility related bugs has made it virtually impossible for blind mods to operate on mobile.

We have done absolutely everything we could to work with Reddit and have given them every opportunity. When they offered to host a demo of the update, we understood how little they understand about accessibility: they did not respond to a request to use the app with screen curtain on. The only fair conclusion is that they cannot use it without sight, but expect us to.

The update introduced various regressions and new bugs. This is entirely within the expectations of the mod team, given how rushed it was and how Reddit continues to demonstrate how underprepared they are to deal with accessibility.

While the group initially talked about moving elsewhere, for the time being they’re staying on Reddit, but all of the moderators on r/blind are now either sighted or visually impaired, as opposed to fully blind.

Seems like an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen, but hey, Huffman wants his IPO, so why not just toss out the blind moderators who are causing so much trouble.

Once again, things feel ripe for someone else to step in and fill the void of the enshittified Reddit. There are, of course, already attempts in the Fediverse with Lemmy, kbin and others. I’ve seen talk of building Reddit-like functionality into other decentralized protocols like nostr and ATproto. And, I’m sure that some others are looking at jumping in as well. For all we know, in a few months, Meta may launch its own Reddit competitor as well, just as they’ve slipped into the microblogging world with Threads.

Filed Under: accessibility, blind, nsfw, protests, steve huffman
Companies: reddit

Pharma Exec Trying To Dodge First Amendment By Pretending He’s Going To Sue An American In A Foreign Court

Defamation

from the wrong-about-libel-and-wrong-about-this dept

People are finding cool new (probably illegal) ways to unmask people they want to sue. In this case, it’s a guy who didn’t like some things said about him. But in order to get a libel lawsuit going, the plaintiff needs to have a defendant to sue. Here’s where all the bad faith begins, as uncovered (and reported) by Paul Levy of Public Citizen.

Frederic Eshelman, a pharmaceutical magnate, resents being criticized by an anonymous gmail user who called him a “piece of shit” and urged companies to stop collaborating with Eshelman for, among other things, “abusing police resources” when he used his political influence to secure the arrest and prosecution of hunters who “corner-crossed” his hunting reserve to get from one bit of public land to another.  To move forward a defamation claim, he would have to get a subpoena to Google enforced in a California court, and those courts have protected the First Amendment right to speak anonymously by requiring plaintiffs to present complaints that state valid defamation claims, and to present evidence in support of that claim. And Eshelman’s supposed defamation claim is more than a little bit fanciful.

“Fanciful” is putting it kindly. There’s no valid defamation claim here, even if Eshelman manages to convince a court he’s not a public figure. (That’s going to be tough to claim, since he’s already made headlines at the Washington Post.) But we’re not even at that point yet. Eshelman wants to unmask the Doe he wants to sue, and he appears to be twisting the truth in hopes of keeping his subpoena to Google from being blocked.

So, instead of just filing a suit for defamation in his home state of North Carolina and domesticating a subpoena to Google in California, he went straight to the federal court there, invoking 28 U.S.C. § 1782, a procedure enacted to enable litigants in proceedings outside the United States to obtain needed discovery from US courts. Eshelman doesn’t actually have any lawsuits pending abroad – his excuse for using this procedure is that, among the recipients of the critical email was a company in India (SEE UPDATE BELOW) and a company in Germany (although as far as I can tell, the company he claims is in Germany is really in California). 

The update Levy has added to this post comes from Google — the recipient of the questionable subpoena. Google dug around a bit on 6 Degree PR’s website and discovered the CEO of the company actually lives in the Philadelphia area, which means every entity Eshelman wished to exploit to bypass the First Amendment is actually a US entity or resident. The First Amendment applies.

Eshelman’s use of this loophole to bypass First Amendment scrutiny would be problematic enough if it was his idea. But it wasn’t. As Levy notes, it was likely his lawyer’s idea.

Eshelman’s counsel, from the well-known libel litigation boutique Clare Locke, told me that he has used the section 1782 procedure several times before, always successfully. 

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean every Section 1782 action filed by this firm has ultimately involved US-based entities. But it does suggest the firm has played a little loose with the facts to acquire subpoenas to unmask litigation targets.

Fortunately, this bogus attempt to unmask a critic is likely to go nowhere. Both Public Citizen [PDF] and Google [PDF] have filed motions asking the judge to quash the illicitly obtained subpoena. Both make the same point: this is bad faith litigation wholly unsupported by the known facts. This is from Public Citizen’s motion:

On January 13, 2023, Eshelman filed an Ex Parte Application for an Order Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 against Google LLC, seeking subpoenas to learn from Google the identity of an anonymous American citizen who criticized him in a single email. […] As grounds for the request, Eshelman purportedly intends to file two defamation actions against Doe in foreign courts, claiming that the email was sent to “two international business contacts.” Neither the application nor Eshelman’s supporting declaration alleges that Eshelman suffered any injury to his reputation in either of the two foreign countries, Germany and India.

Google’s take:

The Application appears to be an attempt to circumvent the policies of the United States. The U.S. has a policy of protecting speech and public debate under the First Amendment. See, e.g., Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809, 829 (1975) (“The policy of the First Amendment favors dissemination of information and opinion”). There is evidence demonstrating that this matter involves a U.S. citizen or resident who sent an email to U.S. recipients, implicating the First Amendment. The Anonymous Speaker’s statement is plainly an opinion based on disclosed facts. This statement would not be actionable in U.S. courts, evidencing an intent to evade the protections of the First Amendment.

[…]

Applicant does not appear to have any basis to bring claims under Indian or German law, and he has not shown that his possible claims are actionable or that foreign proceedings are even viable. Instead, this appears to be a purely domestic dispute without a clear connection to foreign countries.

There’s basically no chance this ends up going Eshelman’s way. These are shady tactics in service of a libel lawsuit Eshelman has zero chance of winning in a US court. Hopefully, the court will quash the subpoena and force Eshelman to play by the (US) rules. And, if he has to do that, hopefully he’ll realize moving forward with a lawsuit is only going to net him another loss. If Eshelman’s smart (and there’s nothing here that suggests that he is), he’ll quit while he’s only this far behind.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, defamation, frederic eshelman, gmail, section 1782, subpoena
Companies: clare locke, google

Daily Deal: WonderCube Pro All-In-One Mobile Keyring

Deals

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

End the frustration of carrying tangled cables and the bulkiness of multiple accessories forever with this WonderCube Pro. This is the smallest all-in-one mobile solution that carries 8 smartphone essentials right at your fingertips. This device features a 1″ foldout flexible USB cord that measures 3″ when extended. It has a built-in gold-plated connector that ensures quick charge through a USB port. Its micro-suction cups plate easily attach or detach on the phone’s back panel for the best viewing angle. It also comes with a built-in micro-SD card reader that supports up to 128GB memory. Do more, carry less with WonderCube. A single WonderCube is on sale for $44 or a 2 pack is on sale for $80.

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.

Filed Under: daily deal

DC Circuit Says FOSTA Is Perfectly Constitutional, Nothing To See Here

Free Speech

from the well-that's-bad dept

Back in January there was some hope that the panel of judges hearing the latest version of the challenge to FOSTA’s constitutionality had recognized the problems with the law. That’s because during oral arguments they seemed to express skepticism about its constitutionality, noting that it appeared to criminalize any efforts to legalize prostitution.

But as we’ve said many, many times, never get too worked up by how oral arguments go, because by the time the actual decision comes down, it may not reflect what was argued live. And that appears to be the case here, where on Friday, the DC Circuit appeals court said that FOSTA appears perfectly constitutional and there’s nothing wrong with the law.

We affirm. Neither Section 2421A of FOSTA nor FOSTA’s amendments to the Trafficking Act are overbroad or unconstitutionally vague. FOSTA’s clarification that Section 230 withholds immunity for violations of federal sex trafficking laws comports with the First Amendment. And the district court correctly dismissed the challenge to Section 230(e)(5)’s retroactive application.

This is a frustrating ruling in all sorts of ways, not the least for handwaving away the very real and very obvious harms to speech that FOSTA has already created, especially among sex workers, and beyond them as well. I mean, the court knows this and even admits that speech was stifled:

In response to FOSTA’s enactment, several online platforms removed content and deleted entire sections of their websites. Woodhull II, 948 F.3d at 368–369. For example, two days after Congress passed the Act, Craigslist eliminated all personal ads, including those in non-sexual categories, and named FOSTA as the reason for doing so. Other websites followed suit, and many blamed the Act’s broad criminal prohibitions and severe penalties. See COYOTE-RI, et al., Amicus Br. A. 15 (“FOSTA changes [liability] in a way that makes sites operated by small organizations * * * much riskier to operate. [The Act] essentially says that if we facilitate the prostitution of another person we’re liable. * * * [T]he problem is that ‘or facilitate’ is ill-defined.”).

The plaintiffs in this case similarly allege that FOSTA has chilled or halted their constitutionally protected speech. Plaintiff Woodhull Freedom Foundation is an advocacy organization that supports the health, safety, and protection of sex workers. Because of the Act, Woodhull has censored its publication of information that might, in its view, be considered to promote or facilitate sex work.

First up, the court looks at whether or not FOSTA’s change to the Trafficking Act, broadening the definition of “participating” in a traffickng venture, is too broad. This was part of what we kept calling out when FOSTA was being debated in Congress. By saying that “assisting” and “facilitating” can violate the law, you’re likely to sweep up all sorts of Constitutionally-protected speech.

You don’t have to go far to see examples of this. Sex workers have found that under FOSTA it’s much more difficult to find a site that will allow them to share information that keeps them safe — as it may be deemed assisting under the law. Sex workers helping keep each other safe by sharing tips and information should pretty clearly be Constitutionally protected.

Yet the panel of judges here says that everyone’s overreacting, because the law doesn’t actually criminalize this:

In sum, reading Section 1591(e)(4)’s definition of “participation in a venture” in light of its context and placement in the statutory scheme, the definition permissibly prohibits aiding and abetting a venture that one knows to be engaged in sex trafficking while knowingly benefiting from that venture. We thus hold that the provision does not have the expansive scope that Woodhull fears, but instead, proscribes only speech that falls within the traditional bounds of aiding-and-abetting liability, which is not a form of speech protected by the First Amendment…

Which is great in theory, but in reality it means that tons of companies refuse to host such speech so as to avoid the risk of a lawsuit (and we’ve seen plenty of frivolous lawsuits using FOSTA already).

The same is true regarding the part of FOSTA that talks about “promote or facilitate.” Again, the court insists there’s nothing to worry about here because, in context, they’re sure that the law means “aid and abet,” which would have much higher knowledge required. Of course, if Congress meant “promote or facilitate” to mean “aid and abet” they, you know, could have written that? But the court insists that’s really what Congress meant:

So when read within its traditional criminal law context, Section 2421A(a)’s prohibition on promoting the prostitution of another person proscribes owning, managing, or operating an online platform with the intent to recruit, solicit, or find a place of business for a sex worker—that is, to aid and abet prostitution…

There’s a lot of this kind of nitpicking, with the court insisting that Congress didn’t actually intend the language to mean what basically every company online has interpreted it to say.

And that seems like a problem.

I mean, in one sense, you could argue that the ruling is actually good for speech, because it’s basically saying “all the things companies are now afraid of because of this law aren’t actually violating the law.” So if companies agree with that and feel safer hosting this kind of speech again, that would be a good result. But… it’s also unlikely to actually play out that way. Because you have to believe that this DC Circuit ruling would be recognized by (1) tort lawyers who have been filing frivolous cases using FOSTA and (2) other circuits.

So, language like this is great… in a vacuum disconnected from reality:

We therefore hold that Section 2421A(a)’s mental state requirement does not reach the intent to engage in general advocacy about prostitution, or to give advice to sex workers generally to protect them from abuse. Nor would it cover the intent to preserve for historical purposes webpages that discuss prostitution. Instead, it reaches a person’s intent to aid or abet the prostitution of another person. That reading also makes sense in a statute that targets prostitution alongside sex trafficking, and seeks to eradicate the use of online platforms when they contribute to sex work that is compelled by “force, fraud, and coercion[.]”

Will that language make companies comfortable hosting any of that speech? I somehow doubt it.

In many ways this whole ruling is strange like that. It’s basically saying that the very real chilling effects, which the court admits have occurred, were a mistake. But, you know, that’s the whole reason we had a broad Section 230 in the first place, so that websites don’t have to do this mental calculus of “if we host this kind of content, will we have to face a huge lawsuit over it?” And FOSTA directly ruins that for a broad category of speech.

And the court’s response is, effectively, “eh, well, it shouldn’t create any chilling effects, so just stop being afraid.”

Cold comfort.

Those parts above were about the modifications FOSTA made to trafficking law. What about the modifications to Section 230 directly? The panel of judges isn’t at all persuaded that’s a problem, using similar reasoning as above:

Woodhull argues that selective withdrawal of Section 230 immunity only for those who speak on disfavored subjects like the promotion of prostitution and sex trafficking violates the First Amendment. Once again, Woodhull’s argument fails.

To start, FOSTA does not criminalize promoting prostitution broadly. It only punishes aiding or abetting the “prostitution of another person,” which has a much narrower reach…

Then the court says (falsely) that the changes to 230 were only a clarification. Section 230 has always exempted federal criminal law, and the court says that here it’s just making it clear that also includes federal sex trafficking law:

Congress was explicit in FOSTA that Section 230’s immunity provision “was never intended to provide legal protection” to websites that unlawfully promote prostitution or assist traffickers, and accordingly determined that “clarification * * * [wa]s warranted to ensure that such section does not provide such protection to such websites.” 47 U.S.C. § 230 note. Congress amended Section 230 in response to the many court decisions immunizing websites hosting unlawful speech in a manner that was deemed to be contrary to Congress’s original design. See Woodhull II, 948 F.3d at 367– 368 (explaining that courts frequently held that Section 230 prevented liability for violations of federal law). So all FOSTA does is clarify and reinforce the prior exclusion of immunity within the specific context of sex trafficking, and explain that the limit on immunity extends to civil liability as well.

But… that’s wrong. 230 exempts federal criminal law. But not civil law. The examples given of “many court decisions immunizing websites hosting unlawful speech” are civil cases. And that’s important for a variety of reasons, including the different standards involved. And, again, we know this because we’re now seeing these frivolous civil cases being brought under FOSTA.

Anyway, this is an unfortunate result. It’s possible Woodhull will ask the Supreme Court to weigh in, and honestly under SCOTUS’ recent 303 Creative ruling, it seems pretty clear that Woodhull should win. But, the risk with that is that the Conservative wing of the Court seems a lot less likely to care about the 1st Amendment rights of sex workers as compared to a religious Christian woman pretending to want to start a business making wedding websites.

But, of course, the whole point of the 1st Amendment is that it’s supposed to protect everyone, not just the people Supreme Court Justices like.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, aiding and abeting, assisting, facilitating, fosta, section 230, sex trafficking, sex work, vagueness
Companies: woodhull

Congress May Not Renew Low-Income Broadband Program Birthed During COVID

Broadband

from the strike-at-the-root dept

During peak pandemic, the FCC launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB program), giving lower income Americans a $50 ($75 for those in tribal lands) discount off of their broadband bill. Under the program, the government gave money to ISPs, which then doled out discounts to users if they qualified.

But (and I’m sure this will be a surprise to readers) reports are that big ISPs erected cumbersome barriers to actually getting the service, or worse, actively exploited the sign up process to force struggling low-income applicants on to more expensive plans once the initial contract ended. Very much in character.

The EBB was rebranded the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) as part of the Infrastructure Bill (the payout to the general public was dropped to $30 a month). And, once again, not at all surprisingly, the FCC discovered that “dozens” of U.S. broadband providers were ripping the program off to the tune of millions of dollars across Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.

That said, the program was still a good thing for millions of people. Data routinely indicates that affordability is the biggest obstacle to broadband adoption, and $30 off their bill was a huge deal for many. Especially in tribal areas long neglected by the private sector and government alike.

Everybody’s experiences with COVID home education and telecommuting briefly shined a bright spotlight on substandard U.S. broadband and policy issues. But with our attention on COVID waning, its impetus for reform on broadband access is as well. ACP money will run out soon, and the debate has begun as to whether Congress should renew the ACP program:

Nineteen million households have enrolled in the government’s broadband benefit system as of June, but that figure is well under the estimated 49 million eligible. The program and a predecessor initiative have “suffered persistent abuses … as telecom giants have induced price hikes, speed cuts, and fraud risks,” a Post investigation found.

Consumer groups and Democrats unsurprisingly want to renew the program. And why not; in a country that endlessly throws subsidies at a wide variety of industries (especially military) and billionaires for doing absolutely nothing, why not spend some cash on a program that (mostly) helped the poor. Republicans are generally split on whether the program should be extended.

There’s some nuance here though. The problem remains that the program isn’t actually fixing the underlying problem. U.S. broadband is expensive and spotty because both parties have historically allowed telecom giants to monopolize access and crush competition. The result of this monopolization isn’t surprising: high prices, spotty service, slower speeds, and comically terrible customer service.

Enter the ACP, which basically throws billions of dollars at companies responsible for the very problem we’re trying to fix so that they’ll temporarily lower high prices they’re directly responsible for. Yes, the end result still helps a low-income family struggling to get online, but it’s important to understand you wouldn’t need this kind of program if the two parties were willing to challenge monopoly power.

Democrats are often better than the GOP on telecom policy. But even they have a comical aversion to acknowledging that the real problem here is consolidated, concentrated monopoly power. Democratic FCC leaders will talk endlessly and ambiguously about their dedication to “bridging the digital divide,” but they’re literally incapable of making public statements calling out the monopolies responsible for it.

So yes, I do think it makes sense to renew the program. As a country we spend a lot more money on significantly dumber ideas. But it would be lovely if that extension was paired with some base level realization that progress isn’t actually being made unless you strike at the real root of the problem: telecom monopolies and the bipartisan corruption that protects them from competition.

Fewer monopolies, more competition, and competent regulatory oversight generally means lower prices, and no need for the ACP in the first place. But we’re not really interested in cracking down on monopolies, government support for pro-competitive policies is limited at best, and industry continues to successfully defang telecom regulators and consumer protection standards year after year.

Filed Under: ACP, broadband, covid, digital divide, ebb, fcc, high speed internet, low income, subsidies, telecom

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the talk-of-the-town dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Cdevon2 with a response to the notion that it’s somehow ironic for people who wanted to leave Twitter to be complaining about not being able to read tweets:

You assume that the same people who are actively leaving the site are the ones complaining and not, say, people who are not as terminally online as you are and might just be looking for tweets from their local emergency services.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about Twitter’s threat to sue Meta, which invoked former employees’ “ongoing obligations to Twitter”:

The ones Twitter hasn’t paid? Those employees?

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment adding to our post on Musk speedrunning the “enshittification curve”:

I think this story is incomplete without a mention what else Elon’s devoted his time to while it was all happening, particularly since TechDirt discusses policy matters as well. Specifically, he decided to boost Islamophobia and replacement theory, put the blame on white women and approve the idea of second-class citizenship.
https://i.imgur.com/mt96SHL.png
At this point i’m not even sure it’s a enshittification learning curve, i think there’s a good chance it’s a deliberate destruction curve. Hanlon’s razor’s getting pretty worn out.

Next, it’s PaulT responding to the claim that Gmail has monopolized email by destroying the ability of people to self-host email:

I mean… that ability is very much still there, there is literally nothing stopping you from setting up your own server or using a 3rd party that doesn’t do such things.

There’s arguments as to why people pass on the management to Google et al. and why it’s better to have them deal with the issues involved, but nothing they’ve done has removed the ability for someone to self-host.

Over on the funny side, both our winners come in response to Elon’s enshittification of Twitter. In first place, it’s Cat_Daddy with a summary dialogue:

Techdirt: “Tweet limits! He actively sabotaged his own website by limiting the view count for tweets! It’s so dumb.”
Musksimps: “Oh, it’s so dumb, it’s brilliant!”
Techdirt: “No! It’s just dumb.”

In second place, it’s an anonymous coinage:

There’s enshittification, and then there’s Elonification.

Twitter isn’t JUST being enshittified, it’s being Elonified.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with one more anonymous comment about that post, this time about the new Twitter CEO’s tweet on what happens “when you have a big mission like Twitter”:/

I think she left out a word. Should have been:

When you have a big mission like killing twitter

Finally, it’s Amazing Rando with a grammar suggestion on our post about the amicus brief filed by multiple David Sosas:

I believe the correct plural is David_s_ Sosa.

That’s all for this week, folks!

This Week In Techdirt History: July 2nd – 8th

Techdirt

from the a-short-holiday-week dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2018, the latest text of the EU Copyright Directive showed it to be even more disastrous than expected. Thus, its defenders and apologists were busy responding variously with substance-free denial, vague defenses lacking any understanding of the issues, accidental revelations of the true scope of their internet-destroying goals, and deeply misleading information. Thankfully, the EU Parliament ended up voting to step back from the abyss for the time being, while we pushed back against the claims that the directive’s failure was just the result of big tech lobbying and not genuine concerns.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2013, George W. Bush stepped up to defend the NSA’s surveillance programs on the basis that it’s okay because civil liberties are “guaranteed” anyway, while Obama was trying to defend America to angry Europeans (who were thinking about giving Snowden everything from asylum to a medal) on the basis that surely the spying goes the other way, too. A lot of people were trying to pretend the programs were no big deal even though they very clearly were, while FISA judges were unhappy about all the attention they were suddenly getting from an angry public, and the Washington Post was happily abdicating all journalistic responsibility and begging the government to stop them from reporting on leaks.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2008, we got another example of how copyright locks up history, while the RIAA was following the MPAA’s footsteps in asserting that proof shouldn’t be necessary to sue for infringement. Bono agreed with his manager that ISPs are to blame for the downfall of music, while we wondered if the entertainment industry would ever, itself, follow the same kind of three strikes rule it wanted to impose on ISPs. The Viacom/YouTube fight moved forward with YouTube being forced to hand over all kinds of data about people and what videos they watched, while Mark Cuban was putting forth the very wrong argument that Google forfeited safe harbors by filtering for porn.

Filed Under: history, look back

Part 2: Microsoft Bolsters Sony’s Justification For Withholding Console Info In Court Doc

Legal Issues

from the whoops dept

The ongoing saga that is Microsoft’s attempt to purchase Activision Blizzard continues! As a brief review of the scoreboard will show: the EU has approved the purchase, the UK’s CMA has blocked it and Microsoft has appealed that decision, and the lawsuit brought by the FTC in the States is currently in the pretrial phase. Last we checked in on the FTC suit, Sony’s Jim Ryan gave a deposition in which he claimed that if the purchase was allowed, that Sony might not share information about any future consoles with Microsoft-owned developers like Activision Blizzard out of fear that Microsoft would use that information, critical to giving developers information needed to make games for those future consoles, in ways that Sony wouldn’t like. In that post, I made clear that this was a bad look for Sony, which has several first-party titles on the Xbox, given its anticompetitive nature in a lawsuit that the FTC is bringing on grounds of the merger being anti-competition.

Now it appears that Microsoft has thrown something of a lifeline to Sony on that front. In a recent pretrial filing from Microsoft, in which it makes the argument that Sony and the FTC are too limited in the consoles that they claim compete with the Xbox series of consoles, Microsoft sure seems confident in the next few consoles Sony plans to release.

In a section of the document tantalizingly subtitled “The Console Market Must Include Nintendo,” Microsoft is taking issue with the FTC’s position that Xbox and PlayStation are in a two-horse race because “they are offered at a similar price.” This, they say, is “unpersuasive,” on the basis of previous Supreme Court rulings (uh-oh), but also that the FTC’s analysis “considers only the high-end models of Xbox (Series X) and PlayStation (standard edition), thereby ignoring the differentiation within Xbox’s console lines.” They make the point that a Series S and a Switch cost the same, and their budget model is fifty bucks less than a Switch OLED.

But then, with a canny dismissiveness, they throw in at the end of the paragraph:

PlayStation likewise sells a less expensive Digital Edition for $399.99, and is expected to release a PlayStation 5 Slim later this year at the same reduced price point.

Now, to be clear, there is a lot of speculation about this already out there in the wild. So it wouldn’t be out of the realm of the reasonable for Microsoft to be simply speculating on a Slim version of the PS5 being on the docket, similar to what Sony did with the PS4.

On the other hand:

The line comes with a footnote adding, “Sony is also anticipated to release a handheld version of the PlayStation 5 later this year for under $300.”

This would be Sony’s Project Q, for which they’ve revealed almost nothing, let alone a street date or price!

There has been some speculation about the handheld as well, but not because it follows the format of previously released PlayStation consoles and their progression to other versions. This very much looks like Microsoft outing Sony’s plans for a next generation series of consoles, including a handheld, which aren’t currently on offer. Press speculation aside, putting this in a court filing when that information isn’t officially public is quite a choice.

And, either way, the optics of this are terrible. At best, it’s Microsoft using a court filing to undercut Sony’s release announcements for future consoles, which isn’t great. At worst, it’s Microsoft tipping its hand that it already has some inside information on these future consoles, possibly from the Zenimax acquisition, which goes some lengths to bolstering Sony’s concerns about how Microsoft is going to use information about future consoles should Sony share that information with them.

You just have to love a gaming industry story where everyone is the bad guy.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, information sharing, playstation, ps5, ps5 slim, video games
Companies: activision blizzard, microsoft, sony, znimax