There is an incredible dearth of nuance when it comes to how some companies attempt to enforce their trademarks. A couple of things are true. First, an entity risks losing their marks if they don’t rigorously enforce them against actual infringement. Second, the USPTO is far too lenient in granting marks that are non-creative or which contain very basic characters, like individual letters and numbers. And, third, the results of this are company lawyers suing or opposing trademark applications in a manner that ultimately looks very, very silly.
Arena Football One is a league that has existed for about a year. The small league kicked off its inaugural season in 2024, shortly after filing for trademarks on its names and logo, the latter of which is “AF1”, with the “A” styled to have a football in the center of it. And then Formula 1 came calling.
On Oct. 3, Formula 1, which is a popular international auto racing league, filed a “Notice of Opposition” before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board against Arena Football One. F1’s grounds for appeal against AF1 include, “likelihood of confusion,” and “likelihood of dilution.”
“The [AF1] Services are entertainment services related to sports, which are highly related to the entertainment services offered by the Formula 1 Companies under the F1 Marks and covered by the F1 Registrations… The Applicant’s Mark encompasses in its entirety the Opposer’s F1 word mark and the ‘F1’ element is identical in sight, sound and commercial impression, and is highly similar to the F1 Marks overall. Both marks are pronounced similarly: ‘A-F-One” and ‘F-One.’ They share the dominant, final sound element “F-One.” The initial “A” in “AF1” is likely to be perceived as a minor variation or prefix, making the marks phonetically very close.” Attorneys for F1 stated in the appeal.
Likelihood of confusion is simply not on offer here. This is where the nuance of trademark law comes into play. It’s not enough for marks to be similar to allege confusion. They also have to, upon examination, exhibit a likelihood of confusion among the hurried morons of the world. I’m simply going to put F1’s and AF1’s logos side by side below for you and let you decide for yourself just how confusing they are.
I’m sorry, but no. The logos aren’t that similar, they use different color combinations, there’s a football in the AF1 logo, as well as the league’s goddamned name. Unless we’re arguing now that morons in a hurry can’t even read basic English words, then there is no confusion to be had here. And I myself am a “moron” when it comes to both F1 racing and arena football in the sense that I don’t know or care about either of them. If someone came up to me and asked if I wanted AF1 tickets, I would ask them what the hell they were talking about, not what time the race is. All the more-so if they called it “Arena Football One,” a name that F1 also opposed.
I suppose what they’re going for here on the dilution claim is dilution by blurring, meaning that F1’s famous mark will be weakened in strength of association with its product due to the similarities with AF1’s. I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on that one, too. F1 has a handful of races in the United States, sure, but Arena Football One is a relatively small and obscure sports league. I would love to see a shred of evidence for true dilution due to its name and logo by F1. I have to believe the effects of AF1 existing on F1 are essentially non-existent. And, keep in mind, dilution is typically more challenging to prove, as you have to show it actually occurring.
Both Nike and Abercrombie & Fitch have also filed for extensions to oppose the marks. Those seem to make even less sense than the F1 opposition. I have no idea what Nike could be citing in opposition, but is Abercrombie & Fitch really going to suggest that it’s products are going to be confused with an arena football game?
So much of this sort of thing feels like attorneys filing oppositions for the sake of oppositions. And none of it appears designed to actually protect the consumer, which is supposed to be the point of trademark law.
More than 80 law enforcement agencies across the United States have used language perpetuating harmful stereotypes against Romani people when searching the nationwide Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) network, according to audit logs obtained and analyzed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
When police run a search through the Flock Safety network, which links thousands of ALPR systems, they are prompted to leave a reason and/or case number for the search. Between June 2024 and October 2025, cops performed hundreds of searches for license plates using terms such as “roma” and “g*psy,” and in many instances, without any mention of a suspected crime. Other uses include “g*psy vehicle,” “g*psy group,” “possible g*psy,” “roma traveler” and “g*psy ruse,” perpetuating systemic harm by demeaning individuals based on their race or ethnicity.
These queries were run through thousands of police departments’ systems—and it appears that none of these agencies flagged the searches as inappropriate.
These searches are, by definition, racist.
Word Choices and Flock Searches
We are using the terms “Roma” and “Romani people” as umbrella terms, recognizing that they represent different but related groups. Since 2020, the U.S. federal government has officially recognized “Anti-Roma Racism” as including behaviors such as “stereotyping Roma as persons who engage in criminal behavior” and using the slur “g*psy.” According to the U.S. Department of State, this language “leads to the treatment of Roma as an alleged alien group and associates them with a series of pejorative stereotypes and distorted images that represent a specific form of racism.”
Nevertheless, police officers have run hundreds of searches for license plates using the terms “roma” and “g*psy.” (Unlike the police ALPR queries we’ve uncovered, we substitute an asterisk for the Y to avoid repeating this racist slur). In many cases, these terms have been used on their own, with no mention of crime. In other cases, the terms have been used in contexts like “g*psy scam” and “roma burglary,” when ethnicity should have no relevance to how a crime is investigated or prosecuted.
A “g*psy scam” and “roma burglary” do not exist in criminal law separate from any other type of fraud or burglary. Several agencies contacted by EFF have since acknowledged the inappropriate use and expressed efforts to address the issue internally.
“The use of the term does not reflect the values or expected practices of our department,” a representative of the Palos Heights (IL) Police Department wrote to EFF after being confronted with two dozen searches involving the term “g*psy.” “We do not condone the use of outdated or offensive terminology, and we will take this inquiry as an opportunity to educate those who are unaware of the negative connotation and to ensure that investigative notations and search reasons are documented in a manner that is accurate, professional, and free of potentially harmful language.”
Of course, the broader issue is that allowing “g*psy” or “Roma” as a reason for a search isn’t just offensive, it implies the criminalization an ethnic group. In fact, the Grand Prairie Police Department in Texas searched for “g*psy” six times while using Flock’s “Convoy” feature, which allows an agency to identify vehicles traveling together—in essence targeting an entire traveling community of Roma without specifying a crime.
At the bottom of this post is a list of agencies and the terms they used when searching the Flock system.
Anti-Roma Racism in an Age of Surveillance
Racism against Romani people has been a problem for centuries, with one of its most horrific manifestations during the Holocaust, when the Third Reich and its allies perpetuated genocide by murdering hundreds of thousands of Romani people and sterilizing thousands more. Despite efforts by the UN and EU to combat anti-Roma discrimination, this form of racism persists. As scholars Margareta Matache and Mary T. Bassett explain, it is perpetuated by modern American policing practices:
In recent years, police departments have set up task forces specialised in “G*psy crimes”, appointed “G*psy crime” detectives, and organised police training courses on “G*psy criminality”. The National Association of Bunco Investigators (NABI), an organisation of law enforcement professionals focusing on “non-traditional organised crime”, has even created a database of individuals arrested or suspected of criminal activity, which clearly marked those who were Roma.
Thus, it is no surprise that a 2020 Harvard University survey of Romani Americans found that 4 out of 10 respondents reported being subjected to racial profiling by police. This demonstrates the ongoing challenges they face due to systemic racism and biased policing.
Notably, many police agencies using surveillance technologies like ALPRs have adopted some sort of basic policy against biased policing or the use of these systems to target people based on race or ethnicity. But even when such policies are in place, an agency’s failure to enforce them allows these discriminatory practices to persist. These searches were also run through the systems of thousands of other police departments that may have their own policies and state laws that prohibit bias-based policing—yet none of those agencies appeared to have flagged the searches as inappropriate.
The Flock search data in question here shows that surveillance technology exacerbates racism, and even well-meaning policies to address bias can quickly fall apart without proper oversight and accountability.
Cops In Their Own Words
EFF reached out to a sample of the police departments that ran these searches. Here are five representative responses we received from police departments in Illinois, California, and Virginia. They do not inspire confidence.
1. Lake County Sheriff’s Office, IL
In June 2025, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office ran three searches for a dark colored pick-up truck, using the reason: “G*PSY Scam.” The search covered 1,233 networks, representing 14,467 different ALPR devices.
In response to EFF, a sheriff’s representative wrote via email:
“Thank you for reaching out and for bringing this to our attention. We certainly understand your concern regarding the use of that terminology, which we do not condone or support, and we want to assure you that we are looking into the matter.
Any sort of discriminatory practice is strictly prohibited at our organization. If you have the time to take a look at our commitment to the community and our strong relationship with the community, I firmly believe you will see discrimination is not tolerated and is quite frankly repudiated by those serving in our organization.
We appreciate you bringing this to our attention so we can look further into this and address it.”
2. Sacramento Police Department, CA
In May 2025, the Sacramento Police Department ran six searches using the term “g*psy.” The search covered 468 networks, representing 12,885 different ALPR devices.
In response to EFF, a police representative wrote:
“Thank you again for reaching out. We looked into the searches you mentioned and were able to confirm the entries. We’ve since reminded the team to be mindful about how they document investigative reasons. The entry reflected an investigative lead, not a disparaging reference.
We appreciate the chance to clarify.”
3. Palos Heights Police Department, IL
In September 2024, the Palos Heights Police Department ran more than two dozen searches using terms such as “g*psy vehicle,” “g*psy scam” and “g*psy concrete vehicle.” Most searches hit roughly 1,000 networks.
In response to EFF, a police representative said the searches were related to a singular criminal investigation into a vehicle involved in a “suspicious circumstance/fraudulent contracting incident” and is “not indicative of a general search based on racial or ethnic profiling.” However, the agency acknowledged the language was inappropriate:
“The use of the term does not reflect the values or expected practices of our department. We do not condone the use of outdated or offensive terminology, and we will take this inquiry as an opportunity to educate those who are unaware of the negative connotation and to ensure that investigative notations and search reasons are documented in a manner that is accurate, professional, and free of potentially harmful language.
We appreciate your outreach on this matter and the opportunity to provide clarification.”
4. Irvine Police Department, CA
In February and May 2025, the Irvine Police Department ran eight searches using the term “roma” in the reason field. The searches covered 1,420 networks, representing 29,364 different ALPR devices.
In a call with EFF, an IPD representative explained that the cases were related to a series of organized thefts. However, they acknowledged the issue, saying, “I think it’s an opportunity for our agency to look at those entries and to use a case number or use a different term.”
5. Fairfax County Police Department, VA
Between December 2024 and April 2025, the Fairfax County Police Department ran more than 150 searches involving terms such as “g*psy case” and “roma crew burglaries.” Fairfax County PD continued to defend its use of this language.
In response to EFF, a police representative wrote:
“Thank you for your inquiry. When conducting searches in investigative databases, our detectives must use the exact case identifiers, terms, or names connected to a criminal investigation in order to properly retrieve information. These entries reflect terminology already tied to specific cases and investigative files from other agencies, not a bias or judgment about any group of people. The use of such identifiers does not reflect bias or discrimination and is not inconsistent with our Bias-Based Policing policy within our Human Relations General Order.”
A National Trend
Roma individuals and families are not the only ones being systematically and discriminatorily targeted by ALPR surveillance technologies. For example, Flock audit logs show agencies ran 400 more searches using terms targeting Traveller communities more generally, with a specific focus on Irish Travellers, often without any mention of a crime.
Across the country, these tools are enabling and amplifying racial profiling by embedding longstanding policing biases into surveillance technologies. For example, data from Oak Park, IL, show that 84% of drivers stopped in Flock-related traffic incidents were Black—despite Black people making up only 19% of the local population. ALPR systems are far from being neutral tools for public safety and are increasingly being used to fuel discriminatory policing practices against historically marginalized people.
The racially coded language in Flock’s logs mirrors long-standing patterns of discriminatory policing. Terms like “furtive movements,” “suspicious behavior,” and “high crime area” have always been cited by police to try to justify stops and searches of Black, Latine, and Native communities. These phrases might not appear in official logs because they’re embedded earlier in enforcement—in the traffic stop without clear cause, the undocumented stop-and-frisk, the intelligence bulletin flagging entire neighborhoods as suspect. They function invisibly until a body-worn camera, court filing, or audit brings them to light. Flock’s network didn’t create racial profiling; it industrialized it, turning deeply encoded and vague language into scalable surveillance that can search thousands of cameras across state lines.
The Path Forward
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, recently recommended that local governments reevaluate their decisions to install Flock Safety in their communities. We agree, but we also understand that sometimes elected officials need to see the abuse with their own eyes first.
We know which agencies ran these racist searches, and they should be held accountable. But we also know that the vast majority of Flock Safety’s clients—thousands of police and sheriffs—also allowed those racist searches to run through their Flock Safety systems unchallenged.
Elected officials must act decisively to address the racist policing enabled by Flock’s infrastructure. First, they should demand a complete audit of all ALPR searches conducted in their jurisdiction and a review of search logs to determine (a) whether their police agencies participated in discriminatory policing and (b) what safeguards, if any, exist to prevent such abuse. Second, officials should institute immediate restrictions on data-sharing through Flock’s nationwide network. As demonstrated by California law, for example, police agencies should not be able to share their ALPR data with federal authorities or out-of-state agencies, thus eliminating a vehicle for discriminatory searches spreading across state lines.
Ultimately, elected officials must terminate Flock Safety contracts entirely. The evidence is now clear: audit logs and internal policies alone cannot prevent a surveillance system from becoming a tool for racist policing. The fundamental architecture of Flock—thousands of cameras feeding into a nationwide searchable network—makes discrimination inevitable when enforcement mechanisms fail.
As Sen. Wyden astutely explained, “local elected officials can best protect their constituents from the inevitable abuses of Flock cameras by removing Flock from their communities.”
Table Overview and Notes
The following table compiles terms used by agencies to describe the reasons for searching the Flock Safety ALPR database. In a small number of cases, we removed additional information such as case numbers, specific incident details, and officers’ names that were present in the reason field.
We removed one agency from the list due to the agency indicating that the word was a person’s name and not a reference to Romani people.
In general, we did not include searches that used the term “Romanian,” although many of those may also be indicative of anti-Roma bias. We also did not include uses of “traveler” or “Traveller” when it did not include a clear ethnic modifier; however, we believe many of those searches are likely relevant.
A text-based version of the spreadsheet is available here.
You know this is a spectacle, right? A show. That’s what it is. A performance for social media. With blood.
Pete Hegseth just ordered the twenty-first strike on a suspected drug boat. Three more bodies. Another video posted to X showing a vessel bursting into flames. “Three male narco-terrorists” dead, the military announces. No trial. No evidence presented. No due process. Just boats exploding on camera and bodies labeled terrorists because the Department of Defense says so.
This is governance as content creation. TikTok foreign policy. Snackable clips of military strikes designed for engagement metrics while everything that actually matters falls apart around us.
Blowing up drug-running boats in the Caribbean isn’t going to stop the flow of drugs into America. Everyone knows this. The drugs will keep coming—they always do, they always have. Different boats, different routes, same product reaching the same streets. This isn’t policy designed to solve problems. This is spectacle designed to produce feelings. The feeling that someone strong is doing strong things. The feeling that enemies are being punished. The feeling that something is being done even as nothing actually changes.
But it is illegal. Under United States law and international law. The rule of law is being killed alongside these men in these boats. Admiral Alvin Holsey—the four-star admiral overseeing these operations—resigned because the boats weren’t showing immediate hostile intent. Colombia says we’re killing their fishermen. Ecuador released survivors for lack of evidence. Congress hasn’t authorized any of this. The Constitution hasn’t been consulted. Just Hegseth ordering strikes and posting videos while the legal framework that makes civilization possible burns alongside the boats.
So they can post it on X. So they can show you what an amazing job they’re doing. While your prices rise. While the Epstein files document twenty thousand pages of connections that cannot be explained away. While the artificial intelligence market bubble exhausts its last breaths of irrational exuberance. While American citizens are illegally detained by masked federal agents and some have been shot. This is a show for social media.
Twenty-one strikes now. How many bodies for the algorithm? How many “narco-terrorists” killed without trial before someone asks to see evidence? How many boats exploding on camera before Congress remembers it’s supposed to authorize military action? The carrier arrives tomorrow. Fifteen thousand troops ready. And still no authorization. Still no debate. Just Trump saying he’s “sort of made up my mind” while Hegseth produces content.
This is what authoritarian governance looks like in the age of engagement metrics. The policy is the spectacle. The spectacle is the policy. You’re not supposed to ask whether it works. You’re supposed to watch the boats explode and feel like winning is happening. You’re supposed to see bodies labeled terrorists and feel safer. You’re supposed to consume the content and move on to the next post before you have time to ask: Where’s the evidence? Where’s the legal authority? Where’s Congress? What is this actually accomplishing besides producing clips for social media?
The boats keep exploding. The videos keep posting. The body count keeps rising. And while you watch the performance, Trump’s Epstein connections sit in those twenty thousand pages. While you debate whether the targets were really terrorists, American citizens are detained without warrants. While you argue about drugs, the Constitution collects dust and admirals resign in protest and the rule of law dies with every strike that produces another video for posting.
This is governance for the algorithm. Bodies for engagement. Military action as content strategy. Twenty-one strikes. The carrier arrives tomorrow. Eighty people dead in undeclared war. Congress silent. The Constitution ignored. Admirals resigning. The rule of law burning.
For fucking TikTok.
Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. Originally published at his Notes From the Circus.
Imagine you’re writing an article about a popular policy trend. The trend is expensive to implement, disruptive to normal operations, and—here’s the key part—there’s substantial research showing it doesn’t actually work and can cause other significant problems. How would you structure that article?
One approach: Lead with the evidence. “Despite growing enthusiasm for [policy proposal], studies consistently find it doesn’t accomplish its stated goals.” Put that in paragraph one, maybe paragraph two or three with some lead-up if you’re feeling generous.
Another approach: Spend 13 paragraphs hyping up the trend, listing every conceivable harm it’s meant to address, quoting lawmakers and administrators who support it, and then—only then—casually mention that the evidence shows it doesn’t work.
Mobile phone bans in school and social media bans for kids are increasingly popular around the globe, driven largely by Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book—which remains a bestseller despite actual experts debunking basically everything in it. So when the paper of record wades into this debate, you’d think they might lead with what the evidence actually shows. You’d think wrong.
The article opens with the traditional moral panic opening, playing up all the fear:
Bullying. Sextortion. Body-shaming. Self-harm. Viralstudent-fight videos. Never-ending newsfeeds. Unhealthy relationships with A.I. chatbots. Teenagers who can’t seem to put down their phones.
Parents and teachers are understandably concerned about social media. For all of the community, creativity and just plain fun kids enjoy online, hazards remain all too frequent, some children’s advocates say.
It’s the greatest-hits compilation of every anxiety adults have projected onto kids and technology for decades (centuries, really). Might as well add “Dungeons & Dragons will make them worship Satan” for completeness.
The piece does eventually ask “can these bans actually help?” But not before spending several more paragraphs cataloging every conceivable harm that’s ever been tangentially associated with social media, strongly implying the tech itself is to blame rather than, you know, humanity. Then it dutifully reports that “lawmakers and schools” see bans as the answer.
Only then—14 paragraphs deep—does the Times get around to mentioning:
Wehave limited researchon whether the bans work. After surveying more than 1,200 students in 30 schools across England, researchers at the University of Birmingham recently reported that cellphone bans did not improve students’ mental well-being.
“Limited research”?
No. We have plenty of research. There’s a comprehensive study in Australia that found no evidence bans helped kids. Multiple reports document actual harms from these bans—including privacy violations and safety issues when kids can’t reach parents during emergencies. It appears that the evidence is just inconvenient for the narrative.
But the Times isn’t done. The article includes a section on how bans “may have drawbacks”—and somehow the main drawback they identify is that bans don’t stop social media companies from doing bad things. Not that the bans don’t work. Not that they create new problems. Just that they don’t magically fix the platforms themselves:
Blanket tech bans can be crude instruments. They may make it harder for many young people to have social media accounts. But they often don’t change the underlying app features that many parents are worried about.
Many popular apps use powerful attention-hacking techniques that can hook young people, said Julia Powles, an Australian researcher who is the executive director of the U.C.L.A. Institute for Technology, Law and Policy. This keeps users online longer, she notes, and makes the companies more money from advertising.
This completely misses the point—which, as danah boyd has repeatedly explained, is that adults are confusing risks with harms. Many things are risky. Some can lead to harm. But we generally deal with risky things by teaching people how to manage those risks.
The response to potential harms from social media shouldn’t be to demand bans. It should be teaching kids how to navigate these spaces appropriately—how to recognize manipulation, how to minimize risks, what to do when something goes wrong. Instead, we hide it. We ban it. We shove it under the rug and pretend that if we just keep this scary thing away from kids, they’ll somehow be fine once the ban lifts.
And thus, we get the worst of everything. For every ban out there, kids will find their ways around them. Often, that will involve doing things surreptitiously, in places with fewer controls and less ability for parents and teachers to properly instruct kids how to use those tools appropriately. It actually puts kids in more danger by pretending that if we just “ban” places for them to communicate, that they’ll just become perfect little kids who never look elsewhere.
The Times had a chance here to actually inform the debate—to lead with what the evidence shows, to explain the tradeoffs, to challenge the reflexive push for bans. Instead, they wrote 13 paragraphs of pure moral panic before mentioning that these policies don’t work, then immediately pivoted back to fearmongering about “attention-hacking techniques.”
This all just feeds the moral panic. It gives politicians and administrators cover to implement bans that won’t help kids but will absolutely create new problems. And when those bans inevitably fail, the Times will probably write another breathless piece wondering why kids are still struggling—while once again burying the fact that we never actually tried teaching them how to navigate these spaces in the first place.
Well, well, well. If it isn’t the system of checks and balances. We’ve missed you, buddy!
Long story somewhat short: ICE has been terrible for years, but it’s been much worse under Trump. During Trump’s first regime (~2016-2020), ICE got rocked by a court decision that prevented it from engaging in traffic stops just so it could arrest people for looking vaguely Mexican.
That settlement — secured with the assistance of the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) — was enacted in 2022 during the brief period between Trump Oval Office interloping.
Interlopement or not, it’s still the law of the land in Illinois. And that’s not playing well with Trump’s recent federal invasion of the Chicago area — one spearheaded by Nazi cosplayer Gregory Bovino, last seen violating the law much further south as the commander of a California-based Border Patrol unit.
Bovino chose to violate court orders so often during his short stint in Chicago, he’s been sent elsewhere by the Trump administration. It’s definitely not a sign of disapproval. It’s a vote of confidence that says the presidency will keep changing tables every time it loses a hand to the federal courts.
The Nava consent decree that forbids ICE from doing what it’s been doing in Chicago since before Trump re-grooved his ass marks in the chair behind the Resolute Desk.
And that means a lot of stops, arrests, and ensuing detentions are illegal. And because they’re illegal, people must be freed. The administration continues to act like there’s nothing in the law that prevents it from jailing people who present no flight risk or threat to public safety. That’s definitely not the law of the land and it’s definitely not the law in Seventh Circuit, which has already received notice of the administration’s appeal.
For now, however, that means a lot of people rounded up during Trump’s invasion of Chicago and ICE operations in the area preceding the anti-Democratic Party surge d/b/a “immigration enforcement” will no longer be imprisoned.
District Judge Jeffrey Cummings on Wednesday afternoon ordered the release of at least 313 people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement between June and early October.
[…]
Cummings has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to immediately release 13 detainees held in Texas, Missouri and other states that both the government and plaintiffs agree were detained in violation of the Castañon Nava settlement that prohibits warrantless immigration arrest in Illinois.
The order [PDF] itself doesn’t limit itself to 13 people, much less the 313 people stated by this Axios article. It says the government must take a look at more than twice this number and provide some sort of evidence as to why this other 300+ should continue to be detained.
To this end, by 12:00 p.m. CST on November 14, 2025, with respect to the subset of 615 individuals discussed on the record, defendants shall provide the Court with their names and specify which of the individuals in this group have been identified by defendants as posing a “high public safety risk” if they were released.
That deadline has come and gone. And the only thing the administration has done is file motions asking for this order to be stayed until this case can be heard by the Seventh Circuit Appeals Court. It has offered nothing in defense of those arrests and continued detentions of people it’s unlikely to be able to prove must be indefinitely detained despite being arrested in violation of the Nava Agreement (2022). But it’s apparently hoping the court that didn’t feel Gregory Bovino should be forced to respect the law will have much to say about the consent decree violations it engaged in while Bovino was still running the show in Chicago.
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It has been frustrating, to say the least, to watch many of the big Silicon Valley tech firms bow down to Trump and do his bidding, especially when it directly contradicts things they’ve said and done in the past. I’ve tried to explain to tech company execs why this doesn’t end well for them, but it seems it’s a lesson they’re going to have to learn from… what’s that they say…? Oh right, from “first principles.”
Silicon Valley comms expert Aaron Zamost has a new piece in the New York Times calling out the big tech companies for their cowardice in the face of authoritarianism. As he says, “this is how Silicon Valley lost its spine.”
It’s hard to square the idealistic YouTube of the late 2000s with the one that in September paid President Trump $24.5 million to settle ameritlesslawsuit over his post-Jan. 6 account suspension.
Big Tech once fought the good fights. Google in 2007 forced the Federal Communications Commission to impose openness conditions on some of the country’s most valuable airwaves, paving the way for the mobile ecosystem we take for granted today. Twitter filed lawsuits to be able to publicly disclose how often government agencies requested user data. Apple in 2016 refused orders to help the F.B.I. unlock an iPhone, defending user privacy even under government pressure. These actions took place under presidents of both parties but shared a common goal — they put the needs of users ahead of the interests of those in power.
To paraphrase the venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, the Silicon Valley of the early 2010s was a mind-set, not a location. Its leaders saw themselves as revolutionaries: fighting for everyday people, resisting entrenched authority, all while creating technology that pushed society forward. And the products matched the posture — cellphones untethered from carriers, cars that didn’t run on gas, and pocket-size credit card readers that let anyone start a business.
So what happened? As Zamost notes: “courage doesn’t scale.”
The answer is simple, if dispiriting: For tech companies, courage doesn’t scale.
Google, Apple and their peers now act like the self-preservation-obsessed incumbents they once disrupted. They move slower, talk safer and patrol the moat. They’ve traded risk for complacency — too afraid of offending the president, losing access or inviting a subpoena. Big Tech now serves power before it serves its users.
This is such an important point in a world where companies are desperate to hyperscale, but where scale creates all kinds of new problems. One of those problems, it appears, is that companies are less willing to stick their necks out. Less willing to stand on principle. And that means they can be rolled by an authoritarian who threatens their power.
But it’s an important observation about this industry. The biggest players, who came up in a world where they really were disruptive and willing to stand up for the right thing, are now a lot less likely to do so. They may have more power, but courage doesn’t scale with power. So now they act protective of their power, which means kowtowing to anyone who might try to take it away.
And, with each capitulation, the next one becomes easier. They’re all able to be cowards together.
It leads to pathetic, embarrassing situations like this:
Meta is the most egregious example. It sprinted to announce that it was dismantling its fact-checking system before Mr. Trump returned to office, then loosened its hate-speech rules in the name of “mainstream discourse.” By the end of January, Meta had reached a deal with Mr. Trump, agreeing to pay $25 million to settle his lawsuit over being suspended from Facebook and Instagram in the wake of Jan. 6. All before Mr. Trump had spent 10 days back in office.
The surrender is now routine. In April, Amazon publicly quashed reports that it would display the cost of Mr. Trump’s tariffs on product pages. Apple recently caved to pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi and pulled an app that alerted users to nearby ICE agents. This is the same Apple whose chief executive, Tim Cook, in 2017 said, “Apple would not exist without immigration,” and quoted Martin Luther King Jr. in criticizing Mr. Trump’s Muslim ban.
The biggest, wealthiest companies in the world groveling, capitulating, and (in some cases) enabling the least popular president in decades. All because he nakedly threatens their own power. It’s pure cynicism over principles. From companies who spent so many years telling us how principled they were.
As Zamost notes, this is really bad in a variety of ways. Having tech actually work well for people, not just as an extractive tool for billionaires, is kind of important. And the big tech players are making it clear that they’re not the ones to rely on for that:
Major changes are coming whether we like it or not — to the economy, to culture, to how we live and work. This is not the time for faith in tech to be atsuch lows. Adoption depends on public trust, not just in the products themselves, but also in the people and principles behind them. Unfortunately, the tech industry’s leaders have become its worst spokespeople. The problem isn’t their messaging. It’s their credibility.
For years, Silicon Valley symbolized progress. Its retreat from its core values leaves no clear heir — no other industry fights for the future in the same way. When tech is the villain instead of the hero, the future feels leaderless. And a country that stops believing its innovators can make the world better stops believing in much else, too.
Innovation should still be a force for good. It should be an enabling tool for good. But as these companies have grown, as they’ve centralized and consolidated power, that made them targets. Their own scale created their own weak spot. And Trump exploited it.
I am still optimistic that newer upstarts that are built from the ground up to decentralize things and put power back in the hands of users can take up that mantle. But these old guard tech giants had every resource, every advantage, and every opportunity to hold the line. Instead, they chose to abandon the principles that made them matter in the first place. They torched their own credibility for temporary protection from a petty autocrat. That’s not just disappointing—it’s unforgivable.
A coalition of former FCC officials are pushing for the elimination of a longstanding FCC rule the Trump administration abused to “bully” ABC and CBS into kissing the president’s ass (I’ll use the term bully loosely since both companies seemed very eager to roll over for the far right wing).
Last October, Trump sued CBS claiming (falsely) that a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris had been “deceitfully edited” to her benefit (they simply shortened some of her answers for brevity, as news outlets often do). As Mike explored at the time, the lawsuit was utterly baseless, and trampled the First Amendment, editorial discretion, and common sense.
CBS/Paramount was looking for regulatory approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance (run by Larry Ellison’s kid David). Trump and his FCC boss Brendan Carr quickly zeroed on on this, and began using merger approval as leverage to bully CBS into even more feckless coverage of the administration.
One of the FCC rules they abused during this whole process was the FCC’s “Broadcast News Distortion” policy. The policy, created in 1949, gives the agency the power to punish media companies for ethical violations featuring a clear distortion of “a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report.”
Ideally, this would be something like a media company taking a bribe from a company or public official to kill a story. The FCC has only actually used the rule eight times between 1969 and 2019, and few of those actions actually resulted in serious, substantive punishment.
Carr’s already grossly abused the rule twice; one to bully CBS into weakening its journalism, and once to try and bully ABC/Disney into pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air for making fun of Republicans. Both times, Carr leveraged the rule to launch fake “investigations” into the companies to create the illusion he’s a very big boy doing very serious things.
In response to recent abuse of the rule by Trumpism, a coalition of former FCC officials are pushing for its elimination entirely. A bipartisan coalition of seven former FCC chairs and commissioners, including five Republicans, have filed a petition with the FCC urging for the elimination of the rule, saying it’s a threat to free speech and functional journalism:
“The News Distortion Policy gives any administration a tool to target outlets that provide unfavorable coverage. Chairman Carr’s recent threats against ABC and Disney demonstrate exactly this risk.
After ABC aired Jimmy Kimmel’s commentary on Charlie Kirk’s murder, Carr threatened to revoke the network’s licenses for alleged news distortion. The message was clear: Criticize those in power and face government retaliation.
As petitioners warn: What a Republican FCC Chairman can do today, a Democratic FCC Chairman could do tomorrow. The only solution is to eliminate this dangerous tool entirely.”
Of course, FCC boss Brendan Carr refuses to give up any power so this is a non-starter for him. Carr has made a big stink about eliminating all manner of “burdensome FCC regulations” as an act of “government efficiency.” As we’ve noted, this mostly involves important consumer protections and media consolidation limits his friends in the media and telecom sector don’t like.
Carr’s still keen to maintain FCC authority he can abuse to stifle speech. He’s also keen, as we saw with TikTok, to just make up authority the FCC doesn’t have whenever it suits him.
So it’s little surprise that his response to this petition from a bunch of his predecessors was to mock it, rather than live up to his promise to eliminate “burdensome FCC regulations.” Apparently that doesn’t matter when he has the power to punish media companies for their First Amendment-protected speech:
That’s Brendan Carr tweeting the following in response to a story about this petition:
How about no
On my watch, the FCC will continue to hold broadcasters accountable to their public interest obligations.
And it is quite rich for the exact same people that pressured prior FCCS to censor conservatives through the news distortion policy to now object to the agency’s even-handed application of the law.
There’s another irony here; for generations, telecom and media giants routinely whined about the FCC “abusing its regulatory authority” and engaging in “radical extremism” any time it engaged in even the softest act of consumer protection. This was a cornerstone of “free market Libertarian” complaints. Remember the histrionics over some fairly basic, loophole-filled, net neutrality requirements?
Yet when the worst abuses of FCC authority finally did arrive, it came at the hands of far-right extremists.
That doesn’t mean we should abandon FCC oversight of corporate power (including media consolidation and diversity ownership rules) entirely, though I suspect that between good faith worries about abuse, and bad faith lobbying by corporate power, that’s the most likely outcome.
