Adrian Lopez 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (52) comment rss

  • On the post: 10 (Not So) Hidden Dangers of Age Verification

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 25 Dec, 2025 @ 07:08am

    ID to use your computer

    And if the UK government gets its way you may even be required to show ID to disable filters built into your phone or computer's operating system: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/uk-to-encourage-apple-and-google-to-put-nudity-blocking-systems-on-phones/

  • On the post: The UK Has It Wrong On Digital ID. Here’s Why.

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 15 Dec, 2025 @ 03:38pm

    Prove your age to use your phone

    The latest news in the digital ID front is that they want device manufacturers to obtain proof of age before allowing people uncensored access to their own phones. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/uk-wants-all-iphones-to-block-explicit-images-unless-you-prove-age.2474720/

  • On the post: Justice Alito Makes The Most Sense, Or This Week At The Supreme Court In The Cox-Sony Copyright Case

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2025 @ 04:57pm

    Two of the three liberal justices

    Given all that's been happening lately at SCOTUS with questionable ruling after questionable ruling, it is quite depressing to see two of the only three liberal judges leaning the wrong way. It helps that copyright isn't a pet conservative issue, giving conservative justices more room to be objective, but Jackson and Sotomayor have shown better judgment than this. They should know better.

  • On the post: Lawmakers Want To Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2025 @ 03:25pm

    That one and Ashcroft vs. ACLU, thanks to FSC vs Paxton as I have just learned.

  • On the post: Lawmakers Want To Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2025 @ 03:16pm

    It's as if Reno vs. American Civil Liberties Union had never happened.

  • On the post: Supreme Court’s ‘Go Ahead And Round Up All The Brown People’ Decision Is Being Challenged In Court

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2025 @ 02:21pm

    Binding precedent

    People keep saying even these shadow docket rulings establish binding precedent, but are courts required to follow the rationale laid out in Kavanaugh's sole concurrence? Presumably the case at issue still needs to be considered on its merits, but is the court required to follow Kavanaugh's lead here about what constitutes reasonable suspicion and such?

  • On the post: Bill Would Give The State Dept. The Ability To Deny Passports To Citizens Who Criticize Israel

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2025 @ 10:35am

    Constitutionality

    This is technically unconstitutional, right? Any thoughts on how the Supreme Court would rule given its current makeup?

  • On the post: Mississippi’s Broken Age Verification Law Forces Bluesky To Block All State Users

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2025 @ 01:05pm

    Where have our online rights gone?

    I remember when service providers would fight these laws tooth and nail, but the ones who can best afford a full-on legal offensive these days are just letting it happen. It feels like nobody cares anymore (although many people do).

  • On the post: Congress Moving Forward On Unconstitutional Take It Down Act

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2025 @ 07:21pm

    YouTube Takedowns

    I shudder to think what this will mean for YouTube videos exposing charlatans, grifters, and other liars. The subjects of these videos have no qualms about abusing YouTube's reporting systems to shut down criticism, and the worst of them are litigious to a fault. This new law will facilitate this kind of censorship, and YouTube being YouTube will simply take down the videos, and possibly shut down the channels, without any chance for appeal because the content has to be removed within 48 hours and deleted. A new era of censorship awaits us, and I'm not at all confident the courts will overturn this.

  • On the post: Who Knew You Could Press A Snooze Button On The Law? Trump Delays TikTok Ban Enforcement Again

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 04 Apr, 2025 @ 07:34pm

    Enforcement

    The part about the government not enforcing the law doesn't bother me as much as the part about Trump using the law to cosplay a strongman: "sell us Tiktok or else!" There are laws on the books that governments should refuse to enforce, but the tactics being employed here are terrible.

  • On the post: Trump Promises To Abuse Take It Down Act For Censorship, Just As We Warned

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2025 @ 11:57am

    Denial of service

    Given the lack of safeguards like having a counter-notice procedure, one way to protest this law would be to file a bunch of complaints against non-NCII content to the point where ISPs have to either take down everything or exercise actual discretion in what they take down.

  • On the post: Russia Issues Fine To Google For More Money Than Exists Over Banned YouTube Channels

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2024 @ 06:37pm

    The Long Arm of the Law

    I wonder how these things would play if it were, say, the European Union instead of Russia and the sum were only 100% of Google's net worth instead of it being more money than exists in the entire world. If one is to support the EU's huge extraterritorial fines over GDPR and DSA violations then one must also support Russia's. The difference is more a matter of degree than susbstance.

  • On the post: Twitter Tried Removing The Block Feature Before. It Didn’t Go Well. Elon’s Doing It Again Anyway

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2024 @ 10:48am

    I understand that harassment laws can be difficult to implement, and that changing the way the block function works may detract people from using ExTwitter. I doubt it would make polarization worse, but in the absence of evidence either way that's just my opinion. I do have a problem with the notion that the existence of harassment on the platform is enough to justify not relaxing how the block feature currently operates. What Musk is proposing is pretty much the way Twitter's block function used to work: you can see people's posts but you can't follow them or reply to their posts if they've blocked you. We're not talking about private spaces, direct messages, or anything of the sort here. We're talking about posts that are intentionally made available to everyone by default, as in online forums and websites that allow people to leave comments. These are posts that are intended for public consumption, and in that context I think the whole "but harassment" angle is disingenuous.

  • On the post: Twitter Tried Removing The Block Feature Before. It Didn’t Go Well. Elon’s Doing It Again Anyway

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2024 @ 10:26am

    I have at no point argued that "harassment isn't harassment," or that somehow I get to decide what is or is not harassment. What I've said is that a majority of blocks are for reasons other than what reasonable people would call harassment.

  • On the post: Twitter Tried Removing The Block Feature Before. It Didn’t Go Well. Elon’s Doing It Again Anyway

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 24 Sep, 2024 @ 09:01pm

    Ex-Twitter's block function harmful to online discourse

    ExTwitter's current approach is a weird combination of people's posts being visible to all coupled with particular accounts being denied access to posts that literally everybody else can see, which has never made much sense to me. Blocking on ExTwitter normally has more to do with personal disagreement and annoyance than real harassment, and there are legal tools available to people actually being harassed. I'm one of those people who believe social media has contributed significantly to the high degree of polarization we are now seeing, and I can't support any feature that may contribute to extreme ideological fragmentation. I'll be glad to see the block function modified in this fashion.

  • On the post: Arrest Of Telegram’s Pavel Durov Raises Questions, But The Answers May Not Be Known For A While

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2024 @ 09:41am

    This doesn't look good for France

    Unless Durov was, in fact, involved in the production of illegal content or was aware of specific instances of such content and did nothing to remove and report it, this arrest is just plain outrageous. It's also a symptom of a terrible malady that's especially prevalent in Europe: the attitude that the way to deal with online harms is to deal with things in the most heavy-handed way possible, either through ill-conceived and chilling legislation or arrests over third-party conduct.

  • On the post: Vegas Police Union: Facial Recognition For Thee, But Not For We

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 23 Aug, 2024 @ 08:30am

    Selective Outrage

    Some state recently outlawed gathering biometric data, even from publicly-available images, without the subject's permission, but they made an exception for law enforcement purposes. Government officials claim to stand for privacy but support the worst of all possible uses. Private companies want to sell you things, but the government wants to put you in jail.

  • On the post: Senate To Kids: We’ll Listen To You When You Agree With Us On KOSA

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 30 Jul, 2024 @ 01:45pm

    Addictive Design

    So disappointing. Some people are insisting the bill is not about content regulation but about "addictive design features." Even Wyden, who voted against the bill, has expressed support for legal measures against so-called addictive design features. You can bet algorithmic recommendations would be included in this, making it a form of content regulation after all. And it's not just Americans wanting to regulate these addictive design features, either. The European Union is getting ready, in its usual, heavy-handed fashion, to strike against things like "endless scrolling, pull-to-refresh, never-ending auto-play videos, push notifications, temporarily available stories, likes, [and] read-receipts.". You couldn't possibly concoct a parody more absurd than this. New EU rules needed to make digital platforms less addictive.

  • On the post: KOSA Will Come To The Senate Floor On Tuesday, Senators Paul & Wyden Explain Why It’s Still Bad

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 29 Jul, 2024 @ 10:04am

    Addictive Elements

    I'm glad Wyden is opposing this bill, but I'm also disappointed to learn he believes "provisions regulating addictive design elements used by platforms to keep young people hooked are valuable safeguards that will make tech products safer." Those "addictive design elements" would be things like content recommendations which absolutely do implicate content. Opponents of algorithmic feeds like to talk about the supposed "radicalizing effect" of content recommendations, and I fear that's the direction any efforts against so-called addictive design elements would take.

  • On the post: Apple Doth Protest Too Much Regarding EU Antitrust Fine; But It’s A Weird Thing To Do Just As The DMA Is Taking Effect

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2024 @ 10:39am

    Honestly, I'm not sure which bothers me more: Apple's business practices or the European Union's heavy-handed regulation of "Big Tech."

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