Politics

Yesterday's post about Florida's pending "Big Brother" legislation inspired a larger number of responses than usual. Lawyers are already lined up on both sides, so this law is destined for a protracted legal battle. But here's a fun fact: 100 percent of the negative responses were 100 percent tu quoque (aka whataboutism). Continue Reading →

The Florida House voted 77-38 and the Senate voted 23-17 in favor of a bill that effectively turns the state of Florida into "Big Brother." Continue Reading →

Utah's GOP-controlled legislature recently passed a bill requiring all devices sold in the state to automatically block pornography. It awaits the Governor's signature to become law. Continue Reading →

The Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act (aka S.4131) is a must-read. The text of this bill is soul-crushing: it's asking for $94 billion, of which $80 billion will be spent on deploying broadband infrastructure nationwide (prioritizing unserved and underserved rural, suburban, and urban areas). Continue Reading →

Parler, a social media platform that went dark after violating Apple and Google and Amazon's terms of service, is back online. The company has a new interim CEO and says it has re-launched on "sustainable, independent technology." Continue Reading →

Bismarck, North Dakota is an unlikely venue for a big tech showdown, but that's what it's turning out to be. Continue Reading →

In the aftermath of the insurrection, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Snapchat suspended some high profile accounts (including President Trump's personal accounts) for violating their terms of service. Google and Apple removed Parler (a poorly monitored social media site) from their respective app stores. Continue Reading →

Twitter gave President Trump a "time out." His account was locked and he couldn't tweet for 12 hours. @jack wanted some tweets deleted and, after Trump complied, Twitter reinstated his account. Facebook, on the other hand, has suspended Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts for a minimum of two weeks, but have threatened an indefinite period. Snapchat locked (but didn't delete) Trump's account. Right or wrong? Why now? Continue Reading →

Earlier this month, a second federal judge blocked the Trump administration's efforts to ban TikTok. On Monday, the Department of Justice appealed the injunction, citing national security concerns and arguing that the video-sharing app could supply personal data from TikTok's 100 million U.S. users to the Chinese government. Continue Reading →

If you voted by mail, you can Google "check ballot status." Google is doing a pretty good job of surfacing the correct local links to this query. There is no central voter database, so I put the links for every state I could find here. Continue Reading →