News

Thursday 2026-05-21

02:00 AM

12:00 AM

Paramount Already ‘Informally’ Considering Scaling Back Bari Weiss’ Role At CBS [Techdirt]

When right wing billionaire Larry Ellison (and his nepobaby kid David) hired trolling blogger Bari Weiss to run CBS News, Weiss arrived with the promise of “balanced, fact-based news,” “independent, principled journalism,” and a unique “entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision” that would completely modernize the network and reach the “everyday Americans” she claimed were being “ignored by mainstream media.”

In reality, she was hired by the billionaire to take what she did at her weird little troll blog (troll people for clicks, coddle the extraction class, punch left) and weave it into CBS News in a way that would get ratings and go viral on social media. She wasn’t hired to do journalism, she was hired to do attention-grabbing class and race agitprop.

The problem (for Weiss) is her role in that regard has been an abject failure, resulting in all sorts of internal chaos and the lowest ratings in a quarter century. She’s clumsily tried to censor stories critical of Trump, set up softball interviews for Benjamin Netanyahu, fired a bunch of people she worried were too “woke,” shuttered CBS radio (with a disregard for archives), and has caused generalized mayhem and a mass staff exodus, all while sporting a security detail costing the company $10,000 to $15,000 per day.

So, unsurprisingly, leaks are starting to emerge that Paramount is getting tired of the failures, and is starting to have “informal” conversations about scaling back Weiss’ role at CBS (and any planned oversight she might have if the Ellisons can pull off their acquisition of Warner Brothers and CNN). From the paywalled Puck report and this non-paywalled alternative:

“Bari would likely cede day-to-day control over Evening News, CBS Mornings, and 60 Minutes to this more experienced, as-yet-unnamed executive, shifting her focus to the news division’s digital growth while maintaining broad editorial influence across all the company’s platforms.”

Weiss, who was a trolling New York Times opinion columnist before she was the trolling editor in chief at Free Press, had no meaningful journalism or major news org management experience. That’s shown up repeatedly at CBS with all sorts of gaffes, like last-second impromptu edits made to the nightly newscast teleprompter in a way that easily confused her chosen nightly news host Tony Dokoupil. Or in the way Dokoupil couldn’t get the basic paperwork to properly cover the president’s trip to China.

All of these things would be fine if Weiss was getting ad attention and making money, but she isn’t. In part because she seems to have no understanding of modern media, and no idea of how to convert her weird troll blog aesthetic to a massive TV news organization. Despite all of her promises of media revolution, Weiss effectively has the brain of a 90-year old conservative man.

So it seems unlikely that Weiss will have much success managing CBS’ “digital growth” either. Ultimately that means the Ellisons will, after they’ve had enough time to try and justify the $150 million they paid for Bari’s troll blog, find someone worse who can try to get the network the attention it craves. Weiss, as is the case with all brunchlords, will somehow find a way to fail upward. It’s physics.

The problem for everyone involved is that the Paramount and Warner Brothers mergers have saddled the new giant company with an ocean of debt. Debt that historically only gets paid off one way: by hiking prices, firing workers, and cutting corners in a way that degrades product quality. That’s rocky terrain for a broadcast TV network already struggling with dying broadcast viewership and sagging relevance.

Good night and good luck.

Kanji of the Day: 末 [Kanji of the Day]

末

✍5

小4

end, close, tip, powder, posterity

マツ　バツ

すえ　うら　うれ

末に   (すえに)   —   finally
週末   (しゅうまつ)   —   weekend
年末   (ねんまつ)   —   end-of-year
端末   (たんまつ)   —   terminal
結末   (けつまつ)   —   end
年度末   (ねんどまつ)   —   end of the fiscal year
月末   (げつまつ)   —   end of the month
幕末   (ばくまつ)   —   Bakumatsu period
末期   (まっき)   —   last years
始末   (しまつ)   —   management

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 鎮 [Kanji of the Day]

鎮

✍18

中学

tranquilize, ancient peace-preservation centers

チン

しず.める　しず.まる　おさえ

鎮魂   (たましずめ)   —   ceremony for the repose of a departed soul
重鎮   (じゅうちん)   —   leader
鎮痛剤   (ちんつうざい)   —   analgesic
鎮火   (ちんか)   —   extinguishing
鎮圧   (ちんあつ)   —   suppression (of a riot, revolt, etc.)
鎮座   (ちんざ)   —   enshrinement
鎮静   (ちんせい)   —   calm
地鎮祭   (じちんさい)   —   ceremony for purifying a building site (before building commences)
鎮める   (しずめる)   —   to quiet (a child, crowd, etc.)
鎮魂歌   (ちんこんか)   —   requiem

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Explore the Night Sky with OsmAnd Astronomy [OsmAnd Blog]

Far from city lights, the sky looks different. In the Namib Desert, darkness comes quickly and the stars appear all at once, filling the entire horizon. At first, it feels simple. A guide points to a few constellations, maybe a bright planet. You follow along, recognising some shapes. But after a moment, you lose track. There are more stars than you expected, and it is hard to tell them apart.

This is where OsmAnd Astronomy changes the experience. Instead of guessing, you can explore the sky the same way you explore a map — step by step, with clear orientation, useful context, and the ability to plan what to look for next.

Namib Desert

Orient Yourself in the Sky​

Start by opening the Star map in OsmAnd (Astronomy is available as a paid plugin in OsmAnd for Android and is currently not supported on iOS). The screen switches from the Earth map to the sky, showing stars, constellations, planets, and the paths of the Sun and Moon for your current location. The view is aligned with the compass, so you can drag the sky to explore it or enable compass mode and move your phone to follow your direction.

At the bottom of the screen, you can change the time to see how the sky looks later in the night or return to the present moment. If there are too many stars, adjust the magnitude filter to focus on the brightest ones.

To simplify the view further, open Configure view. Here you can choose what to display — for example, keep Solar system and Constellations visible while hiding Stars or Deep sky objects. You can also switch between 2D and 3D views or turn on the red filter to preserve your night vision while observing.

At this point, the sky stops feeling random. You are no longer just looking at it — you are navigating it.

Star Map Red Filter

Find What’s Visible Tonight​

Once you understand where you are looking, the next step is deciding what to look for. Tap Search on the Star map. Instead of scanning the entire sky, you get a structured list of celestial objects — planets, stars, constellations, and more.

At the top, the Watch now section highlights objects that are visible at your current location and time. It works as a simple guide, showing what is already above the horizon or will be visible tonight. Select any object from the list, and the map centers on it. From there, you can see where it is in the sky and start observing without guessing.

Get Details About Objects​

Pick any point in the sky that catches your eye and tap it. The map highlights it, and a panel opens with everything you need to know. Instead of a nameless light, you now see a clear label — a star, a planet, or part of a constellation — along with a few key details. How bright it is, where it sits in the sky, and when it rises or sets. Enough to understand what you are looking at without digging into complex data.

Around the object, a subtle hour ring shows how it moves across the sky throughout the day. It adds a sense of motion, turning a static point into something you can follow.

From here, you can keep it simple or go further — center the object, save it, or use Direction to help you find it in the sky. So, what felt like a random point a moment ago now becomes something you can recognise, track, and return to.

Context Menu

Choose the Right Moment​

Some moments are easier to remember under an open sky. In a place like the Namib Desert, where the horizon is wide and the night is clear, timing matters just as much as location. Not every object is visible all night. Some rise later, others stay low near the horizon, and a few reach their best position only for a short time. Instead of waiting and hoping, you can check this in advance.

Open the Visibility tab for any object. The graph shows how it moves across the sky over the course of a day, including when it rises, reaches its highest point, and sets. The higher it is above the horizon, the easier it is to see.

If you are planning ahead, switch to the Schedule tab. It shows how visibility changes over the next days, so you can choose the right evening without guessing. With this, the sky becomes part of the plan. You are not just stepping outside and looking up — you know when to be there.

Visibility Schedule

Follow the Sky in Real Time​

Switch to camera mode and lift your phone toward the sky. You see the real sky on your screen with a transparent overlay aligned to your position and direction.

Move your phone slowly across the horizon. As objects enter your field of view, they are highlighted, making them easier to recognise. You are no longer matching shapes or guessing positions — the sky and the map align directly in front of you.

If something feels too faint or difficult to spot, this is where it becomes clearer. Adjust your position slightly, and the object appears exactly where it should be. Tap any highlighted object to see its details.

Simplify the Sky and Explore Anywhere​

As you continue exploring, you may notice that sometimes there is simply too much to see. In dense star fields, it helps to narrow things down. Use filters in Search to focus only on what matters right now. You can show only objects visible tonight, sort them by brightness, or limit the list to those visible to the naked eye. This turns a long list into a small set of clear options.

If you want to go further, open Catalogs to explore entire groups of objects — from well-known stars to deep sky objects. It is a different way of navigating the sky, more structured and less dependent on chance.

And all of this works even without a connection. The Astronomy plugin uses offline catalogs, so whether you are in the city or far out in the desert, the sky remains fully accessible.

Catalogs Catalogs

Out there, under a sky like in the Namib Desert, you no longer lose track after the first few constellations. You stay with it a little longer — and start to see more.

We appreciate your interest in us and thank you for taking the time to read this article. Join us on social media to keep up to date with the latest news and share your experiences. Your opinion is important to us.

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GIMP on MS Store now requires Windows Build 20348 [GIMP]

We received some informal reports in the Microsoft Store reviews telling us that GIMP updates were deleting user data! In particular, plug-ins, themes, brushes, user settings and other add-ons were not being kept during an update from the store.

To resolve this, the updated version of GIMP from the Microsoft Store will require Windows 11 or at least Windows Server 2022 (Windows NT Build 10.0.20348.0).

Windows 10 is still supported, but only when GIMP is installed from our .exe installer.

Worths noting that we are no longer able to support versions of Windows older than Windows 10, and can no longer support 32-bit systems running Windows.

Installing the update will prevent future data loss during upgrades.

Technical details

This was being caused by the way MSIX (the format of apps distributed on Microsoft Store, GIMP included) is designed, which prefers sandboxed user data (like Flatpak and Snap). We have been trying to work with this requirement when running from MSIX, but were not successful.

So, to fix this packaging limitation, we were given the special “restricted capability” unvirtualizedResources (specifically virtualization:ExcludedDirectory), to preserve user data on %AppData%\GIMP, just as the .exe installer does. This is similar to what we do on other sandbox distributions such as Flatpak and Snap.

After the update, GIMP user data will be copied on upgrades.

The update does not affect images or other resources stored outside your GIMP folder.

How to migrate the previous user data

This restricted capability is only available on Windows NT Build 10.0.20348.0 and later. So, users with older Windows versions will need to use the .exe installer. The binaries inside the .exe installer and the .msix are exactly the same.

For Windows 10 users, in order not to lose your user data from the MS Store version, manually locate your config dir at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\GIMP*\LocalCache\Roaming\GIMP then copy it to %APPDATA%\GIMP (if that folder does not exist or is empty).

Wednesday 2026-05-20

09:00 PM

Anna’s Archive Hit With $19.5m Default Judgment and Global Domain Takedown Order [TorrentFreak]

dollarsEarlier this month, a group of high-profile publishers, including Penguin Random House, Elsevier, and HarperCollins, asked a federal court in New York for a broad default judgment against Anna’s Archive.

The publishers argued that, in addition to sharing pirated books with the public, the shadow library is serving as a primary training data hub for AI companies like Meta and NVIDIA.

Because the site’s operators failed to show up in court to defend themselves, the publishers requested the court to rule in their favor.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff signed a default judgment granting the publishers exactly what they asked for. This includes a multi-million-dollar damages award and a far-reaching technical injunction to take out the site’s surviving domain names.

A $19.5 Million Paper Victory

At first glance, the damages award is the headline figure. Judge Rakoff granted the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 130 “Works in Suit”.

This brings the final damages bill amount to a staggering $19,500,000. However, as with the $322 million judgment won by the music industry against Anna’s Archive in the related Spotify case, it’s highly unlikely that this money will be recouped.

$19,500,000

default granted

For now, the operators of Anna’s Archive remain strictly anonymous, which doesn’t help either. The default judgment addresses this and requires the operators to unmask their identities and provide a sworn statement with valid contact information to the court within 10 days.

However, since the operators have previously stated they hide their identities to avoid “decades of prison time,” it is safe to assume that the operators will simply ignore this request.

Targeting Global Intermediaries

The true power of this default judgment lies in the permanent injunction. Anna’s Archive is known to evade enforcement and change domain names when needed, so the injunction targets the technical intermediaries that keep the site online.

Specifically, the injunction orders “all domain name registries and registrars of record” to permanently disable access to Anna’s Archive’s domains and prevent their transfer to anyone other than the publishers or the music industry plaintiffs in the related case.

In addition to domain name services, the order also extends to international hosting providers, who are also ordered to stop working with the site.

Leaving no room for interpretation, the order specifically names more than twenty companies and organizations. This includes familiar names like Cloudflare, Njalla, and DDOS-Guard, as well as the domain name registries of the site’s current active domains:

– TELE Greenland/Tusass (managing the .gl domain)

– PKNIC (managing the .pk domain)

– National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (managing Grenada’s .gd domain)

The names include some intermediaries that were already listed in the Spotify default judgment, as well as new ones.

Named intermediaries

named intermediaries

Unlike the Spotify scrape, which Anna’s Archive removed after the music industry’s lawsuit, the publishers’ books remain actively available on the site. That distinction may make this injunction harder for intermediaries to ignore.

The injunction will be most effective against American companies that are subject to the jurisdiction of the New York federal court. That includes Cloudflare and OwnRegistrar, among others.

However, most of the intermediaries are foreign entities. Whether they voluntarily comply with a U.S. court order remains to be seen. While some foreign companies have taken action following U.S. injunctions, others have historically ignored them, citing a lack of local jurisdiction.

For now, however, the publishers have gotten everything they asked for from the court, which gives them a chance to take action against the shadow library’s current setup. If history is any indicator, Anna’s Archive will likely have a new batch of backup domains ready to deploy.

At the time of writing, Anna’s Archive’s three domain names remain active and online.

—

A copy of the default judgment, signed by Judge Rakoff on May 19, 2026, is available here (pdf).

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

07:00 PM

The act of Umfunktionierung [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

Another unique German word. Umfunktionierung. Functional transformation.

Most of us take the tools we’re given and use them as instructed. We follow the manual. We color inside the lines. We accept the functions as defined by those who came before us.

But the ruckus maker asks: What if this tool could do something else?

Umfunktionierung isn’t incremental improvement. It’s about repurposing or reimagining. Taking the apparatus of production and fundamentally changing its function. Brecht coined the term in his work on the theory of theater, and the philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote about it. But it isn’t just for playwrights or Marxist philosophers from the 1930s.

Twitter wasn’t built for social movements, but activists transformed it into a tool that wasn’t planned for. Email wasn’t designed for newsletters, but creators repurposed it and invented a new medium. Smartphones weren’t made for documentary filmmaking, but filmmakers redefined their use.

Functional transformation doesn’t ask us to build something new from scratch. It requires us to look at what already exists and see possibilities others have missed.

This is how industries evolve. Not always through invention, but through transformation.

Sometimes, we make an impact by transforming the function of what already exists.

      

Whoops! Today’s Preview Got Messed Up. [The Status Kuo]

I really need to get more rest!

Today’s preview for my piece in The Big Picture about the insane world of insider wartime prediction betting and oil futures trades contained a link to subscribe not to The Big Picture, but back to The Status Kuo. Not helpful! Big fail.

If you’re not a subscriber to The Big Picture, please take a moment to subscribe. My content there is free of charge, but we appreciate our paid subscribers who make our work possible!

Subscribe Me To The Big Picture!

And if you missed it, here is the link to my piece today.

Read: Betting on War

Thanks for your patience. This month has been tough with the move, and the kids have been melting down a lot more than normal because of all the changes in our lives! I totally get that…

Jay

02:00 PM

Bill Cassidy Loses Primary; RFK Jr. Will Be His Legacy [Techdirt]

Senator Bill Cassidy just lost his campaign for reelection to his Senate seat in Louisiana. With that, his career in federal government is likely over. It’s no secret as to why this happened. In early 2021, Cassidy suffered from a spasm of patriotism and voted to convict Donald Trump during his impeachment trial after the latter spurred on an attempted insurrection in the capitol that left several people dead, scores injured, and became the most famous stain on American democracy since the Bill Clinton era. Trump turned his retribution cannons on Cassidy, pumped the primary cycle full of vitriol for Cassidy, and managed to shove him from office.

But here’s the thing: fuck Bill Cassidy.

In the years since Trump’s second impeachment trial, Cassidy did his absolute best to throw as much unrequited love at Donald Trump as he possibly could. The moment the political realities became evident, Cassidy’s principles melted away. He spoke glowingly of Trump in his second term. He touted how well he and Trump work together, even as he acknowledged that Trump hates him. He was a reliable pro-Trump vote on nearly everything.

And he was the most important vote in confirming RFK Jr. to his current role as Secretary of HHS. And given how his vote to confirm Kennedy gave his colleagues cover to do so means that he may be the man most singularly responsible for Kennedy’s appointment other than Donald Trump.

Bill Cassidy is more at fault, because he actually knows better. RFK Jr. is an idiot with a brainworm, whereas Bill Cassidy is a doctor. A real doctor who worked in a charity hospital for the uninsured in Louisiana and, to his own testimony, has seen what happens when children don’t get vaccinated. He knew better, and yet he still provided the deciding vote to confirm Kennedy, almost definitely because he saw it as a way back into Trump’s good graces. Clearly, that didn’t happen.

And while he swore up and down that he had given Kennedy a real good talking-to and got all of the assurances that he would not screw with vaccines or change the CDC’s page stating that vaccines do not cause autism, that did not happen either.

He fucked us all to save his own skin, and ended up bloody and skinless anyway. He claimed it would be okay because of said “assurances” and because of his promise to monitor everything Kennedy did.

Monitor Kennedy he did, perhaps, but it certainly didn’t go beyond that. Save for a few contentious congressional hearings and Cassidy occasionally complaining to local news media about Kennedy’s actions at HHS, the man simply didn’t do anything to try to fix the mess he had a heavy hand in creating. He didn’t sign up to help the impeachment effort against Kennedy. He didn’t call for any new legislation to curb the chaos that is happening at HHS and its child agencies right now. He even had kind words to say about Kennedy’s approach to processed foods in the past few weeks.

Taking a moral stand is not a one-time project. Cassidy’s vote to convict Trump in 2021 was the right vote. Nearly everything he’s done since negates that moral stance, as he engaged in the most pathetic forms of boot-licking in an attempt to save his political career.

It didn’t work. Trump doesn’t work that way. Neither does Kennedy. Once you’re on the enemies hit list, you’re never coming off. The Senate will probably be worse for losing Cassidy generally. The Senate Health Committee certainly will be. And that’s too bad.

But fuck Bill Cassidy for foisting RFK Jr. as HHS boss on this country.

10:00 AM

Even Cops Aren’t Willing To Back Up Colorado GOP Governor Hopeful’s Insane ‘Gang Infestation’ Lies [Techdirt]

As convenient as it is for cops to play along with hysterical claims made by politicians, sometimes a politician goes too far. That seems to be the case here. Scott Bottoms — currently a state rep in Colorado — tried to flex his self-proclaimed “far right” bona fides by making a truly absurd claim about the current state of the state.

Bottoms said Colorado is under siege from a “foreign criminal army” of 45,000 to 50,000 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) operating in Colorado.

When 9NEWS asked Bottoms for evidence of his claim, Bottoms said the information came “from direct conversations with ICE officials about this exact problem in our state.”

Bottoms is fully cooked, it would appear. He’s echoing, amplifying, and exaggerating claims about gang infestations in Colorado that were pushed by Donald Trump during his last election campaign. Those claims were also debunked by local law enforcement officials.

The story hit the national news last year when local media coverage of two robberies and an assault at the complex were amplified by President Trump, who twisted the facts to fuel his campaign for reelection. Trump joined local conservative politicians in spreading the lie of a “complete gang takeover” by Venezuelan immigrants at The Edge apartments – a lie that has been repeatedly debunked by residents and local law enforcement. 

Having debunked this once, law enforcement officials in the state are now in the irritating position of needing to debunk this anti-migrant hysteria yet again, thanks to Bottoms and his pathetic attempt to rile up the racism of the voting base he needs to secure if he hopes to become governor.

First up in the debunking is none other than law enforcement officials working directly for Donald Trump:

A spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Denver said its leadership has not had contact with Bottoms.

“HSI Denver and ERO Denver leadership has not met with nor had conversations with Representative Bottoms,” said ICE spokesman Steve Kotecki.

Whoops! That’s got to be pretty awkward for Bottoms, who seemed to assume his willingness to follow Trump down any bigoted rabbit hole would immediately result in his administration supporting his racist assertions about foreign gang infestations.

Bottoms put another hole in his own foot by presuming local law enforcement would back him up if he just made a bunch of shit up and let it dribble out his mouth while standing in front of a live mic. Bottoms claimed — hilariously — that local sheriffs offices were seeking to deputize “special forces veterans” to combat the Tren de Aragua invasion.

In response to Rep. Bottoms’ attempt to turn his Reddit draft folder rant into reality, a majority of the state’s law enforcement refused to endorse the hallucinations of man who thinks making claims that can immediately be debunked will secure him a majority of votes in the upcoming gubernatorial election.

40 sheriffs from across the political spectrum pushed back on Bottoms’ claims, saying they had not seen evidence of widespread Venezuelan gang activity in their county and directly rejecting the idea of deputizing special forces veterans for an anti-cartel action. 

The report says “across the political spectrum,” but two-thirds of the sheriffs quoted are registered as Republicans. It’s probably three-thirds, but the last sheriff quoted has decided to represent himself as “unaffiliated.”

On top of this immediate pushback from local law enforcement officials, there are the actual facts, which make it immediately clear it’s impossible for there to be 50,000 Tren de Aragua gang members residing in Colorado:

MEMBERS
Approximately 2,500 to 5,000

That would be the number of gang members worldwide, according to none other than the Director of National Intelligence. Yep, that’s the same DNI that serves the president who went viral with his claims of TdA takeovers in Aurora, Colorado while on his way to serving a second term. And if an agency pretty much obliged to convert Trump’s bullshit about TdA into facts to justify everything from mass deportations to extrajudicial killings in international waters can’t be bothered to cook the books to this extent, it’s downright embarrassing for a MAGA acolyte like Scott Bottoms to spew easily disproved claims in hopes of scoring a few more far-right votes for himself.

It’s refreshing to see law enforcement provide immediate pushback against bullshit like this. But you can’t blame Bottoms for bottoming out. After all, the man he worships most delivers outrageous lies on a daily basis, yet somehow retains his position and the support of his party.

06:00 AM

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for May 12 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day
Aerial view of the ruins of Takht-i-Bahi, a 1st-century CE Buddhist monastery complex located in what was once the ancient Indian region of Gandhara, in the present-day northern Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is representative of Buddhist monastic architecture from its era and the ruins were listed as a World Heritage Site in 1980, with UNESCO describing it as having been "exceptionally well-preserved".

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for May 13 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day
This azulejo from the Igreja de São Bento (Ribeira Brava, Madeira, Portugal) depicts Our Lady of Fátima. Today is the feast of Our Lady of Fátima in the Catholic Church and the 110th anniversary of her first apparition to three shepherd children.

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for May 16 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day
Partially frozen Gurudongmar Lake, a glacial lake located to the north of the Himalayas in the northeast Indian state of Sikkim at an altitude of over 5,150 metres (16,900 ft). The lake is fed by glaciers of the Khangchengyao massif, forms the headwaters of the Teesta river and is considered sacred by Buddhists and Sikhs. Today is Sikkim Day, which commemorates the formation of Sikkim as a state of India in 1975, following a popular referendum and full merger after decades of being a protectorate since 1947.

The night clerk [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

At 2:30 in the morning, the night clerk at the hotel is a great help if you’ve locked yourself out of your room.

But if you want to complain about the hours of the gym, the hotel’s environmental footprint or even their late check-in policy, you’re almost certainly wasting their time. And yours.

Every organization with more than a few people in it has night clerks. Most of the people who work at the phone company, for example, and even the person clearing tables at the local pizza place.

It’s the night clerks that have the most customer interaction–in fact, they’re almost certainly the highest leveraged, most insightful marketing cohort in your organization.

They have information, and if we give them agency, they could transform the customer experience.

Alas, our systems rarely help. Many night clerks are underpaid and underappreciated, and systems around them push them not to care.

When your organization gets stuck, don’t blame them. Instead, find a way to help them become the contribution they’re capable of being.

Some useful questions you might not be asking:

How much does the information we’re not collecting cost us?

What is the customer service cost and brand dilution of depriving our people the freedom to take action?

If we built a culture of mutual respect with our night clerks–using training, compensation and engagement–what would our new customer experience and reputation be worth?

      

Alito Helped Normalize Unreasoned Shadow Docket Orders. Now He’s Mad About One. [Techdirt]

A couple weeks back, Supreme Court watcher Steve Vladeck pointed out a fascinating “tell” by Justice Samuel Alito in dealing with stays that he will issue on shadow docket requests. If he is prone to agree with the underlying claim, he’ll issue an unbounded stay on a lower court’s ruling. If he is inclined to disagree with the underlying ruling, he issues a temporary stay with a short deadline before the stay is lifted. He noticed this in particular with the stay that Alito issued in response to the Fifth Circuit’s ruling blocking prescriptions of the abortion drug mifepristone without an in-person visit (an attempt to block the pills from being sent to the various Southern states covered by the Fifth Circuit). In that case, Alito had a short deadline before the stay would be lifted, in contrast to how he tends to treat such stays when he agrees with the result:

First, Justice Alito waited almost 48 hours to act—a period during which there was quite a lot of chaos across the country among doctors, pharmacists, and patients over whether and to what extent they were bound by Friday’s Fifth Circuit decision. 48 hours may not seem like a long time, but for comparison, in November, Alito issued an administrative stay in the Texas redistricting case just 68 minutes after Texas’s application for emergency relief was docketed by the Supreme Court (both of which happened after hours on a Friday night).

Second, and speaking of the Texas case, Alito’s administrative stays in the mifepristone case had something that his administrative stay in the Texas case didn’t—a deadline (next Monday at 5 p.m. ET). This follows a much broader pattern—in which Alito issues indefinite administrative stays in cases in which he appears to be sympathetic to the applicants, but imposes deadlines on the stays in cases in which he doesn’t. Before Monday, the last nine administrative stays in which Alito imposed deadlines were all cases in which at least one of the applicants had been the Biden administration. In contrast, Alito imposed no deadline in the Texas redistricting case; a potentially significant non-delegation case from 2024; and several other cases with … less … of an ideological valence.

To be sure, Alito isn’t the only justice to ever put a deadline on an administrative stay; Justices Gorsuch and Jackson have also each done it exactly once. And although the deadlines tend to create unnecessary tension and stress for both the parties and the Supreme Court’s press corps (who worry about what will happen if the deadline comes and goes with no action—which appeared to happen in the Texas SB4 immigration case in March 2024), they’re not especially significant beyond that. But it certainly seems like a petty way to treat parties differently based upon what you think of their claims.

Then, despite that short deadline (which, to be fair, was extended three days), the Supreme Court waited until 26 minutes past the deadline to issue its unexplained shadow docket ruling keeping the stay in place until after the rest of the proceedings play out (like a cert petition to the Supreme Court, and then a more complete ruling on the merits).

As a site that regularly calls out and complains about shadow docket rulings, and in particular unexplained shadow docket rulings, it’s unfortunate that the majority didn’t explain their reasoning — and equally unfortunate that Alito forced a rushed decision in the first place.

I know that the justices hate the term “shadow docket,” preferring either the “emergency” docket or the “interim” docket, but if they’re going to call it that they should really only use it for issues that are emergencies or for interim relief — the very limited number of scenarios where real unmitigated damage could be done in the interim until a thorough review has been conducted. But that’s just not the case most of the time. Relatedly, those rulings should have extremely narrow and limited precedential power. In theory that was the case until last year when some of the Justices (most notably, Justice Gorsuch) started whining about judges following actual full merits rulings as precedent, rather than magically applying unreasoned shadow docket decisions.

And while there is plenty of analysis elsewhere of the impact of last week’s late night ruling, I wanted to highlight the sheer hypocrisy* of Alito whining about the Justices not giving a reason for their stay. In his own dissent (which is likely why the ruling came out late, coming after Alito’s own needlessly imposed deadline), he starts off by complaining about the lack of any reasoning:

The Court’s unreasoned order granting stays in this case is remarkable.

Given how often Alito has signed onto other “unreasoned” shadow docket rulings when he agreed with them, it’s worth calling out the brazenness of complaining about the very practice he’s helped normalize.

* I use the word “hypocrisy” here deliberately for two reasons. First, because it is incredibly hypocritical. Second, because Alito’s ruling had an embarrassing typo, in which he referred to the litigation involving the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine as the Alliance for Hypocritic Medicine. This typo was one of many that the Supreme Court had to issue corrections on the filing not once, but twice, before finally fixing this particular typo.

And while the Wall Street Journal can pretend that shadow docket critics don’t care about unexplained shadow docket rulings when they go in their favor, that’s bullshit. Unexplained SCOTUS rulings are bad no matter what. In an ideal world, Alito wouldn’t have imposed an artificially short deadline on the administrative stay, and the court would have given some explanation for its decision — rather than leaving us to read tea leaves from Alito and Thomas’s odd dissents.

For what it’s worth, Vladeck also does an excellent job pointing out the fundamental inanity and contradictions of both Alito and Thomas’s dissents in this case.

First, Justice Thomas went full Comstock Act, arguing that all dispensation of mifepristone through the mail is illegal—never mind that the Department of Justice took a different position as recently as 2022. Putting aside the (well-documented) weaknesses of the Comstock Act arguments, Justice Thomas is simply wrong to argue that parties “cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes.” As the Trump cases have regularly illustrated, a party can be irreparably harmed (at least in view of a majority of the current Court—including Justice Thomas) by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to break the law. Justice Thomas also apparently saw no problem with the Fifth Circuit issuing nationwide relief under the APA—even though he joined a 2023 concurrence by Justice Gorsuch arguing that such universal vacaturs were likely not authorized by the APA. Needless to say, that inconsistency was … not addressed.

And then there’s Justice Alito’s dissent. Alito opened by claiming that “[w]hat is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision in Dobbs.” Of course, Dobbs insisted that it was returning the question of abortion to the states, whereas the Fifth Circuit ruling would’ve required in-person doctor visits on a nationwide basis. In any event, though, the FDA first got rid of the in-person doctor-visit requirement in 2021—before Dobbs was decided. So the “scheme to undermine Dobbs” began … before Dobbs.

There’s more at the link.

But at a time when the Supreme Court keeps telling us we shouldn’t believe that they make decisions on partisan grounds, it sure would help if they actually stopped doing things differently depending on the partisan valence of each case — something Alito seems to do quite regularly.

It really seems like we need serious reform of the Supreme Court. I’ve already argued that we should increase the number of Justices to 100 or more (to the point where no single Justice matters so much anymore), but any serious reform needs to contend with the abuses of the shadow docket, and making sure that it really is only used for emergency situations where an interim ruling is necessary for maintaining the status quo until a full briefing on the merits can occur.

Justice Alito appears to want to have two different sets of rules, depending on his feelings towards the parties. That’s the opposite of supposedly blind justice. If the court fears that its rulings are seen as illegitimate, then it should start by making sure Alito stops treating parties very differently depending on how aligned they are with his personal ideological beliefs.

The World, As Casino [The Status Kuo]

I’m writing for The Big Picture today about a new and rather horrifying phenomenon: the profiting off prediction market betting around an active war. Traders with apparent inside information of big strategic decisions and operations are placing big bets and raking in huge gains—then using the built-in secrecy of cryptocurrency to hide their tracks.

The way prediction markets and futures options work, especially in conjunction with the use of crypto exchanges, isn’t well understood by most non-participants. I use two most recent indictments and investigations to explain how the insiders are doing it—and how the Trump White House is actively helping them get away with it.

It’s a fascinating and disturbing look into a shadowy world. Look for my write-up in your inboxes later today if you’re a subscriber. If you’re not yet subscribed to The Big Picture, which is separate from my work here, you can sign up below. My content there is always free, but we do appreciate and provide great additional content—including guest contributor content, a weekly news update, and our reason to smile wins of the week—to our valued paid subscribers.

Yes! Sign Me Up for The Big Picture!

I’ll be back here tomorrow with my regular installment of The Status Kuo. Have a good one!

Jay

04:00 AM

Hey Platforms: Add TAKE IT DOWN To Your Transparency Reports [Techdirt]

Today marks the deadline for online platforms to implement a process for notice-and-takedown of nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) under the TAKE IT DOWN Act (TIDA), which became law one year ago. Starting today, platforms must conspicuously offer a notice-and-removal process for NCII, remove reported material within 48 hours of a “valid removal request” from the person depicted (or their authorized agent), and “make reasonable efforts to identify and remove” duplicates. (I have some qualms about the constitutionality of that last requirement, but that’s a post for another time.) 

Many members of civil society warned Congress while the bill was being negotiated that these takedown requirements are ripe for abuse, but they were ignored. Now that the provisions are in effect, we deserve to find out whether those warnings come true. Platforms should add TAKE IT DOWN takedown statistics to their periodic transparency reports.

A short refresher on the law: TIDA criminalizes the knowing and intentional disclosure of NCII, whether it’s real or AI, whether it’s of adults or minors. The criminal provisions apply to users; the takedown provisions apply to platforms. The definition of a “covered platform” encompasses public-facing user-generated content (UGC)-driven platforms, as well as sites devoted to NCII (what used to be called “revenge porn” sites). The definition exempts ISPs, email service providers, and services that mostly serve “preselected” content and to which UGC is incidental – for example, this site, which posts articles like this one but allows the Techdirt community to comment on them. 

TIDA’s takedown provisions are, in some ways, the codification of existing practices platforms already employ for removing abusive content. Some platforms have ostensibly been removing reported NCII pursuant to a voluntary initiative that dates back to 2021. There’s a similar initiative for terrorist content. Also, existing federal law criminalizes child sex abuse material (CSAM) and requires prompt reporting of apparent CSAM once a platform becomes aware of it. That law explicitly doesn’t require platforms to affirmatively go looking for CSAM (for the same constitutional reasons that give me pause about TIDA’s duplicate-removal provision). Nevertheless, numerous platforms voluntarily have tools and processes in place to proactively detect CSAM, then remove and report it. Plus, just about every online platform has notice-and-takedown processes for copyright-infringing UGC. That’s because everyone wants to qualify for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor against (potentially ruinous) infringement liability.

Given these existing endeavors in the domains of NCII, CSAM, terrorism, and copyright, hopefully a lot of platforms were able to spend the past year adapting and extending their pre-existing notice-and-removal flows rather than having to reinvent the wheel. Whatever efforts they’ve put into compliance to date are about to be put to the test. Platforms should tell us – their users, Congress, the American public, NCII victims, etc. – how they’re working out.

Much has already been said here at Techdirt about the problems with TIDA’s takedown requirements, so I need not repeat those critiques at length. In brief: 48 hours is incredibly fast, the law doesn’t require a process for the user whose content was removed to appeal a takedown or have it restored, it imposes no penalties for bad-faith takedown requests, and it does a poor job of respecting First Amendment protections for speech. It immunizes platforms from liability for removing content that isn’t actually illegal NCII, while simultaneously giving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the power to police compliance, as the agency’s chairman reminded a dozen or so major companies in a letter last week. 

This is a recipe for rampant abuse. It incentivizes a “remove first, ask questions never” approach. And it’s particularly dangerous in our current political moment. Not only did President Trump vow to use TIDA against unflattering online speech about him, the Trump FTC is led by two hard-right Republican commissioners who’ve been using their position to pursue an anti-LGBTQ, anti-porn agenda. TIDA’s extremely abusable takedown mandate thus poses a huge risk to online free speech in general, and to content posted by queer and trans people and sex workers in particular. 

With all that said, the takedown requirements have the potential to do a lot of good. I’ve spent the past several years studying AI-generated CSAM, particularly the use of “nudify” apps – and, more recently, Grok –- to create nonconsensual deepfake pornography. I know from my research that one of the harms experienced by victims of NCII (whether deepfake or real) is the fear that anytime someone looks them up online, their NCII will come up in the results. Not only is that humiliating, it could impact their educational and career opportunities, romantic prospects, and other relationships. If platforms have to take down their NCII at their request and keep it down, that may help assuage those fears. (That said, generative AI’s capacity to rapidly make a variety of distinct images could make it hard for victims to keep up, since the onus to submit removal requests is on them or their authorized agents. That’s undeniably burdensome, even if it’s the only way for platforms to know for sure that a particular image is NCII and not constitutionally-protected consensual adult pornography.)

In short, the notice-and-takedown process mandated by TIDA might turn out to be really helpful to NCII victims, or it might be wildly abused, or both. The platforms receiving and processing those notices are the only ones who will know. That’s why they should tell us in their transparency reports. 

To be clear, TIDA doesn’t mandate transparency reporting (though Congress occasionally proposes it). Rather, transparency reports have become a standard practice by platforms over the past 15+ years; they’re typically issued once or twice per year (or even quarterly). You can review the transparency reports from companies like Google (which pioneered the practice in 2010), TikTok, LinkedIn, OpenAI, etc. Transparency reports commonly list statistics for content removals, account actions, and/or regulatory reporting for such categories as copyright, CSAM, spam, scams, and government requests to remove data or to produce data about users. There may be further breakdowns such as percent of requests fully or partially complied with, and the report may explain the platform’s policies for evaluating requests. 

Now that TAKE IT DOWN is fully in effect, platforms should add a category to their transparency reports for TIDA takedown requests, encompassing statistics as well as policy explainers. Here are a few; I’m sure veteran platform employees could add more:

  • How many TIDA notices did the platform receive during the time period in question? 
  • What percentage of notices did the platform comply with, and what percentage did it reject as invalid? 
  • What percentage of notices involved adults, what percentage involved minors, and what percentage are age-unknown?
  • What was the average time to takedown? (Of course, the platform probably won’t publish this stat unless it’s under 48 hours.)
  • How many takedowns were later reversed and put back, if any?
  • What is the total number of unique individuals for whom takedown notices were submitted?
  • For companies acting as authorized agents, what are their names and how many requests did they submit? (Sure to be a growth industry under TIDA.)
  • How does the platform count notices that fall under multiple legal authorities? For example, a minor’s nude selfie could potentially fall under 3-4 different transparency reporting categories: TIDA, CSAM, DMCA, or terms of service (TOS) violation.
  • What is the platform’s policy for evaluating the validity of notices? 
  • Does the platform have a process for appeals and putbacks of removed content, even though TIDA does not mandate one?
  • What happens to accounts that receive multiple TIDA notices? Is there a “strike system” like many platforms have for repeated copyright infringement or TOS violations?
  • What is the platform’s policy about nonconsensually-posted sexually suggestive content? Will it remove it under TIDA, or as a TOS violation? (Things like bikini or lingerie pictures technically don’t meet the definition TIDA uses for intimate imagery, but TIDA requests will surely get used for, say, the nonconsensual deepfake bikini pics Grok was churning out at the start of the year.)

This information will give insights to Congress, users, and the public about how well or poorly the TAKE IT DOWN Act is achieving its intended goal of helping victims get their nonconsensually-shared images offline, while also revealing the prevalence of the sorts of improper and abusive takedown notices the law’s shoddy drafting invites. It might also reveal tensions in how TIDA interacts with other statutes, such as Section 230, the DMCA, and CSAM laws. Those insights, in turn, could be used to make reforms to TIDA – whether to fix the deficiencies everyone already warned Congress about, address any revealed incompatibilities with other laws, or improve the law’s viability as a remedy for NCII victims (without further eroding free speech protections). 

The first half of 2026 ends six weeks from now. That might be too soon to add TIDA statistics to platforms’ H1 2026 transparency reports – especially since many platforms will have just gotten their TIDA processes up and running and will now be busy working out the kinks. But by the end of 2026, I don’t think this is too much to ask. Congress has proposed a seemingly endless number of online safety bills in recent years (RIP Mike’s blood pressure), but the TAKE IT DOWN Act is one of the few to have actually become law, warts and all. We deserve to know how it’s working.

Daily Deal: The 2026 Complete Firewall Admin Bundle [Techdirt]

Transform your future in cybersecurity with 7 courses on next‑level packet control, secure architecture, and cloud‑ready defenses inside the 2026 Complete Firewall Admin Bundle. Courses cover IT fundamentals, topics to help you prepare for the CompTIA Server+ and CCNA exams, and more. It’s on sale for $25.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Senator Wyden Again Tells Trump Administration It Owes The Public Access To A Section 702 Ruling [Techdirt]

Section 702 surveillance powers are still limping along, mostly unimpeded, despite on-again/off-again objections by federal politicians.

More active recently have been several GOP politicians. These representatives are newly opposed to clean reauthorization of Section 702 powers. This isn’t because they’ve come to realize the threat to Americans’ rights that warrantless access by the FBI (and others) Section 702 collections pose, but because they themselves have experienced the negative outcomes of this warrantless access.

To be perfectly clear, the GOP does not care that regular Americans are being subjected to warrantless surveillance by the FBI and its access to the NSA’s ostensibly foreign-facing collection. For those of us continually opposed to the FBI’s continuous abuse of its access, we’re willing to accept the help of any allies we can get, no matter how temporary that help might be.

Thanks to pissing off Republicans, Section 702 surveillance powers have been on the ropes for a few years now. Somehow, neither party (for the most part) could be bothered to generate meaningful reform in the wake of the Snowden leaks, but now that Trump’s boys are being bothered by the feds, it’s suddenly okay to threaten to pull the plug on Section 702.

There’s a push to make Section 702 whole again, despite these reform efforts. Whatever objections certain GOP members (with ties to the 2021 insurrection attempts) may be raising, the rest of the GOP still wants the power to spy on Americans it doesn’t like — a list that continues to grow as more Americans make it clear they don’t like this MAGA-infected version of the GOP.

The steady hand through all of this for years has been Senator Ron Wyden. Wyden has not only opposed clean reauthorizations of multiple government surveillance powers, but he’s also hinted at surveillance abuses by the US government that the US government is still unwilling to discuss publicly.

Most recently, the FISA Court gave its (limited) blessing to an extension of Section 702 surveillance powers, but only agreed to do so if the government took steps to curb the abuses it had routinely witnessed since… well, pretty much the inception of the Section 702 program.

The Trump administration made it clear it was not willing to make these concessions. And the FISA Court decided it didn’t need to publish its full decision because, presumably, the stupid American public would somehow manage to destroy national security just by reading it.

Wyden isn’t giving up. He’s demanding the full decision be released to — at the very least — the people charged with voting for reauthorization, if not the people these legislators represent.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the longest-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called out the Trump Administration for ignoring a request by Senate Intelligence Committee leaders to declassify a surveillance court opinion by May 15.

Wyden secured a commitment from Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., to push for release of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court opinion about surveillance conducted under FISA Section 702.

“The executive branch has ignored a request from the chair and vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee for basic transparency about FISA surveillance. I’ll have more to say about this next week,” Wyden said. “It’s clear that this administration cannot be trusted with unfettered, warrantless surveillance of Americans. Every member of Congress should keep this in mind when we consider FISA 702 in a few weeks.”

All of this is true. The current administration cannot be trusted, not on this matter or pretty much anything else. The current administration also refuses to declassify an order by the FISA court that appears to have told Trump serious reform efforts are needed to keep Section 702 in compliance with the Constitution. Finally, every member of Congress voting on the reauthorization should have access to the full opinion. It’s supremely weird that they don’t, considering they have the power to flip the 702 switch off and on every few years.

If the administration can’t share it with its large cadre of MAGA enthusiasts, it obviously has something to hide. It suggests the Trump administration would rather have readily available, unconstitutional access to US persons’ communications than address the complaints of the small number of MAGA faithful who are angry about being subjected to domestic surveillance they always assumed would only be directed at their enemies.

Wyden is not only legally and ethically right to press this point, but he’s also opportunistically right to leverage GOP sentiment against domestic surveillance to secure a vote (or reform efforts) that will ultimately protect US citizens, no matter their personal political preferences.

02:00 AM

A new way to fund internet freedom [Tor Project blog]

A coalition of privacy, internet freedom, cryptocurrency and open-source ecosystems, led by the Tor Project and Funding the Commons, today announced a new participatory funding campaign designed to support critical digital infrastructure at a moment of systemic funding instability.

Launching today at internetfreedom.torproject.org and as an Onion Service, the campaign is the first-ever Web3-native crowdfunding initiative dedicated to the internet freedom ecosystem. The campaign accepts contributions in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR), and Golem (GLM), and benefits 10 nonprofit projects working across privacy, censorship circumvention, secure communications, and public-interest digital infrastructure. An initial $115,000 USD matching pool supported by Cake Wallet, Zcash Community Grants, Logos, and Octant -- with additional ecosystem participation expected throughout the campaign -- will amplify donations made through June 18th, 2026, using a participatory matching model designed to reward broad community participation.

Internet freedom in peril

Internet freedom has declined for 15 consecutive years. As censorship and surveillance become increasingly sophisticated and pervasive, many of the tools people rely on to communicate and organize safely, access information freely, and protect their privacy are facing financial pressure and funding cuts. Some organizations were forced to reduce staffing, scale back technical infrastructure, delay development work, and stop support for the communities that depend on them. This strain threatens the long-term sustainability of critical public-interest infrastructure.

Today, the Tor Project and Funding the Commons, are launching a new experiment: a community-driven crowdfunding campaign exploring how internet freedom services and infrastructure can be funded more sustainably, transparently, and collectively. The campaign benefits organizations and tools supporting secure journalism, private communications, anti-censorship technologies, and privacy-preserving infrastructure used by millions of people worldwide.

Tor cannot be resilient alone. Its resilience depends on the resilience of the ecosystem around it, especially smaller projects that may not have the same access to institutional funding or donor networks. This campaign is one way to bring more people into the shared responsibility of sustaining public-interest technology.

A participatory funding model

The campaign uses a participatory matching fund model called quadratic funding designed to amplify the impact of many small contributions. Rather than prioritizing only large donations, the model increases support for projects backed by broader community participation, giving more people a meaningful voice in how funds are distributed. In practice, a project supported by many smaller contributors may receive more matching funds than one supported by only a few large donors.

Image Campaign contributions can be made in ETH, BTC, ZEC, XMR, and GLM

The campaign's matching pool is supported by a coalition of organizations aligned around privacy, open infrastructure, and public goods funding, including: Cake Wallet, Zcash Community Grants, Logos, and Octant. Contributions can be made using ETH, BTC, ZEC, XMR, and GLM.

"Privacy and internet freedom drive everything we build at Cake Wallet. We are proud to support Tor and the broader internet freedom ecosystem through this campaign, helping keep essential privacy tools accessible to everyone. Beyond supporting the mission, we are also users, advocates, and builders who have helped bring Tor's protections to over two million users worldwide." - Vik Sharma, CEO, Cake Wallet

"Tor and Zcash protect complementary layers of privacy: Tor protects network privacy, while Zcash protects financial privacy. By supporting this campaign, Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) is helping sustain critical public-interest infrastructure for people who rely on privacy and internet freedom." - ZCG's members

Internet freedom tools are digital public infrastructure, and they face many of the same funding challenges as other public goods: they are widely relied on, difficult to monetize ethically, and often invisible until they are under threat. Funding the Commons has spent years working with builders, funders, researchers, and public institutions to test new ways of sustaining public goods.

Partnering with Funding the Commons gives us a way to bring internet freedom organizations into a broader conversation about how public-interest infrastructure is funded, and to test a model that can be reused, improved, and expanded over time:

"Quadratic funding is one of web3's answers to how critical infrastructure gets funded: Institutional money follows community signals, not the other way around," said David Casey, Director of Funding the Commons. "Any donation moves the match pool, no matter the size, putting weight behind the projects Tor users rely on every day."

The campaign launches today at: internetfreedom.torproject.org and http://swvbwbtmajvfrnz4wztx6ovshilm23ntigi73fz5wczj3aqdquq5icad.onion, and accepts donations through June 18th, 2026.

12:00 AM

Sky Sends Cease-and-Desist Letters to 200 Irish IPTV Subscribers Exposed via Revolut [TorrentFreak]

tvLast August, Irishman David Dunbar consented to a €480,000 damages judgment after Sky exposed his illegal IPTV operation.

This legal action effectively shut down the “IPTV is Easy” service. However, Sky Ireland wasn’t done yet, and had also set its sights on the service’s subscribers.

This was no veiled threat. In March, we reported that, based on Revolut records uncovered during proceedings against the operator, Ireland’s High Court had ordered Revolut to hand over the details of 304 IPTV subscribers connected to the now-defunct IPTV service. At the time, Sky said it intended to take legal action against some of those named.

While no lawsuit has been filed yet, this morning The Irish Independent reported that Sky has indeed sent out its first legal demand letters.

‘Prepared to Take Legal Action’

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Sky confirms that roughly 200 people have been targeted. Most of them are located in Wexford, but letters have also gone to people in Carlow, Clare, Cork, Dublin, Galway, and various other counties.

“Sky can confirm it has issued a first wave of cease-and-desist letters to c.200 individuals who paid for an unlawful subscription to the illegal IPTV is Easy service,” a Sky spokesperson informed us.

“Where an individual does not engage with us following receipt of this letter, Sky is prepared to pursue legal action. This may include seeking an injunction, damages arising from the infringement, and recovery of legal costs.”

Sky’s Notice of Copyright Infringement

ceaseandesist

While the paperwork is directly tailored to Sky, the text explicitly mentions local sports rightsholders. It notes that Clubber TV, LOITV, GAA+, and Premier Sports are ‘wholly aware’ of the situation and warns that failure to sign leaves them ‘with no other option but to take firm action’ independently.

14 Days to Sign Settlement

The letter, posted in full below, is sent by Sky’s Legal Litigation and Anti-Piracy Division. The recipients are told that they were identified as a subscriber of “IPTV Is Easy”.

Importantly, the cease-and-desist urges the former subscribers to sign and return a legally binding settlement agreement within 14 days.

With this settlement, recipients promise to “immediately and permanently disable” all IPTV subscriptions, to “never again infringe Sky’s copyright in any way including by watching any of its content or channels without paying the correct subscription fee,” and to never again subscribe to an illegal IPTV service.

From the letter

action to take

If recipients comply, Sky says it will not name them publicly. If they do not, the company says it is “fully prepared to take further legal action, including issuing court proceedings.” In addition, a breach of the agreement might also result in follow-up legal action.

Deterrence Over Damages

With these warning letters, Sky likely hopes for a direct and indirect deterrent effect. By announcing publicly that IPTV subscribers are not untouchable, Sky hopes that IPTV subscribers will reconsider their habit.

In any case, the letter notes that Sky will retain a permanent record of the infringer’s name, address, and signed undertaking for as long as necessary. This means that signing the settlement will effectively place someone permanently on Sky’s radar.

The letter also warns recipients that their activity ‘may also involve criminal offences’ under Ireland’s Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000.

Sky is not seeking monetary damages, which stands in sharp contrast to recent approaches in Italy and France. Earlier this year, a French Public Prosecutor’s Office fined 19 IPTV subscribers between €300 and €400 after their identities were exposed through a reseller bust.

In Italy, the Guardia di Finanza identified thousands of subscribers following the dismantling of a pirate network, and rightsholders subsequently sent requests for €1,000 in damages on top of the criminal fines.

Sky’s approach is softer, at least for now. The Irish Independent’s technology editor Adrian Weckler told Newstalk Breakfast this morning that Sky had deliberately chosen not to pursue full civil prosecution, which would have been a more costly endeavor.

“They’re trying to walk a bit of a tightrope,” Weckler said. “They hope users will be freaked out by the letters and simply stop using them.”

Whether that strategy will work has yet to be seen. At the same time, it also remains unclear how Sky plans to verify whether the targeted users do indeed stay away from pirate IPTV services going forward.

In any case, the 200 letters represent a tiny fraction of an estimated 400,000 dodgy box households in Ireland. This means that there are plenty of targets remaining.

—

A copy of the official template for Sky’s cease-and-desist letter is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Tuesday 2026-05-19

11:00 PM

Kanji of the Day: 閉 [Kanji of the Day]

閉

✍11

小6

closed, shut

ヘイ

と.じる　と.ざす　し.める　し.まる　た.てる

閉鎖   (へいさ)   —   closing
閉店   (へいてん)   —   closing up shop (for the day)
閉幕   (へいまく)   —   falling of the curtain
自閉症   (じへいしょう)   —   autism
学級閉鎖   (がっきゅうへいさ)   —   temporary closing of classes
閉経   (へいけい)   —   menopause
閉館   (へいかん)   —   closing (for the day; of a library, museum, cinema, etc.)
閉塞   (へいそく)   —   blockage
開閉   (かいへい)   —   opening and shutting
閉会式   (へいかいしき)   —   closing ceremony

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 伏 [Kanji of the Day]

伏

✍6

中学

prostrated, bend down, bow, cover, lay (pipes)

フク

ふ.せる　ふ.す

伏線   (ふくせん)   —   foreshadowing
起伏   (きふく)   —   undulation
待ち伏せ   (まちぶせ)   —   ambush
潜伏   (せんぷく)   —   concealment
潜伏期   (せんぷくき)   —   incubation period
伏流水   (ふくりゅうすい)   —   underground water
伏して   (ふして)   —   bowing down
伏兵   (ふくへい)   —   ambush
腕立て伏せ   (うでたてふせ)   —   push-up (exercise)
降伏   (こうふく)   —   surrender

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

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