News

Tuesday 2026-05-05

08:00 AM

The Open Social Web Needs Section 230 To Survive [Techdirt]

If you want to overthrow Big Tech, you’ll need Section 230. The paradigm shift being built with the Open Social Web can put communities back in control of social media infrastructure, and finally end our dependency on enshittified corporate giants. But while these incumbents can overcome multimillion-dollar lawsuits, the small host revolution could be picked off one by one without the protections offered by 230.

The internet as we know it is built on Section 230, a law from the 90s that generally says internet users are legally responsible for their own speech — not the services hosting their speech. The purpose of 230 was to enable diverse forums for speech online, which defined the early internet. These scattered online communities have since been largely captured by a handful of multi-billion dollar companies that found profit in controlling your voice online. While critics are rightly concerned about this new corporate influence and surveillance, some look to diminishing Section 230 as the nuclear option to regain control.

The thing is, that would be a huge gift to Big Tech, and detrimental to our best shot at actually undermining corporate and state control of speech online.

Dethroning Big Tech

We’re fed up with legacy social media trapping us in walled gardens, where the world’s biggest companies like Google and Meta call the shots. Our communities, and our voices, are being held hostage as billionaires’ platforms surveil, betray, and censor us. We’re not alone in this frustration, and fortunately, people are collaborating globally to build another way forward: the Open Social Web.

This new infrastructure puts the public’s interest first by reclaiming the principles of interoperability and decentralization from the early internet. In short, it puts protocols over platforms and lets people own their connections with others. Whether you choose a Fediverse app like Mastodon or an ATmosphere app like Bluesky, your audience and community stay within reach. It’s a vision of social media akin to our lives offline: you decide who to be in touch with and how, and no central authority can threaten to snuff out those connections. It’s social media for humans, not advertisers and authoritarians.

Behind that vision is a beautiful mess of protocols bringing the open social media web to life. Each protocol is a unique language for applications, determining how and where messages are sent. While this means there is great variety to these projects, it also means everyone who spins up a server, develops an app, or otherwise hosts others’ speech has skin in the game when it comes to defending Section 230.

What exactly is Section 230?

Section 230 protects freedom of expression online by protecting US intermediaries that make the internet work. Passed in 1996 to preserve the new bubbling communities online, 230 enshrined important protections for free expression and the ability to block or filter speech you don’t want on your site. One portion is credited as the “26 words that created the internet”:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

In other words, this bipartisan law recognizes that speech online relies on intermediaries — services that deliver messages between users — and holding them potentially liable for any message they deliver would only stifle that speech. Intuitively, when harmful speech occurs, the speaker should be the one held accountable. The effect is that most civil suits against users and services based on others’ speech can quickly be dismissed, avoiding the most expensive parts of civil litigation.

Section 230 was never a license to host anything online, however. It does not protect companies that create illegal or harmful content. Nor does Section 230 protect companies from intellectual property claims.

What Section 230 has enabled, however, is the freedom and flexibility for online communities to self-organize. Without the specter of one bad actor exposing the host(s) to serious legal threats, intermediaries can moderate how they see fit or even defer to volunteers within these communities.

Why the Open Social Web Needs Section 230

The superpower of decentralized systems like the Fediverse is the ability for thousands of small hosts to each shoulder some of the burdens of hosting. No single site can assert itself as a necessary intermediary for everyone; instead, all must collaborate to ensure messages reach the intended audience. The result is something superior to any one design or mandate. It is an ecosystem that is greater than the sum of its parts, resilient to disruptions, and free to experiment with different approaches to community governance.

The open social web’s kryptonite though, is the liability participants can face as intermediaries. The greater the potential liability, the more interference from powerful interests in the form of legal threats, more monetary costs, and less space for nuance in moderation. And in practice, participants may simply stop hosting to avoid those risks. The end result is only the biggest and most resourced options can survive.

This isn’t just about the hosts in the Open Social Web, like Mastodon instances or Bluesky PDSes. In the U.S., Section 230’s protections extend to internet users when they distribute another person’s speech. For example, Section 230 protects a user who forwards an email with a defamatory statement. On the open social web, that means when you pass along a message to others through sharing, boosting, and quoting, you’re not liable for the other user’s speech. The alternative would be a web where one misclick could open you up to a defamation lawsuit.

Section 230 also applies to the infrastructure stack, too, like Internet service providers, content delivery networks, domain, and hosting providers. Protections even extend to the new experimental infrastructures of decentralized mesh networks.

Beyond the existential risks to the feasibility of indie decentralized projects in the United States, weakening 230 protections would also make services worse. Being able to customize your social media experience from highly curated to totally laissez-faire in the open social web is only possible when the law allows space for private experiments in moderation approaches. The algorithmically driven firehose forced on users by antiquated social media giants is driven by the financial interests of advertisers, and would only be more tightly controlled in a post-230 world.

Defending 230

Laws aimed at changing 230 protections put decentralized projects like the open social web in a uniquely precarious position. That is why we urge lawmakers to take careful consideration of these impacts. It is also why the proponents and builders of a better web must be vigilant defenders of the legal tools that make their work possible.

The open social web embodies what we are protecting with Section 230. It’s our best chance at building a truly democratic public interest internet, where communities are in control.

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Section 702 Vote Pushed Back Another Six Weeks Following GOP’s ‘But With Cryptocurrency Ban’ Failure [Techdirt]

The administration isn’t exactly winning here. The GOP has been opposed to a clean reauthorization since its first brush with warrantless surveillance back during the Biden administration. GOP members weren’t upset that the FBI routinely abused the NSA’s Section 702 collections to access US persons’ communications… unless those communications happened to be theirs.

Despite their mostly-performative opposition, Section 702 was again given a clean reauthorization. This time around, the GOP seems even more reluctant to give these powers a pass, despite it being clear President Trump would like this to happen.

Trump’s interest is more selfish than most. While he too has been performatively critical of the surveillance that swept up some of his MAGA buddies during Biden’s term in office, he’d definitely like for his FBI and DOJ to be able to warrantlessly surveil Americans he doesn’t like. Since both entities are nothing more than willing enablers of Trump’s vindictive whims, allowing the FBI to warrantlessly access US persons’ communications probably sounds wonderful. And since it appears he doesn’t believe there will ever be a regime change, he has no qualms about extending these spy powers in perpetuity with zero modifications, including those ordered by FISA court judges.

Somehow, even his party loyalists are reluctant to appease him. Section 702 has been on the verge of expiration multiple times, with only the periodic placement on temporary life support keeping these powers from being relegated to history.

With the powers set to expire at the end of April, the GOP offered up something halfway between a Hail Mary and deliberate sabotage, as Politico reports. While the House did manage to pass a three-year extension of Section 702, GOP House members added a rider that ensures this particular version wouldn’t be greenlit by the Senate.

The Senate is unlikely to clear the House-passed extension, which will be sent over with an unrelated, permanent ban on the Federal Reserve’s ability to issue a digital currency attached.

That provision was included at the behest of ultraconservatives, but it is so divisive across the Capitol that it has stalled a major affordable housing package for months. Senate Majority Leader John Thune earlier this week warned that the digital currency ban was “not happening” as part of spy law renewal.

Whether this clause was meant to keep the government from competing with Trump’s private sector offerings or just there to deter the Fed from paying closer attention to cryptocurrency market hardly matters. When John Thune is giving it a preemptive thumbs down, it’s a non-starter.

The Senate, however, received this GOP-spiked can and has only managed to kick it a bit further down the road. While some cynicism is warranted, it also buys time for surveillance reform advocates to gather the information they need to push back against yet another clean re-authorization.

The Senate approved the punt by a voice vote Thursday afternoon before the House passed it under fast-track procedures on a 261-111 vote.

As part of a deal Senate leaders cut with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to speed up the extension’s passage ahead of the midnight deadline, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will send a letter telling the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the Justice Department to declassify an annual 702 court opinion within 15 days so it can be used as part of the negotiations.

This is not an unreasonable ask. The public has a right to know what the government thinks it can get away with under this surveillance power. What has always been pitched as a foreign-facing collection has been shown, for years, to be routinely accessed by Intelligence Community agencies for the sole purpose of accessing US persons’ communications without a warrant or even direct FISA court approval.

That an aggrieved Republican party may actually result in Section 702 reform is something that was never on anyone’s bingo card, especially since it’s usually been the same handful of Democratic party senators who have pushed back against these spy powers — something they have consistently done even when their own party has occupied the Oval Office.

Will reform actually happen this time? If history is any indication, a majority of Congressional reps will find some way to talk themselves out of their objections just in time to make it a problem for the next administration to solve. But there seems to be enough bipartisan opposition to a clean re-up to give reform a fighting chance.

Daily Deal: uTalk Language Education [Techdirt]

We have all wanted to learn a language at some point but it’s hard to get started. Some language learning tools can be complicated and very time-consuming. But with uTalk, you’ll be speaking keywords and phrases in no time, and will start to see the results straight away. It helps you overcome the language barrier challenge by helping you learn real, practical vocabulary in a wide variety of languages from any device that you choose. uTalk’s language programs let you listen to native speakers who are recorded in uTalk’s recording studio and feature independently verified translations so you’ll be able to navigate through your next vacation like a real local. Get 2 languages for $30, 6 languages for $50, or all 100+ languages for $69.97.

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

05:00 AM

The $16 Million Question: If Editing Harris Was ‘Election Interference,’ What Was Editing Trump? [Techdirt]

In late 2024, Donald Trump sued CBS for $10 billion claiming “election interference” because 60 Minutes had the audacity to (*gasp*) edit a Kamala Harris interview down for broadcast. The lawsuit was, on its face, ridiculous — editing interviews is protected First Amendment activity, the kind of editorial discretion that has been the entire premise of magazine-format television since the format existed. But CBS’s owners at Paramount needed FCC approval for their Skydance merger, and Trump controlled the FCC, so they paid $16 million to make the lawsuit go away. We covered that institutional cave at the time and called it what it was: a bribe dressed up as a legal settlement.

Now here we are, in 2026, and 60 Minutes has done an interview with Trump that they edited down from 40 minutes to 13. Sure enough, the editing made Trump sound way more coherent than he actually was.

Decoding Fox News did the tedious work of comparing what aired against the full transcript that CBS published, and the results are wild. When asked why so many people seem to want to kill him, Trump went on a meandering rant about transgender athletes and “men playing in women’s sports” — the kind of free-association nonsense that makes you wonder who’s actually running the country. CBS edited that out. You can read it here, though:

60 Minutes: Why do you think so many people may be trying to kill you?

Trump: So, I’ve said it and I’ve said it numerous times, and I actually, because of the position I’m in, I’ve done quite a bit of research into the word assassination. Terrible word. And they go after consequential presidents. They go after presidents that, do things. If you look at what I’ve done, we’ve turned this country around. We’ve taken a country that was actually a dead country. It was dying very rapidly, and it’s the hottest country anywhere in the world. We had a skirmish, a war, whatever you want to call it. With Venezuela, we won that very decisively. And we now have a great relationship with Venezuela. And it’s been a very profitable relationship. And we’re in Iran right now. Other presidents should have done it, but they never chose to do it. They should have. They made a terrible mistake by not doing it. It’s tougher now than it would have been ten years ago or even five years ago because, you know, thousands and thousands of missiles and everything else. And we didn’t do the B-2 bomber attack. That alone was a big deal. The killing of Soleimani, which I did in my first term, was a big deal. But when you’re a consequential when you do things, a lot of things and things that work out very well for our country. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, McKinley was assassinated. McKinley made the country very rich. People don’t realize it. Then Teddy Roosevelt went out and spent the money that was made by McKinley. But it was very consequential, actually. But he was assassinated. So,

60 Minutes: You mentioned, Mr. President, consequential. And your policies are also controversial. Is that part of it?

Trump: Well, I don’t think that way. I don’t think in terms of what they are. I just think of what they are for the country. For instance, I inherited the worst border we’ve ever had in the history of a country where 25 million people came in, 25 million people at least, and many of them were from hardcore criminals, and they were drug dealers, and they were from prisons. They emptied our prisons into our country. They have, mental institutions, insane asylums into our country. And I don’t know if that’s controversial to say we have to move those people out, but we have and but it is from the standpoint you’re doing something and you’re doing something that’s good. Things like, men playing in women’s sports, I’m against it. Things like transgender for everyone. I’m against that. There’s so many things that I’m against. I don’t think they’re controversial. I think the other side is controversial, but I do a lot of things and I get things done. And, you know, we’re respected now as a country all over the world. And some people love that, but some people probably don’t.

That word salad that we’ve all become used to is mostly nonsense. It remains absolutely incredible that no one points out to the President of the United States that “migrants pleading asylum from violence” is not “coming from insane asylums.” He doesn’t seem to understand that.

60 Minutes… cut that entire segment out.

When asked about Cole Allen (who breached a first layer of security with weapons at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with the alleged intent to assassinate Trump) attending a “No Kings” protest, Trump’s actual answer included this gem:

Well the you see the reason you have people like that is you have people doing ‘No Kings’. I’m not a king. What am I, if I was a king, I wouldn’t be dealing with you. You know I’m not a king, I get it, I don’t laugh, I don’t, I, I see these No Kings which are funded just like the southern law was funded. You all that southern laws, financing the KKK and lots of other radical, terrible groups. And then they go out and they say, oh, we’ve got to stop the KKK. And yet they give them hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. They work. It’s a total scam run by the Democrats. It shows you that, like Charlottesville, Charlottesville was all funded by the southern law. That was a southern law deal, too. And it was done to make me look bad. And it turned out to be a total fake. It basically was, a rigged election. This was a part of the rigging of the election. And that’s what you really should be doing. I mean, I hope one of your ‘60 Minute’ episodes, which really hasn’t changed very much for the last few years, I’m surprised. But one of those episodes should be on southern law, and the fact that they spent millions and millions of dollars on absolute far right and just bad, bad groups, and then they’d use those groups and they’d say, these are Republican groups, and we’re coming to your rescue, and they’re the ones that have funded it, and they’re the ones that kept them, keep them going. Pretty sad.

That’s the President of the United States repeatedly calling the Southern Poverty Law Center, against whom his DOJ has filed a highly questionable lawsuit, “southern law” and then just going pure word salad based on not even remotely understanding what SPLC did (or even what his own DOJ has accused them of doing). And, no, the bigoted “Jews will not replace us” marchers in Charlottesville were not “funded by the southern law.”

This is a man who can’t understand basic concepts.

What part actually aired?

Well the, you see the reason you have people like that is you have people doing ‘No Kings’. I’m not a king. What am I, if I was a king, I wouldn’t be dealing with you.

Crisp, almost witty. A real “zinger.”

The rest of that word salad clipped to the dustbin of history.

And, of course, immediately after that he starts whining about 60 Minutes again. He goes on like this (none of which airs):

Trump: Do you think it’s pretty sad Norah?

60 Minutes: The allegations and the indictment.

Trump: There’re not just allegations.

60 Minutes: But it’s an indictment.

Trump: These facts okay. These are facts. I mean, they have checks to the two Klux Klan and many others, and then they’re saying how bad they are and blaming the Republican Party and Republicans. These are not just allegations, but go ahead.

60 Minutes: Well as you know sir, you’ve been accused of things and were able to go to a court of law and adjudicate them.

Trump: So yeah, it’s after five years. It’s it’s it takes you about five years.

60 Minutes: I do want to talk about that also.

Trump: I’ve also won a lot of money from fake news media where they write falsely about me. And not that I want to sue people because I don’t. But I bring lawsuits against the fake news and brought lawsuits against your network, and you paid me $38 million because you did something that was so horrible with Kamala. You put an answer down that wasn’t responsive to the question because her answer, her real answer was so bad, it was election threatening. And you paid me a lot of money, and you tried to pull one off. It was terrible. It was a terrible thing that you did. And you know, when you say, can we all get along? You can. But when people do things like that, or how about the BBC where the BBC has me? Actually, AI, they had me saying a horrible statement and I said, I never said that. It turned out they gave me AI and little AI treatment where they have my lips speaking words of hate. Tremendous hate that I never said they don’t know what to do. They’ve admitted they’re wrong. They just don’t know what to do. They actually have me making a major statement. And it wasn’t me. It was my face. It was my lips. My lips were perfectly in sync with the words I said. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. So

60 Minutes: I hear you Mr. President.

Trump: So then when you say, can you get along? I can get along with anybody. But if people are going to cheat, if people are going to be fake, you sort of don’t want to get along.

60 Minutes: On that. What do you say to people who are encouraging political violence or even cheering it on?

Trump: Well, I think the ones that are doing that are much more far left than far right, much more. When you see again, southern law, when you see some of the statements that are made there. So even when you say No Kings, that’s, that’s encouraging. You’re saying one of the things this guy said in his manifesto, what you didn’t read, you should have, is that he attended a No Kings rally along with not too many people, and probably it had an impact. You know, they get up and they say whatever they want. No, I’m against it. I think it’s terrible.

Did you get all that. It’s a bit confusing because everything he says is confusing, but when 60 Minutes’ Norah O’Donnell points out that the claims against SPLC (which, yes, Trump keeps calling “Southern Law”) are simply allegations, Trump insists they’re not. O’Donnell points out what Trump himself should recognize, given how often he’s been charged with crimes, that charges in a criminal case still have to be proven in a court, and Trump denies that (which is shocking on its own).

And then he shifts to the nonsense vexatious censorial SLAPP suits he files, including the one against CBS and 60 Minutes, and falsely claims that CBS paid him $38 million (it was $16 million) and says “because you did something that was so horrible with Kamala. You put an answer down that wasn’t responsive to the question because her answer, her real answer was so bad, it was election threatening.”

Which, um, is literally the exact thing that 60 Minutes is doing here. In this interview. In not airing that part! The part that includes a demonstrably false claim about how much CBS paid.

Oh, and his claims about the BBC (also not aired!) are equally ridiculous and factually absurd. He is suing them, but nothing in the lawsuit is, as he claims, about AI. In the interview he says the following:

AI, they had me saying a horrible statement and I said, I never said that. It turned out they gave me AI and little AI treatment where they have my lips speaking words of hate. Tremendous hate that I never said they don’t know what to do.

But that’s not what the lawsuit says, and literally no one has accused the BBC of using AI. They simply showed two separate quotes, and the claim in the lawsuit was that doing so gave a false presumption that the two statements were said one after another when they were actually separated by many minutes.

In other words, it’s also a lawsuit about not liking the way a speech was edited. Not about AI. At all.

And 60 Minutes edited out him lying about it.

The editorial pattern is consistent throughout: 60 Minutes’ producers cut the parts where Trump sounded unhinged and kept the parts where he sounded like a slightly more normal politician answering questions.

This is, of course, exactly what 60 Minutes has always done with every politician they’ve ever interviewed. It’s the entire format. You sit someone down for 40 minutes or an hour, then you edit it down to ten to 15 minutes to fit the broadcast window, and you try to focus on the parts that actually make sense for television. This is television journalism, and it has worked this way since 60 Minutes premiered in 1968.

When CBS did this with Harris, plenty of people — including us — pointed out that this was just how the show works. The lawsuit was, as we noted at the time, a “blatant attack on free speech and the First Amendment, as editorial discretion is a protected right of news organizations.” Any first-year law student could tell you that. Hell anyone familiar with the First Amendment could tell you that. Trump’s own lawyers presumably knew it. The judge who would have eventually ruled on it would have known it.

But Trump didn’t need to win the lawsuit. He just needed CBS to care more about making the headache disappear than standing on principle. And because Paramount’s owners wanted their Skydance merger approved by Trump’s FCC and DOJ, they paid him $16 million to make it disappear.

60 Minutes edited Trump exactly the way they edited Harris — actually more aggressively, given how much rambling they had to compress — and they did it for exactly the same reason: because that’s what television journalism is. The full transcript exists. CBS published it themselves. Anyone can verify that the editing was extensive and that it consistently made Trump sound more coherent than he actually was.

So, it’s one of two things:

Either editing political interviews for broadcast is just part of how these shows work — protected by the First Amendment (in which case the Harris lawsuit was the frivolous nonsense we always said it was, and CBS paid $16 million to settle a baseless claim) — or it’s “election interference” worth $20 billion in damages (in which case CBS just committed it again, even more egregiously, and the DNC should be filing a similar suit).

You don’t get to have it both ways. Unless, of course, you’re Trump, MAGA media, or — apparently — CBS News itself.

Brian Beutler, over at Off Message, makes the case that the DNC should actually sue CBS for $20 billion, settle for $16 million, and force the network to confront its own hypocrisy:

What if [DNC boss] Ken Martin were to claim CBS News interfered in the 2026 election by editing down Trump’s interview, no less than it interfered in the 2024 election by editing down Harris’s? What if he filed an angry lawsuit, if only to hold up a mirror to the perversity of the status quo? What if he insisted that nominally neutral institutions treat the parties equally? Why not let CBS decide whether it wants to settle the score, or whether it wants to be known as the network that gives money to Republicans only?

Beutler’s broader point — that Democrats consistently refuse to impose costs on bad-faith actors and thereby teach those actors there are no consequences for bad faith — is largely correct. And yes, there’s something satisfying about the thought experiment.

But the actual lawsuit would be a total disaster — because it would lose. Badly. Easily. Obviously. Just like Trump’s lawsuit should have lost. The First Amendment protects editorial discretion. A judge would dismiss it, probably quickly, and Republicans would immediately spin that dismissal as proof that the original Trump lawsuit had merit. “See? When the Democrats tried it, the courts saw right through it. But Trump’s case was so strong, CBS settled for $16 million.” The fact that this framing would be exactly backwards — that Trump’s case was settled because of regulatory extortion, not legal merit — would be lost in the noise.

You can’t fight a bad-faith propaganda operation by feeding it more propaganda fuel. The DNC suing would hand the GOP a winning narrative for free.

What CBS should be doing — what any media organization with a spine would do — is loudly defend the editing of the Trump interview as exactly what it is: standard journalism. They should be pointing to the published transcript and saying “yes, we edited this, here’s why, this is what we do, this is what we have always done, and it’s what we did with the Harris interview too. This is what the First Amendment protects us in doing.”

They should be using this moment to show everyone just how ridiculous the Harris lawsuit really was, and to make clear that the $16 million payment was a business decision driven by merger pressures, not an admission of journalistic wrongdoing. Otherwise Trump is just going to keep insisting, to CBS’s own reporters, that he has proof that they somehow treated him unfairly.

But they won’t. Because CBS, under its new ownership, has thoroughly learned the coward’s lesson that resistance is costly and capitulation is cheap. Bari Weiss now runs CBS News. The network that paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit about editing a leading politician is now in the business of editing Trump’s interviews to make him sound presidential — and the total silence from everyone who pretended to care about journalistic integrity during the Harris episode is telling.

Where is the Free Press exposé on this clear-cut case of “news distortion”? Where is the Ted Cruz hearing demanding accountability? Where is FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatening to revoke CBS’s licenses for “election interference” or “news distortion” ahead of the 2026 midterms? Where is the $20 billion lawsuit from anyone, anywhere, claiming that CBS is putting its thumb on the scale by making the president sound less like a man losing his grip on reality?

We all know where they are. The only “principle” at play here was always, transparently, about leverage. Trump had leverage over CBS via the FCC. CBS folded. Now CBS uses that same editorial discretion to flatter Trump, and suddenly editorial discretion is fine again, actually.

This is institutional capitulation under an authoritarian government. CBS has editorial discretion. It’s well within their First Amendment rights to edit 60 Minutes in ways that flatter the person they paid the bribe to. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t call out the rank hypocrisy.

The reality is that the editing of this interview was, on its own merits, fine. Editing a 40-minute interview down to 13 minutes is what 60 Minutes does, even though I would argue cutting out much of his rambling hid parts that were genuinely newsworthy in favor of sanewashing the president. But that’s CBS’s editorial discretion. Bari Weiss and 60 Minutes are free to trash their own reputation by burnishing the President’s.

What’s not defensible is doing this now, after paying $16 million on the premise that doing this for Harris was somehow corrupt. CBS has put itself in a position where it cannot honestly defend its own editorial choices without acknowledging the settlement for the cowardice it was. In both cases CBS had perfectly defensible arguments for its edits. But in one case it capitulated. CBS should be forced to explain why.

But they’ll just say nothing. And Trump will say nothing, because he knows the editing helps him. And MAGA media will say nothing, because they only care about “news distortion” when it’s politically useful. And the rest of us will watch yet another major American institution demonstrate that it has no principles, only prices.

The $16 million was a down payment on every future editorial decision CBS makes about Donald Trump. And we just saw what that buys.

DSA-6247-1 lxd - security update [Debian Security]

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/DSA-6247-1

04:00 AM

FL House GOP Roadblocks DeSantis’ Childhood Vaccine Requirements Repeal [Techdirt]

The anti-vaccine sugar rush that has infected some portions of the country, largely thanks to the profane appointment of RFK Jr. to head HHS, is incredibly frustrating. That makes it all the more important when the movement receives not just pushback when trying to enact absurd policy based on conspiracy theories, but specifically when that pushback comes from the same party engaging in the absurdity.

Earlier this year, flanked by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, announced that the state government was seeking to end all vaccine requirements for school children in the state. And, because Ladapo is a hack, he postured this move in the silliest way possible.

Ladapo said the Florida Department of Health would be working with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office to end all mandates in state law, at the event at Grace Christian School in Valrico, located just east of Tampa.

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said of vaccine mandates.

Equating vaccine mandates to slavery may well be one of the dumbest analogies a human being has ever come up with. Vaccines save lives, prevent illness, and go a long way toward staving off the long term effects of many infectious diseases. Suggesting that any of that is akin to the slave trade reveals far more about the person making such a silly accusation than it does about our vaccination programs.

DeSantis, for his part, stated that some vaccine requirements could be removed immediately, while others would require state legislation. But the legislation drawn up to achieve that has hit a major roadblock, and that roadblock is Florida’s House GOP.

Just minutes into a special session on Tuesday, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced that the Republican-led chamber would not take up a proposal from DeSantis to allow children to opt out of certain school vaccination requirements. The move effectively killed the proposal, which had been backed by the Senate.

Perez, a father from Miami with three young children, said he was concerned by the idea of “children being in school without measles and mumps and polio and chickenpox vaccines that have been working for decades,” according to The New York Times, which reported from the State Capitol. “That was something that I was uncomfortable with.”

Thank the universe for sane, thinking members of the GOP, in this case. Perez is precisely correct: vaccines have worked for a long, long time and removing their requirement in public schools serves to only make more children more sick. It ignores our collective responsibility for the health of those around us, some of which have underlying conditions that mean they can’t get vaccines they would otherwise desire. Why in the world should someone in that unfortunate situation have to literally risk their lives in order to go to school? What are those kids supposed to do, just because someone bought into the vaccine misinformation?

None of these anti-vaccine goobers ever seem to want to answer that question. Instead, they retreat to their “Don’t Tread On Me” slogans, or other talking points. As for DeSantis, sane questions like this are pure political games, apparently.

On social media, DeSantis responded to the House’s rejection by calling it “typical political shenanigans.”

Ladapo also responded, saying: “The governor’s agenda to defend freedom, whether from medical tyranny or tech oligarchs, is something Floridians and Americans everywhere want and value. Members of the Florida House should be leading that effort, not standing in the way.”

Those House members are representing their districts, Mr. Surgeon General. Better than you are, I would argue. And does anyone actually read these boot-licking comments from Ladapo and conclude that any of it represents sincerely held beliefs, rather than a sincere desire to remain in power?

Certainly not this writer, I can tell you. This is more pandering for politics on the part of Ladapo. And he will eventually have the blood of children on his hands if he gets his way.

12:00 AM

Paramount Reveals Company Will Be 49.5% Owned By Foreign Investors If Warner Bros Merger Approved [Techdirt]

FCC boss Brendan Carr has spent much of the last five years on cable TV whining incessantly about foreign entanglement with U.S. companies. Even companies he doesn’t regulate.

He was positively apoplectic about China’s ownership of TikTok, which you may recall they “fixed” by offloading the social media company to Trump’s billionaire friends (while curiously maintaining Chinese co-ownership). He’s also been endlessly whiny about Chinese entanglement in U.S. hardware, recently imposing a “ban” on foreign routers (which is actually more of a lazy extortion scheme).

But when it comes to a Trump-allied right wing billionaire buying up the entirety of U.S. media companies with Chinese and Middle East autocratic help, Brendan Carr is suddenly nowhere to be found.

A new filing from Paramount related to its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers reveals the finalized deal will result in a company that’s 49.5% owned by foreign interests (including the Chinese), and 38.5% owned by a a trio of Middle Eastern funds, including the journalist-butchering folks over in Saudi Arabia:

“In a petition for declaratory ruling to the FCC signed by Paramount legal chief Makan Delrahim, Paramount asks the Brendan Carr-led commission to sign off on the deal involving Saudi Arabia’s PIF (public investment fund), L’Imad, an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, and a Qatar Investment Authority fund.”

If you’re playing along at home, that’s the same Makan Delrahim who used to be Trump’s DOJ “antitrust enforcer” during his first term. Delrahim “enforced antitrust” at the time by helping Sprint and T-Mobile gain rubber-stamp approval for their job and competition eroding merger. He even used his personal phones and computers to give the companies advise on how to bypass regulatory scrutiny.

Normally the FCC wouldn’t have any say in this deal because no local broadcast stations or public airwaves are directly involved, but it does have some say in how the deal is financed. The Communications Act of 1934 restricts foreign entities from holding more than a 25% indirect equity or voting interest in a U.S. company that holds broadcast licenses. Obviously, 49.5% bypasses that.

Paramount and Brendan Carr have already insisted this is all irrelevant and Carr has openly signaled to a top GOP donor (Larry Ellison) that he won’t object to any part of the foreign financing. Paramount’s filing continues to insist the deal (and its massive debt) will be great for consumers, creatives, and everybody in between. From a Paramount statement:

“When the transaction and equity syndication close, the Ellison family and RedBird will collectively hold the largest equity stake in the combined company and continue to be the sole owners of Class A Common Stock, representing 100% of the voting shares, with no other equity syndication party having any governance rights, voting shares, or Board representation. The combination of Paramount and WBD’s complementary assets will enhance competition while creating a strong champion for creative talent and consumer choice.”

There is, as we’ve explored, nothing that supports this last claim. That massive level of debt will inevitably result in mass layoffs, corner cutting, and price hikes. This is what always happens. And this is before a potential AI bubble pop impacts the Ellison family financials even more. There’s a very good chance this deal implodes in a giant fireball regardless of who is financing it.

Still, it’s curious that a GOP that spends so much of its time engaged in xenophobic and racist tirades about foreign investment in U.S. free market innovation goes so quickly silent when they stand to personally benefit. In this case both financially via Larry Ellison’s patronage, and ideologically via Larry Ellison’s conversion of CNN, TikTok, and CBS into (global) autocrat-friendly propaganda machines.

Monday 2026-05-04

10:00 PM

Trained equanimity and a bias toward action [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

Pay attention to what’s in front of you.

Don’t let fear contaminate your understanding of the situation.

Act with commitment.

Notice the gap between event and reaction.

Embrace the resources that are available to you.

Optimism is a belief about possible outcomes, but equanimity adds a bias toward action, regardless of what happens.

There’s enough noise, don’t create more. Simply take right action without comment or second-guessing. We can avoid a dark side driven by fear and grievance. And we don’t need a light saber.

While it’s nice to share the annual greeting, it’s unnecessary. The fourth is always with you if you choose.

Pluralistic: Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure (04 May 2026) [Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow]

->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-> Top Sources: None -->

Today's links

Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene?
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Beck, Scientologist; Citizen journalism; Podcast-killing treaty; US x Kiwi copyright; Apple did a crime; DeCSS v civilian aviation; Navy x SF's queering; Micosoft v FLOSS; Sony-BMG needs a new DRM czar; Lossy copying sculpture; AI and the fatfinger economy.
Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure (permalink)

No one is better at keeping hope alive than Rebecca Solnit, the historian and essayist whose Hope in the Dark got me through the first Trump administration and whose A Paradise Built In Hell inspired my novel Walkaway:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070/a-paradise-built-in-hell-by-rebecca-solnit/

In her latest, "Truth, Consequences, Climate, and Demand Destruction," Solnit is nothing short of inspirational – not because she downplays the horror and misery of Trump and his war of choice in Iran, but because she tells us what we stand to salvage from the wreckage:

https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/truth-consequences-climate-and-demand-destruction/

Solnit starts by explaining some of the (many, many) things that Trump doesn't understand. Principally, Trump doesn't understand the concept of "demand destruction," which is what happens when shortages prompt people to make durable, one-way changes in their behavior that permanently reduce the demand for fossil fuels.

High prices sometimes create demand destruction: for example, if a transient shortage in eggs pushes prices up, people might discover that they prefer tofu scrambles in the morning, so even when the price of eggs comes back down, they buy two dozen fewer eggs every month, forever.

Beyond high prices, shortages and rationing are far more likely to lead to demand destruction. In the 10 years following the 1970s oil crisis, US cars doubled in fuel efficiency, and the gas-guzzler didn't return until car manufacturers exploited the American "light truck" loophole to fill the streets with deadly SUVs:

https://medium.com/vision-zero-cities-journal/the-chicken-tax-and-other-ways-the-u-s-government-subsidizes-your-ford-f-150-444a5164c627

But to really max out on demand destruction, you need both rationing and a cheap, easily installed substitute, and that's what the Strait of Epstein crisis, along with solar and batteries, offers the world today. Solar is incredibly cheap, and getting cheaper every day. Batteries are also incredibly cheap, and they're getting cheaper too. For decades, fossil fuel apologists have insisted that we'll never stop setting old dead shit on fire because "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow," but thanks to battery deployment in China and California (and more places very soon), the sun shines all night long:

https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/04/Global-Electricity-Review-2026.pdf?ref=meditationsinanemergency.com

In starting this stupid, unforgivable war, Trump has vastly accelerated the process of demand destruction. Rather than buying American oil, the whole world has undertaken a simultaneous, rapid, irreversible shift to electrical substitutes for fossil fuel applications, from induction tops to balcony solar to ebikes and EVs:

https://thepolycrisis.org/01-demand-destruction-us-oil-is-not-winning-the-iran-war/

As Solnit writes, Trump's stupid war follows on the heels of another unforgivable and cruel blunder: Putin's quagmire in Ukraine, which catapulted Europe into the Gretacene, with a wholesale, continent-wide shift away from fossil fuels to renewables and the devices they power. Now, the rest of the world is following suit. In South Korea, President Lee Jae Myung is leading the charge to transition the country to renewables, framing fossil fuels as an existential geopolitical risk.

Trump's demand destruction accelerates Putin's demand destruction: China and India both increased their energy consumption in 2025 – but reduced their fossil fuel consumption over the same period. In 2025, coal accounted for less than a third of the world's energy for the first time in modern history. 2025 was the year that solar and wind overtook coal globally.

Meanwhile, Trump and his oil baron buddies keep trying to make fetch happen. On the campaign trail, Trump told the oil industry that if they slipped him a $1b bribe, he would give them anything they wanted, and he's kept his promise. Trump will let Big Oil drill anywhere they like, from sacred sites like New Mexico's Chaco Canyon to the Arctic. He'll even let them take all of Venezuela's oil. The problem is that banks can see the demand destruction writing on the wall, and they are conspicuously declining to loan the oil companies the money they'd need to get that oil.

Truly, Trump's a machine for creating stranded assets at scale. As Solnit writes, that's because Trump has no strategic foresight; strategy being "the ability to plan for things to arise that may counter your agenda, so you can continue to pursue your agenda." Trump's a bully, and he's accustomed to intimidating his adversaries into capitulating. That's why Trump keeps making moves without ever thinking about the countermove he might provoke. He can't metabolize the strategic maxim that "the enemy gets a vote."

This is the GOP's whole vibe these days: "how dare you do unto me as I have done unto you?" Solnit points to GOP outrage in response to Democratic gerrymandering in blue states, which Democrats undertook in direct, explicit response to shameless gerrymandering in Texas and other red states. Solnit says that the GOP has "confused having a lot of power with having all the power" and is perennially surprised when their attacks on Iran and Minneapolis evince a reaction from the people in Iran and Minneapolis.

This is the defective reasoning that caused Comrade Trump to hormuz the world into the full Gretacene. Whereas once the case for the energy transition was driven by activists who warned people about the future consequences of inaction, Trump has summoned up a new army of people who are worried about the present consequences of inaction: such as not being able to drive your car, use your gas stove, or fertilize your crops. Trump has summoned up another army of people, who are worried about the politics of oil, the fact that oil leads to wars and can be mobilized as a weapon when it is withheld from your country.

Activists couldn't deliver the energy transition on their own – but now there's a coalition that's driving rapid, irreversible change: activists concerned about the future of the planet, in coalition with economic actors concerned about the consequences of not being able to cook, heat your home, or keep the lights on; in coalition with national security hawks worried about the geopolitics of oil. That's Comrade Trump's three-part mobilization: human rights, finance, and national security, all insisting that the enemy gets a vote, and voting unanimously for a post-American world.

Last week marked the first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference, attended by representatives from 54 countries who sidestepped the US- and China-dominated UN to ratify the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty Initiative, whose 18 signatories include Colombia, a major oil producer.

The world is moving on, and Trump continues to insist that he can roll back history to some imaginary era of a Great America. Every time this fails, he doubles down on his failures and sets the stage for more failure to come. Take Trump's decision to have the US blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Not only is this a powerful force for demand destruction – but, as Trita Parsi writes, it's also poison for Trump's own electoral fortunes in America:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-iran-blockade/

Trump won in 2024 by campaigning to improve Americans' cost of living. This is a powerful campaign strategy, and it's not limited to fascists, as Zohran Mamdani can attest. But for this to work, you actually have to reduce the cost of living once you take office, otherwise you will be hated and rejected and hampered in everything you do. The problem (for Trump – but not for Mamdani!) is that America's high cost of living is driven by corporate profiteering, and the only way to fix it is to make the rich poorer so as to make the poor richer:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/24/mamdani-thought/#public-excellence

If Trump had chosen to bullshit his way through the Iranian blockade of the strait, allowing the Iranians to collect a $2m toll per tanker (payable in Chinese renminbi!), well, oil would have gone up in price some, but the coming runaway inflation on food and fuel would have been substantially blunted. Instead, he decided to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" by adding a US blockade, which means that prices in the US are going to skyrocket, making his base furious and driving turnout for Democrats, along with support for more renewables, even among blood-red Republican rural Texas ranchers, who have had enough of "DEI for fossil fuels":

https://austinfreepress.org/renewables-are-now-the-costco-of-energy-production-bill-mckibben-says/

The renewables transition is now a self-licking ice-cream cone, a flywheel that only spins faster and faster. As Solnit writes, this is true notwithstanding the concerns by some climate advocates about the materials needed for the transition. Sure, there will be some extraction involved in mass electrification, and if that's done badly, it will involve stealing and destroying more land from poor and indigenous people. But we don't have to do it badly!

Meanwhile, not transitioning to renewables absolutely requires an endless cycle of incredibly destructive and genocidal extraction. Remember, fossil fuels are fuels, while renewables are infrastructure. Fuels need to be dug up and destroyed every year for so long as we insist on setting old dead shit on fire to survive. We dig up a lot of fossil fuels. The world consumes seventeen times more fossil fuels in a year than we will require to electrify the planet forever:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/06/with-great-power/#comes-great-responsibility

The infrastructure of renewables – panels, batteries, transmission lines – requires materials that are often scarce and whose processing involves extremely harmful and polluting processes. But those materials are all recyclable: we don't recycle them today because we haven't prioritized doing so, not because it it technologically beyond our reach. In 2024, America saw its first all-solar powered solar panel recycling factory, which reclaimed 99% of the materials in a panel that was 20% efficient, and then used those materials to make two panels that were each 40% efficient:

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/solarcycle-to-recycle-10-million-solar-panels-yearly

Trump shut that plant down, which means that other countries will get to recycle America's superannuated panels into modern, efficient ones and sell them back to America. America may have blocked any climate reparations for the poor world, but thanks to Comrade Trump, America's still going to end up paying them, in the form of windfall profits for countries whose cleantech economy is racing ahead of America's.

Unlike a fossil fuel economy, a cleantech sector does not require that your country have access to some difficult to find, unevenly distributed reservoir of old dead shit or even rare minerals. Not only is lithium far more common than once believed, it's also being phased out for use in batteries and replaced by sodium, the world's sixth-most abundant element:

https://cen.acs.org/energy/energy-storage-/Sodium-ion-batteries-Should-believe/103/web/2025/11

Lithium is set to join cobalt, a notorious conflict mineral, in the cleantech revolution's rear-view mirror as a transitional material used in early, primitive batteries and no longer required.

A post-carbon future is a post-petrostate future is a post-American future. It will run on solar and wind and batteries, which can be brought online cheaply and quickly, every time demand-destruction surges, using materials that are widely distributed around the world. It won't be a nuclear future, and not just because nuclear materials are (like oil) concentrated according to accidents of geography, nor merely because fissiles are geopolitically catastrophic (like oil). Nuclear plants take at least a decade to bring online, which means that they will always arrive ten years after some future Comrade Trump-type kicks off another orgy of demand destruction, and by the time we turn them on, the world will have already bought, improved and recycled two generations of batteries and panels.

(Image: Stefan Müller (climate stuff), CC BY 2.0)

Hey look at this (permalink)

A Long and Probably Boring Process Post https://dreamcafe.com/2026/05/01/a-long-and-probably-boring-process-post/
The Supreme Court is Corrupt. This is What We Can Do About It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRzS61buXkQ
NHS Goes To War Against Open Source https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/
An open letter asking NHS England to keep its code open https://keepthingsopen.com/
Top 20 Fiction to Inspire Climate Action https://thebookslist.com/20-fiction-books-to-inspire-climate-action/

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Beck dumps Winona and becomes a Scientologist https://web.archive.org/web/20010502151355/http://www.suntimes.com/output/zwecker/zp30.html

#25yrsago Fuck San Francisco https://craphound.com/fucksf.html

#25yrsago Desktop Linux rant https://web.archive.org/web/20021204051712/http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3297/1/

#25yrsago History of ASCAP and BMI https://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html

#25yrsago AUSA: If we let you decrypt DVDs, airplanes will start falling out of the sky https://web.archive.org/web/20010504221956/https://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,43485,00.html

#25yrsago Microsoft shits on open source https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/business/technology-microsoft-is-set-to-be-top-foe-of-free-code.html

#20yrsago Dan Gillmor explains “citizen journalism” https://web.archive.org/web/20060512043722/https://sf.backfence.com/bayarea/showPost.cfm?myComm=BA&bid=2271

#20yrsago UN plans a treaty to kill podcasts https://web.archive.org/web/20060512141428/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004619.php

#20yrsago Sen Stevens tries to sneak the Broadcast Flag into law https://web.archive.org/web/20060505054724/http://ipaction.org/blog/2006/05/breaking-news-broadcast-flag-is-back.html

#20yrago How the US Navy queered San Francisco https://web.archive.org/web/20060504024636/http://ask.yahoo.com/20060502.html

#20yrago Help wanted: new DRM czar for Sony-BMG https://web.archive.org/web/20060512063724/http://www.paidcontent.org/sonybmg-director-new-technology-content-protection-nyc

#20yrsago Rich Americans as sick as poor Brits https://web.archive.org/web/20060516225807/http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9098&feedId=online-news_rss20

#15yrsago Sculpture embodies lossy copying using much-copied house-key https://web.archive.org/web/20110316215804/http://www.danielbejar.com/Visual_Topography_of_a_Generation_Gap.html

#15yrsago Piracy and poor countries: Big Content wants to have its cake and eat it too https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/03/why-poor-countries-lead-world-piracy

#15yrsago Brust’s Tiassa: versatile fantasy in three modes https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/02/brusts-tiassa-versatile-fantasy-in-three-modes/

#15yrsago Why New Zealand was dumb to let the USA write its copyright laws https://web.archive.org/web/20110601173727/http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/7615

#15yrsago Canadian neocon Tories take a slim majority in election, pro-Internet New Democrats form the opposition https://web.archive.org/web/20110503041720/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/new-political-era-begins-as-tories-win-majority-ndp-grabs-opposition/article2006635/

#15yrsago Will technology make us freer, and if so, how? https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-techno-optimism/

#15yrsago Wikileaks: America will foot the bill for record company enforcement in NZ if NZ will let America write its laws
https://web.archive.org/web/20110502135002/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5769/125/

#15yrsago Horology considered hazardous: the “German Time Bomb” clock with its deadly mainspring https://web.archive.org/web/20110516102538/https://www.anniversaryclocks.org/aci/haller-gtb.pdf

#5yrsago Political economy vs inflation https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/01/mayday/#inflationary-political-economy

#1yrago Apple faces criminal sanctions for defying App Store antitrust order https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/01/its-not-the-crime/#its-the-coverup

#1yrago AI and the fatfinger economy https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpis-off/#principal-agentic-ai-problem

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8
https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/
Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13
https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/
Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14
https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification
Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow
Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html
Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2
SXSW London, Jun 2
https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901
NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html
Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

Recent appearances (permalink)

Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas)
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor
When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8
Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612
The internet is getting worse (CBC The National)
https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P
Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today)
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech

Latest books (permalink)

"Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce
"Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
"Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
"The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Upcoming books (permalink)

"The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)
"Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026
"The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
"Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027
"The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
"The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection):

https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

08:00 PM

New Release: Tails 7.7.2 [Tor Project blog]

This release is an emergency release to fix a critical security vulnerability in the Linux kernel.

Changes and updates

Update the Linux kernel to 6.12.85, which fixes Copy Fail, a vulnerability that could allow an application in Tails to gain administration privileges.

For example, if an attacker was able to exploit other unknown security vulnerabilities in an application included in Tails, they might then use Copy Fail to take full control of your Tails and deanonymize you.

We are not aware of this vulnerability being used in practice until now.

Fixed problems

For more details, read our changelog.

Get Tails 7.7.2

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your Persistent Storage

Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 7.0 or later to 7.7.2.
If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails 7.7.2 on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions.

The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.

To download only

If you don't need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 7.7.2 directly:

Support and feedback

For support and feedback, visit the Support section on the Tails website.

07:00 PM

U.S. Brands Vietnam as a Rare ‘Priority Foreign Country’ Over Online Piracy Concerns [TorrentFreak]

Each year the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes a new update of its Special 301 Report, highlighting countries that fail to live up to U.S. copyright protection standards.

The annual overview is meant to urge foreign governments to improve policy and legislation in favor of U.S. copyright holders.

The process has shown itself to be an effective diplomatic tool and has helped to kick-start copyright reforms around the globe. Not all governments are equally susceptible to critique, and Canada once described the process as flawed. Still, no country wants to be included in the list.

U.S. Elevates Vietnam to ‘Priority Foreign Country’

USTR’s latest Special 301 Report reiterated much of the critique we have seen in past years. China and Russia, for example, remain on the Priority Watch List, as they were previously. However, for the first time in thirteen years, the rarely used Priority Foreign Country (PFC) category was added.

This year’s designations

The PFC label is reserved for the most serious cases, and according to USTR’s latest report, Vietnam falls into this category. The report flags several IP-related concerns, including counterfeiting, but the country’s failure to combat online piracy is at the top of the list.

These concerns are not new, and over the past years, the U.S. and Vietnam have come together in an attempt to resolve the concerns. The U.S. first proposed an IP Work Plan to Vietnam in 2020, which was revised in 2023, but that didn’t book sufficient results.

The USTR notes that online piracy is not just popular among the country’s own residents; many operators of major pirate sites also reportedly reside in the country.

“Vietnam remains a significant source of online piracy and continues to host popular English-language copyright infringement sites and services that target a global audience,” the report reads, providing various examples.

Megacloud and Myflixerz

As shown above, the USTR report specifically mentions the piracy-as-a-service provider MegaCloud and the popular pirate streaming site MyFlixerz as key problems. Interestingly, these prominent targets went dark in April, just a few days before the USTR released its report.

Whether the sudden disappearance of these pirate services, which have millions of monthly users, is a mere coincidence or if it’s related to the diplomatic pressure is unknown.

U.S. Wants More Deterrent Prosecutions

To address these and other piracy concerns, the USTR would like the Vietnamese authorities to step up their enforcement actions. This includes the subsequent prosecutions, which have lacked a deterrent effect thus far.

“The operators of these sites and services likely based themselves in Vietnam because enforcement efforts there historically lacked the follow-through and substantial penalties needed to deter infringement,” the report notes.

The USTR specifically mentions the takedown of Fmovies, which once was one of the largest pirate sites. This landmark case resulted in the prosecution of two operators, who received suspended sentences and criminal fines of around $2,700 and $770, respectively.

These sentences lack a deterrent effect, USTR argues, noting that the country could also increase the number of prosecutions.

“Vietnam must provide effective enforcement and take persistent and effective enforcement actions to combat online piracy, including by bringing significantly more criminal prosecutions against online piracy operations; seeking deterrent-level prison sentences, monetary fines, and other criminal penalties; and addressing obstacles to pursuing effective enforcement.”

Recent Shutdowns

USTR report acknowledges a series of recent enforcement actions in Vietnam. In 2025, the music industry group IFPI took action against Y2Mate and 11 other stream-ripping websites, for example.

In March 2026, after the Ministry of Public Security sought feedback on a draft decree on book piracy, several Vietnamese pirated e-book platforms, including TVE-4U, VCTVEGroup, and Ebookvie, ceased operations or stopped sharing copyrighted material.

Interestingly, the report also references the recent shutdown of HiAnime.to, the popular anime streaming site that was widely believed to be operated from Vietnam. However, as far as we know, no authority or rightsholder has publicly claimed responsibility, and no arrests or operator identifications have been announced.

HiAnime went dark in mid-March 2026, posting a brief farewell message, without any clear sign of an enforcement action.

The Clock is Ticking

In addition to addressing online piracy, USTR also flags counterfeiting, border enforcement, use of unlicensed software in the government, and cable and satellite signal theft as key concerns. Together, these put Vietnam in the Priority Foreign Country category.

The PFC label is not symbolic. Within 30 days of the identification, USTR has to decide whether it will launch an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which can result in tariffs and sanctions.

For now, the designation itself sends a strong signal: take action or else.

Vietnam-related piracy concerns have been a recurring item in Special 301 reports for years, but stepping from the Priority Watch List into the Priority Foreign Country category is a rather significant escalation, which no other country has faced in well over a decade.

—

A copy of the U.S. Trade Representative’s 2026 Special 301 Report is available here (pdf).

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

01:00 PM

Kanji of the Day: 羊 [Kanji of the Day]

羊

✍6

小3

sheep

ヨウ

ひつじ

羊水 (ようすい) — amniotic fluid
羊蹄 (ぎしぎし) — Japanese dock (Rumex japonicus)
羊羹 (ようかん) — yokan
子羊 (こひつじ) — lamb
羊肉 (ようにく) — mutton
羊飼い (ひつじかい) — shepherd
羊毛 (ようもう) — wool
山羊 (やぎ) — goat
牧羊犬 (ぼくようけん) — sheepdog
羊の群れ (ひつじのむれ) — flock of sheep

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 姫 [Kanji of the Day]

姫

✍10

中学

princess

キ

ひめ　ひめ-

美姫 (びき) — beautiful maiden
歌姫 (うたひめ) — songstress
お姫様 (おひいさま) — princess
姫君 (ひめぎみ) — daughter of a person of high rank (esp. eldest daughter)
白雪姫 (しらゆきひめ) — Snow White
姫さま (ひめさま) — princess
眠り姫 (ねむりひめ) — Sleeping Beauty (fairy tale)
乙姫 (おとひめ) — younger princess
姫様 (ひめさま) — princess
織姫 (おりひめ) — woman textile worker

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

05:00 AM

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for April 26 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

Euganean Hills are a group of hills of volcanic origin that rise to heights of 300 to 600 m in Veneto, Italy.

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for April 27 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

Blunt-headed burrowing frog (Glyphoglossus molossus). Hua Hin District, Thailand.

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for April 28 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

Pilot boat outside Öja island (Landsort), Stockholm Archipelago's most southern point.

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for April 29 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

Golden jackal (Canis aureus) in azureum flowers (Jim Corbett National Park, India)

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for April 30 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

Prinia socialis (Ashy Prinia) in Ajodhya Hills, West Bengal, India.

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for May 1 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

View of the coastal artillery site Castillitos, Cartagena, Spain. It was built together with the coastal artillery Cenizas in order to protect the entrance to the Bay of Cartagena in the Mediterranean Sea. The construction took place between 1933 and 1936 following a project from 1926 during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. It's a Spanish National Heritage Monument since 1985.

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for May 2 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

Escheckstraße (with mast of a T-bar lift), Schönwald im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for May 3 [Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed]

Picture of the day

Boat poled through a mangrove arch, Ashtamudi Lake, Kollam, Kerala, India

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt [Techdirt]

This week, n00bdragon takes both top spots in the insightful side. In first place, it’s a comment about Trump’s latest attempt to get Jimmy Kimmel fired:

What gets me the most confused is that Kimmel gave his monologue multiple days before the WHCD. No one objected at the time. No one, not even the administration, is implying that his monologue inspired the gunman (who probably already has his hotel reservation booked). There is absolutely no nexus, real or even alleged, between Jimmy Kimmel’s joke and the attempted assassination. The demand to fire Kimmel is a complete non sequitur. What next? “The sky is blue today, so fire Jimmy Kimmel”?

In second place, it’s a comment about the details included in the DOJ’s crazy legal brief about the White House ballroom:

Uh, forget about telling the (fake?) National Trust for Historic Preservation about the details of a top secret military installation. Did… the White House just tell us about details of a top secret military installation? Pretty sure there are lots of spy networks all over the world that would LOVE to find out if all the air vents are connected and if hacking the security in the ballroom will get you into the underground bunker. I guess the Very Stable Genius (and lawyer, apparently) answered that for him. Best president ever!

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Thad about Tennessee’s Charlie Kirk Act:

I’ve said it before, but they tried to use his death like the Reichstag fire or 9/11 but the plain truth is most people didn’t know who he was.

And people like Kirk have spent the past25 years training Americans to just shrug and move on when there’s a shooting. He was literally in the middle of trivializing shootings when he was shot. Well, he got what he wanted; nobody fucking cares.

Next, it’s MrWilson with a reply to the first place winning comment:

We saw this post-9/11. The attacks (or terrorism in general) were used as an argument in favor of whatever cause a politician wanted to push. It didn’t require even the thinnest thread of a connection in their minds.

“I’m a proud American patriot and the terrorists are coming for our precious dairy industry, so the farmers in my district deserve a special tax break!”

It’s just abject and obvious opportunism.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous comment on our post comparing Palantir employees to the characters in a famous Mitchell & Webb sketch:

They’re already in the process of switching to a rat’s anus.

In second place, it’s Pixelation with a comment about Paramount trying to blame Netflix for all the negative merger press:

Follow the orange clown

They should go one step further and blame the real culprit. Biden! All that is wrong with America, Biden did it!

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about James Comey’s seashell post:

Amazing! I have the same combination on my luggage!

Finally, it’s That One Guy with another comment about Jimmy Kimmel:

MAGAts: Make humor legal again!

Liberal Comedian: [Exists]

MAGAts: Not that kind!

That’s all for this week, folks!

02:00 AM

DSA-6246-1 openjdk-25 - security update [Debian Security]

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/DSA-6246-1

DSA-6245-1 imagemagick - security update [Debian Security]

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/DSA-6245-1

Sunday 2026-05-03

09:00 PM

Just like me, but… [Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect]

The actor, artist, mathematician, pianist, speaker, leader, tech nerd: Just like me, but talented.

I’m not so sure.

It might be more accurate to say “just like me, but dedicated.”

The first approach lets us off the hook.

The second approach opens the door to possibility.

07:00 PM

FlavaWorks Sues Operator and 325 Users of Private Torrent Tracker Gay-Torrents [TorrentFreak]

FlavaWorks is an Illinois-based adult entertainment company specializing in content featuring Black and Latino men.

The company has pursued copyright infringers aggressively for years, including a $1.5 million damages award against a defendant who shared its films on BitTorrent and a high-profile clash with an unnamed television executive that was eventually settled.

This week, the company continues its legal pressure with a complaint filed last week at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The lawsuit targets the owner and administrators of private BitTorrent tracker Gay-Torrents.org, the company that allegedly receives the site’s revenue, and 325 individual members identified only by their site usernames.

Site Owner, Admins, and a Bulgarian Company

Gay-Torrents.org is a private, invite-only BitTorrent tracker that has operated since June 2009. According to the complaint, more than 146,000 members registered at the site since its launch, of which 20,671 members are currently active.

The complaint largely targets unnamed defendants, including the site’s alleged operator, who goes by the handle “TheMan”. According to Flava, “TheMan” was one of the first registered members, using the site’s official email address as the main contact.

TheMan

In addition to the operator, seven administrators are also named as John Doe defendants, identified only by their site usernames: sgmusuk, jasepl, Marius, ams_guy, lucasneo, simlacroix, and matthewmancs. According to the complaint, matthewmancs alone has generated more than 470 terabytes of upload and download traffic, the largest sharing volume of any user.

Flava does not only list unnamed defendants; it also identifies BYZONA LTD, a Bulgarian company, as being involved. This company and its operator are allegedly linked to 247host.eu and cloud2max.club. These are shell entities, which Flava believes are used to route VIP-membership payments through Skrill and PayPal, while concealing the site’s true beneficiaries.

The complaint alleges that the two shells together have generated more than €7 million in revenue since 2009. This is not an exact calculation, but based on Flava’s analysis of the site’s VIP pricing, donation records, and the registered member data.

“Straight-Up Extortion”

This is not the first time that Flava has targeted users of the private torrent tracker. In fact, the complaint quotes the site’s owner characterizing FlavaWorks’ enforcement as a scam. Last December, TheMan posted on the Gay-Torrents.org forum in response to a member who had received a cease and desist letter from the studio.

Posting under his “Owner” account, TheMan wrote: “This is straight-up extortion, and people shouldn’t fall for it.”

TheMan also told users the studio had been “uploading their own shitty content themselves just so they can blackmail users afterwards,” and claimed: “We deleted all of their stuff a long time ago.”

TheMan’s forum post (from the lawsuit’s evidence package)

Flava’s complaint points out that the private tracker did not remove all contested content, as 47 of the 56 infringing links it reported in February 2024 remained active on the site twenty months later. Some of the infringing content remained accessible when the lawsuit was filed, the company adds.

A French Uploader and 325 Registered Users

The lawsuit doesn’t only focus on the alleged owner and administrators; it also lists a prolific uploader who is identified as the Frenchman Ludovic D. This defendant allegedly purchased two paid subscriptions to FlavaWorks-affiliated sites in 2004 and 2013, which were both traceable to the same email address and other personal details.

Since Flava uses a forensic-watermarking system to link videos to registered users, it could track the man’s account to more than thirty videos that were uploaded to the torrent tracker.

“Defendant [D.] cancelled his subscription approximately thirty days after purchase, on the same day as his final download session—a pattern consistent with bulk acquisition for redistribution rather than ordinary consumption,” the complaint reads.

In addition to the named Frenchman, the complaint also lists 325 “John Doe” defendants who are only known by their usernames. These users all allegedly shared Flava’s copyrighted works, are based in the U.S., were active in the Gay-Torrents forums, and purchased VIP memberships.

Courts have previously been wary of joining this many Doe defendants in a single lawsuit. Flava recognizes this and specifically notes that this isn’t part of a mass settlement scheme, while promising to dismiss all defendants who don’t fall under the court’s jurisdiction.

“This is not a mass-joinder action seeking to extract settlements from non-resident Doe defendants in a distant forum,” the complaint reads.

‘$7 Million’ Asset Freeze and More

Flava also requests an asset freezing order targeting the assets in the Skrill account associated with BYZONA and the PayPal account associated with cloud2max.club. Those can be as high as €7,000,000, the complaint notes. That is an estimation based on Flava’s calculations, assuming that no funds were spent or taken out in 17 years.

Asset Freeze

In addition, the complaint also asks the court to direct Cloudflare to preserve all records relating to the gay-torrents.org domain, including DNS configuration records and customer communications, without taking the site offline.

In total, the complaint lists seven counts, including copyright claims for direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement, and a separate inducement count against the alleged operator and administrators.

To support these secondary liability claims, Flava cites the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Cox Communications v. Sony, arguing that the Bulgarian shell entities are “tailored to infringement” and without any “substantial noninfringing use.”

The remaining three are state-law claims for unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, and fraudulent concealment. The latter is built around the alleged payment-routing scheme through 247host.eu and cloud2max.club.

As compensation, Flava requests statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement. The exact number of works is not listed, but with hundreds of titles in Flava’s catalog, the potential damages run into the many millions of dollars.

Finally, it is worth noting that this is not Flava’s only case against a private torrent tracker. Last March, the adult company filed a copyright lawsuit against an alleged Canadian leaker of its videos, as well as 47 users of the private torrent tracker GayTorrent.ru. This lawsuit remains pending at the Illinois federal court.

—

A copy of the complaint, filed this week by FlavaWorks Entertainment, Inc. at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, is available here (pdf).

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

12:00 PM

Kanji of the Day: 頭 [Kanji of the Day]

頭

✍16

小2

head, counter for large animals

トウ　ズ　ト

あたま　かしら　-がしら　かぶり

先頭 (せんとう) — head (of a line, group, etc.)
冒頭 (ぼうとう) — beginning
街頭演説 (がいとうえんぜつ) — roadside speech
店頭 (てんとう) — shopfront
頭痛 (ずつう) — headache
街頭 (がいとう) — street
念頭 (ねんとう) — mind
頭から (あたまから) — from the beginning
筆頭 (ひっとう) — brush tip
台頭 (たいとう) — rise (e.g., of a movement)

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

Kanji of the Day: 詐 [Kanji of the Day]

詐

✍12

中学

lie, falsehood, deceive, pretend

サ

いつわ.る

詐欺 (さぎ) — fraud
振り込め詐欺 (ふりこめさぎ) — remittance fraud
詐取 (さしゅ) — defrauding
詐欺罪 (さぎざい) — fraud
詐欺師 (さぎし) — swindler
フィッシング詐欺 (フィッシングさぎ) — phishing
オレオレ詐欺 (オレオレさぎ) — phone scam involving calls from pretended relatives in distress
詐称 (さしょう) — misrepresentation
おれおれ詐欺 (おれおれさぎ) — phone scam involving calls from pretended relatives in distress
学歴詐称 (がくれきさしょう) — false statement (misrepresentation) of one's academic career

Generated with kanjioftheday by Douglas Perkins.

08:00 AM

Pluralistic: The prehistory of the Democratic Nuremberg Caucus (02 May 2026) [Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow]

->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-> Top Sources: None -->

Today's links

The prehistory of the Democratic Nuremberg Caucus: Do bounties for ICE whistleblowers next!
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Colbert v GWB; Wallaby milk; Jay Rosen's journalism precepts; Radical Media(TM); What is carried interest? TCP over pigeon; BNL v copyright; RIP Joanna Russ; GOP forcing students to repay scam loans.
Upcoming appearances: Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

The prehistory of the Democratic Nuremberg Caucus (permalink)

Comrade Trump continues his unbroken streak of destroying the American empire's grip on the world, hastening the renewables transition, de-dollarizing global trade, and killing the world's suicidal habit of entrusting its digital life to America's defective, enshittified tech exports:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration

But Comrade Trump's ambitious praxis knows no bounds. Now, he's helping to remake the Democratic Party as a muscular opposition with a serious commitment to workers' interests over billionaires. It's not merely that Trump has empowered the primary campaigns of leftist Democrats facing down corporate, AIPAC-backed sellouts:

https://prospect.org/2026/04/30/palestine-super-pac-new-jersey-12-district-adam-hamawy/

He's also stiffening normie sellout Democrats' spines, forcing them to confront the stark choice between socialism and barbarism! And Dem leaders don't come more normie sellout than Cory "Big Pharma" Booker, a disgrace to Corys everywhere:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170112224531/https://theintercept.com/2017/01/12/cory-booker-joins-senate-republicans-to-kill-measure-to-import-cheaper-medicine-from-canada/

Nevertheless, that very same (lesser) Cory has introduced legislation to unwind every illegal, corrupt merger that the Trump administration has waved through:

https://www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/booker-introduces-legislation-to-review-and-unwind-anticompetitive-corporate-mergers-approved-under-second-trump-administration

Under the Correcting Lapsed Enforcement in Antitrust Norms for Mergers (CLEAN Mergers) Act, any company that was acquired in a deal worth $10b or more will have to break up with its merger partner if it turns out that these mergers were "politically influenced." "Politically influenced" sums up every major merger under the Trump II regime:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/13/khanservatives/#kid-rock-eats-shit

You could be forgiven for assuming that this is just about reining in Wall Street greed, but that it isn't an especially political maneuver. That's not true: antitrust is the most consequentially political regulation (with the possible exception of regulations on elections). Every fascist power defeated in WWII relied on the backing of their national monopolists to take, hold and wield power. That's why the Marshall Plan technocrats who rewrote the laws of Europe, South Korea and Japan made sure to copy over US antitrust law onto those statute-books (that's also why the tech antitrust cases brought in Europe could be re-run in South Korea and Japan – their laws are all substantively similar, because they were harmonized with US antitrust in the 1950s):

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter

Fascism and monopolies go hand in hand, and smashing monopolies is key to the program of fighting fascism. After defeating fascism in the mid-20th century, the Allies oversaw a program of "denazification," starting with the Nuremberg trials:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials

Inspired by those trials, I've proposed that Congressional Dems could form a "Nuremberg Caucus" that would publicly promise sweeping plans to denazify America after Trump and his allies have been swept from power:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification

The centerpiece of the Nuremberg Caucus playbook is a set of ready-to-file, public indictments against Trump officials who have violated the law, the Constitution, and the rights of the people of the USA. Dems should create and maintain a docket with exhibits and witness lists that gets updated every time one of these crooks runs their big, stupid mouths on Fox News or OANN or Twitter. The Nuremberg Caucus could even set dates for the trials of officials, with judicial calendars for each federal courtroom, starting on January 21, 2029.

The idea here is to both demoralize Trump's collaborators and to stiffen the spines of the Democratic base who will have to be convinced that turning out for the coming elections, and defending them, will mean something, delivering the change and hope they've been promised since the Obama campaign, but which has never materialized.

While trials and punishment for Trump's fascist goons are at the center of the Nuremberg Caucus plan, that's not all of it. The plan also calls for publicly announcing the intention to unwind every corrupt merger that was consummated under Trump. This serves two purposes: first, it promises the electorate that the monopolists who steal from them will face consequences for their crimes; but second, it also puts investors on notice that any gains from corrupt mergers will turn into massive losses once the next administration orders these companies to unscramble the inedible omelets they're cooking up, no matter what the cost.

That's exactly what Booker's CLEAN Mergers Act – cosponsored by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) – does. I don't think that Booker is listening to me, but I do think that Dems who are willing to introduce this kind of legislation can be cajoled, coerced and sweet-talked into more ambitious Nuremberg Caucus actions.

For example, there could not be a better time to announce plans to unrig the Supreme Court, which has just gutted the Voting Rights Act:

https://prospect.org/2026/05/01/turning-civil-rights-inside-out-supreme-court-voting-rights/

The Supreme Court's legitimacy has been burned to the ground, and Trump's chud justices are pissing on the ashes. Packing the court is a very good idea:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

It's also a very popular idea:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want

Which is why I included it in the Nuremberg Caucus plan. But packing the court is just table stakes. In his latest video, Jamelle Bouie lays out a detailed plan for denazifying the Supreme Court:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRzS61buXkQ

As Bouie points out, "as long as John Roberts has his majority, nothing the left of center in this country wants to do is safe or stable…We can have democracy and self-government in this country or we can have the Supreme Court as it exists, but we cannot have both."

But packing the court – while a good place to start – isn't enough. Per Bouie, the problem isn't just the court's corruption – it's how powerful the court is. Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution permits Congress to "jurisdiction strip" the Supremes: Congress can pass a law taking voting rights and racial discrimination away from the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. Congress can impose ethics reforms on the court, banning justices from taking bribes (I can't believe I have to type these words).

Congress can turn the Supreme Court's current building into a museum and move the Supreme Court back into its original home in Congress's basement. Congress can take away the Supremes' ability to select their clerks or which cases they hear. All the Constitution says is that there must be a Supreme Court, and it must adjudicate "disputes between states, disputes involving ambassadors, impeachments, that kind of thing." Everything else is up to Congress to grant or withhold from SCOTUS.

This is very good Nuremberg Caucus stuff. It would be an amazing campaign promise for anyone primarying a shitty normie Dem in the midterms: "Vote for me, and I will be part of the legislative movement to make the Supreme Court weaker and thus more accountable."

Now, as much as I like this, I'm really holding out for a Dem to go with my big ICE-melting idea: promising million-dollar bounties for ICE officers who rat out their buddies for violating the law:

ICE agents are signing up with the promise of $50k hiring bonuses and $60k in student debt cancellation. That's peanuts. The Nuremberg Caucus could announce a Crimestoppers-style program with $1m bounties for any ICE officer who a) is themselves innocent of any human rights violations, and; b) provides evidence leading to the conviction of another ICE officer for committing human rights violations. That would certainly improve morale for (some) ICE officers.

As I wrote in February:

Critics of this plan will say that this will force Trump officials to try to steal the next election in order to avoid consequences for their actions. This is certainly true: confidence in a "peaceful transfer of power" is the bedrock of any kind of fair election.

But this bunch have already repeatedly signaled that they intend to steal the midterms and the next general election:

https://www.nj.com/politics/2026/02/top-senate-republican-rejects-trumps-shocking-election-plan-i-think-thats-a-constitutional-issue.html

ICE agents are straight up telling people that ICE is on the streets to arrest people in Democratic-leaning states ("The more people that you lose in Minnesota, you then lose a voting right to stay blue"):

https://unicornriot.ninja/2026/federal-agent-in-coon-rapids-the-more-people-that-you-lose-in-minnesota-you-then-lose-a-voting-right-to-stay-blue/

The only path to fair elections – and saving America – lies through mobilizing and energizing hundreds of millions of Americans. They are ready. They are begging for leadership. They want an electoral choice, something better than a return to the pre-Trump status quo. If you want giant crowds at every polling place, rising up against ICE and DHS voter-suppression, then you have to promise people that their vote will mean something.

Hey look at this (permalink)

“The Mistake Will Not Recur [Until Two Sentences From Now]” https://www.loweringthebar.net/2026/04/the-mistake-will-not-recur.html
Why are the Artemis II photos on Flickr? https://www.anildash.com/2026/04/30/artemis-photos-flickr/
Your Dinner Got Worse On Purpose https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-dinner-got-worse-on-purpose
Hadopi (2009–2026) https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2026/04/30/hadopi-2009-2026-2/
You’re Not Wrong, Babies Are Getting Worse: Enshittification Comes For A Once-Beloved Classic https://theonion.com/youre-not-wrong-babies-are-getting-worse-enshittification-comes-for-a-once-beloved-classic/

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Implementing TCP over pigeon https://blug.linux.no/rfc1149/

#20yrsago Barenaked Ladies frontman on copyright reform https://web.archive.org/web/20060505032617/http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=3367a219-f395-4161-a9b9-95256c613824

#20yrsago Stephen Colbert kills at White House press corps dinner https://web.archive.org/web/20060501114431/http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363

#20yrsago Cinema owners try to lure us back to the movies https://web.archive.org/web/20060620140301/https://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/peninsula/14457900.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_peninsula

#20yrsago Smithsonian’s sellout to Showtime slammed by Congress https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042802213_2.html

#20yrago Wallaby milk: proof against antibiotic resistant bacteria https://web.archive.org/web/20060429102138/http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=593632006

#20yrsago Documentary on radical free school https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgpuSo-GSfw

#15yrsago Facebook celebrates royal wedding by nuking 50 protest groups https://anticutsspace.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/political-facebook-groups-deleted-on-royal-wedding-day/

#15yrsago Jay Rosen: What I Think I Know About Journalism https://pressthink.org/2011/04/what-i-think-i-know-about-journalism/

#15yrsago Companies should release the source code for discontinued products https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/if-youre-going-to-kill-it-open-source-it/

#15yrsago Scratch-built “freedom press” https://makezine.com/article/craft/freedom_press/

#15yrsago HOWTO quilt a 3D Mad Tea Party set https://www.instructables.com/Quilted-Mad-Tea-Party-Set/

#15yrsago Online activism works: Canada delayed US-style copyright bill in fear of activist campaign https://web.archive.org/web/20110501103056/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5763/125/

#15yrsago Ad agency to radicals: “We own radical media(TM)” https://web.archive.org/web/20110503045909/http://radicalmediaconference.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/we-make-radical-media-you-make-adverts/

#15yrsago Troubletwisters: Garth Nix and Sean Williams’ action-packed new kids’ fantasy https://memex.craphound.com/2011/04/30/troubletwisters-garth-nix-and-sean-williams-action-packed-new-kids-fantasy/

#15yrsago RIP, Joanna Russ https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012974.html#547586

#5yrsago Experian doxes the world (again) https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/30/dox-the-world/#experian

#5yrsago Disney's writer wage-theft is far worse than reported https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#pay-the-writer

#5yrsago Korea set to break the Samsung dynasty https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#dynasties

#5yrsago What the hell is "carried interest" https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

#1yrago Mike Lee and Jim Jordan want to kill the law that bans companies from cheating you https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/29/cheaters-and-liars/#caveat-emptor-brainworms

#1yrago Republicans want to force students to pay off scam college loans https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/30/trump-u/#i-think-you-know-what-the-trustees-can-do-with-their-suggestions

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13
https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/
Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14
https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification
Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow
Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html
Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2
SXSW London, Jun 2
https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901
NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html
Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

Recent appearances (permalink)

Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas)
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor
When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8
Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612
The internet is getting worse (CBC The National)
https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P
Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today)
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech

Latest books (permalink)

"Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce
"Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
"Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
"The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Upcoming books (permalink)

"The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)
"Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026
"The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
"Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027
"The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
"The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection):

https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

ISSN: 3066-764X

Just for Skeets and Giggles (5.2.26) [The Status Kuo]

I need a bit of help. I’ve been averaging just one or two new paid upgrades a day lately (thank you!), but that’s not quite enough to offset those who decide not to renew for various reasons. Sadly not sustainable should the trend continue! If just three readers a day bought me coffee each month, I would sleep a lot easier! Be my virtual coffee date? Thanks for considering!

Subscribe now

The week started off with, well, a bang. And frankly, folks had questions.

Note: Xcancel links mirror Twitter without sending traffic. Some GIFs may load; just swipe them down. Issues? Click the gear on the Xcancel page’s upper right, select “proxy video streaming through the server,” then “save preferences” at the bottom. For sanity, don’t read the comments; they’re all bots and trolls. Won’t load? Paste the link into your browser and remove “cancel” after the X in the URL.

Many were initially skeptical, even as the right pounced to make this all about violent leftists.

People predicted how Trump would milk the moment.

It turns out, he made it all about his damn ballroom and how security was needed more than ever.

The FBI was on it!

Man, the internet is fast.

The conspiracy theories continued to fly, but not without a sense of humor.

My favorite was this one.

It didn’t help matters that Karoline Leavitt had said THIS earlier in the evening.

The would-be attacker reportedly left a message indicating his reasons for the attack. But he oddly made a point of leaving Kash Patel off his list of targets.

One viral moment from the evening was this unflappable guest, who just kept eating his salad through the mayhem.

Erika Kirk left the event… in tears, of course. Commentary ensued.

Wonder how she’ll monetize the moment.

Trump gave an interview the very next day on 60 Minutes, and Jon Stewart had some thoughts on that incredible moment. Here’s the whole piece on The Daily Show:

After footage from the security cameras showed a, let’s just say, rather lax security perimeter that the assailant was able to run right through after being spotted by a dog and a guard, there were questions about competence and mission.

The third alleged attempt on the President’s life was not the only news this week, of course. There was also a royal visit, which evoked inevitable comparisons.

And the astronauts from the Artemis II mission had to endure another uncomfortable journey.

Trump is putting pressure again on ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel, but Kimmel isn’t backing down.

He also came for former FBI Director James Comey again, this time over a photo of seashells on the beach that Comey posted to Instagram. Let the trolling begin!

This is both hilarious and an earworm!

Hear, hear!

Can you be indicted for this? Asking for a friend.

Let’s not let Trump’s shell game distract us from this.

Or from this.

In a terrible blow to voting rights, the Supreme Court handed down its Callais decision, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Josh Johnson had a few thoughts on that.

We weren’t quite done with Erika Kirk stories, either. She actually went on her podcast looking like this, then proceeded to make this sound:

And she wonders why the internet mocks her. Even the MAGA folks!

Maybe we should just have sympathy for the poor woman.

Speaking of MAGA ladies, this influencer thought she’d found someone like-minded. Nope!

Last week we were treated to 90 excruciating seconds of Russell Brand trying to locate a Bible verse during an interview. Then came the meta commentary.

Neil Stone was on a roll. Or maybe a rolling Stone?

Others had a culinary take.

Okay, back to Neil.

Nudge nudge! Please support your friendly neighborhood Substack writer with an upgrade to a paid account!

Subscribe now

I’ve seen cats do this all the time. Dogs? Not so much!

This was an admittedly incredible moment for this NFL recruit, but my eyes were on the dog! Good boy!

We may have to rename the cone of shame to the cone of pride. Rooster, you are rocking the look!

Do not attempt at home.

To be fair, this is also often my reaction to a bad horn section.

I was rooting for him at the way. And wow, look what he did at the end!

This doggo is Instafamous for a reason. Wow.

This clip stole the internet’s heart this week.

Those eyes! How could anyone keep playing?

If cats could talk, I think we know what she’d be saying.

Reminder of why I don’t want to raise large farm animals.

I didn’t know there was a World Penguin Day, nor did I know penguins make this sound when delighted.

Here’s another animal story involving a stuffed version of mom. Not for a monkey, but for an owl!

They finna get it on.

The chances of being slapped by a turtle in the open sea are very small but non-zero.

When the sushi is a bit too live crew.

My own brain wouldn’t have leapt to this, but that’s why the internet exists.

Speaking of cow posts, this series is one for the ages.

OMG she saw it.

Wait, Google saw it.

There was more to cover, of course, so as not to be utterly ashamed.

Google Earth has caught some sus things before.

This is like those AI nude generators.

In the human world, if you’re wondering where your package went, take a look.

🎶 So why don’t you slide… 🎶

What’s up, brah?

A picture of poise and balance.

My new favorite celebrity chef is this little chap:

I want some Yorkshire pudding now!

We end, as usual, with a ridiculous dad joke. This is a shout-out to my brother Kaiser and his return to the rock scene in China!

Have a great weekend!

Jay

RSS	Site	Updated
XML	About Tagaini Jisho on Tagaini Jisho	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	Arch Linux: Releases	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Carlson Calamities	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Debian News	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	Debian Security	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	debito.org	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	dperkins	2026-05-04 10:00 PM
XML	F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository	2026-05-04 11:00 AM
XML	GIMP	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Japan Bash	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	Japan English Teacher Feed	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	Kanji of the Day	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Kanji of the Day	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Let's Encrypt	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Marc Jones	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Marjorie's Blog	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	OpenStreetMap Japan - 自由な地図をみんなの手で/The Free Wiki World Map	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	OsmAnd Blog	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow	2026-05-04 10:00 PM
XML	Popehat	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Ramen Adventures	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Release notes from server	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect	2026-05-04 10:00 PM
XML	SNA Japan	2026-05-04 10:00 PM
XML	Tatoeba Project Blog	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	Techdirt	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	The Business of Printing Books	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	The Luddite	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	The Popehat Report	2026-05-04 10:00 PM
XML	The Status Kuo	2026-05-04 10:00 PM
XML	The Stranger	2026-05-04 01:00 PM
XML	Tor Project blog	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	TorrentFreak	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	what if?	2026-05-05 08:00 AM
XML	Wikimedia Commons picture of the day feed	2026-05-04 05:00 AM
XML	xkcd.com	2026-05-05 08:00 AM