In this episode, Matt & Lauren share strategies for how to find, research, and hire the best possible freelancers to help you bring your book to life. Whether you need help with editing, formatting, designing, or marketing, these guidelines can help you assemble your dream team for long-term publishing success!
We talk through steps like:
Understanding different types of freelancers
The three best places to start your search (and research)
Narrowing your pool of applicants to a shortlist of top candidates
Matt: Welcome to Publish & Prosper. Episode number 115. Are we not saying numbers anymore?
Lauren: No, we're not.
Matt: We’re not.
Lauren: But, I’m –
Matt: I just did.
Lauren: I'm glad that you did.
Matt: Okay.
Lauren: I mean, this one's locked in solidly as episode 115.
Matt: So it's 115.
Lauren: So it's okay.
Matt: Yeah. Alright.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: 115 episodes.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: That's why I wanted to say it, really.
Lauren: Isn't that kind of crazy?
Matt: I keep forget how many we've done.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: And so yeah, sometimes when I look at the number on the outline you give me, I'm just like. Wow.
Lauren: I know.
Matt: Okay.
Lauren: I know. it does – it does get me a little bit.
Matt: Are our follower counts going up or down?
Lauren: Well they're not going down.
Matt: Okay.
Lauren: So.
Matt: I would just think after 115 episodes of listening to us that they would be going down.
Lauren: Do you unfollow podcasts?
Matt: Me?
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: I have ones that I stopped listening to, but like, not that I, like, rage quit –
Matt: But if I stop listening to them, I actually unfollow them too.
Lauren: Okay.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Interesting.
Matt: I wouldn't consider that rage quitting. I just I mean, I think part of it is the marketer in me. I feel bad if I don't unfollow them because I feel like I'm inflating their metrics.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Isn't that weird?
Lauren: Yes, I get that.
Matt: But I also just don't wanna – like, if I stopped listening to them. It's just, it means the content no longer struck a chord with me –
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: – or strikes a chord with me. And that means I also don't really want to see it bubbling up in my Spotify feed. So I unfollow.
Lauren: See, I think that's... I, I completely understand that perspective, and I think that I, for the same reason, do the opposite. Where like like my favorite podcast I haven't listened to in... I probably, I probably have like six, maybe even nine months of episodes built up. Because I just, I spend so much time editing my own podcast that I don't have a lot of time to listen to podcasts anymore. And this is a fun one, not a one that's going to be related to work in any way. But I don't want them to, like, lose engagement from me. I don't – like, I still want to support them, I just I'm really backlogged on episodes. So I'm still subscribed, I still follow, I still pay for their Patreon, I like, I pay them monthly for content that I haven't listened to in months. I open every one of their emails that come – like, I still engage with all their stuff. I just haven't listened in a while. And I will eventually. There will be like a, a week or two where I binge all of the episodes that I've missed and catch back up again. But in the meantime, I don't want them to, like, lose out on my engagement.
Matt: But see, that's different.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: I mean you, you have made the choice to say, I need to get caught up. Like, you haven't decided there's not value there. You just –
Lauren: That’s true.
Matt: You've gotten behind. That's different than saying, you know, I used to listen to this podcast all the time and for whatever reason, you're not feeling like it's bringing enough value compared to the other stuff you listen to. And all of our time is valuable. So, you know, when you stop listening to something because the value is not there anymore. I think that's different than just saying ugh, I got super behind on my favorite podcast. I will catch up. In the meantime, I want to keep supporting them and making sure that, yeah, that's totally different. So but I could see I would do the same thing and have on some occasions.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Probably not nine months behind like you are, but.
Lauren: I'm so behind.
Matt: I also don't listen to as much –
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: – podcast content as you do so.
Lauren: Well, I –
Matt: I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just –
Lauren: No, that's reasonable. And also to be realistic. This is – That particular podcast, podcast, it’s Podcast: the Ride, it’s a theme park podcast.
Matt: I don't think anybody surprised by that.
Lauren: No, they shouldn't be. they put out two episodes a week, and they're usually between an hour and a half to two hours, two and a half hours. So that's a, that's a considerable –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – chunk of time to dedicate to listen. Which, I love. I love their longer form episodes. I like, really enjoy that in content, in case you can't tell from the kind of episodes that we put out regularly. But it's not always feasible for me to be like, oh, I have a two and a half hour chunk of spare time right now.
Matt: Yeah, I wonder what that would look like if we tried to cut ours in half time-wise.
Lauren: Ha.
Matt: No? Alright.
Lauren: We can try.
Matt: For everybody listening, I tried. She, she vetoed it.
Lauren: We can try. I don't think we're very good at it, but we can try.
[4:38] – Episode Topic Intro
Matt: Alright. Today, on episode 115.
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: We are going to be talking about how to find and contract freelancers to help you publish a good book.
Lauren: Yes we are.
Matt: Yeah. So building a potential team of freelancers, or even just one or two. I think it's no secret we're big fans of working with other people to make sure you put out good content. But it's not always so easy to locate and contract or hire good freelancers. So that's what we're gonna talk about.
Lauren: Yeah. Just a couple of establishing statements right up front while we're talking about this before we get started.
Matt: We already got started.
Lauren: Well, technically we've been yapping for, like, 20 minutes already.
Matt: I know, I'm sure everybody can tell by the look on my face.
Lauren: We are definitely not going to be recommending specific freelancers or something like that throughout this episode. It's a valid question. It is something that we get asked a lot. Like –
Matt: Yes.
Lauren: Do you have an editor that you would recommend? Do you have a cover designer that you would recommend? And it feels a little bit like a cop out answer, but the reality is no. Because it's so varied based on what type of book you're, you're putting out. What genre, product, goal, like everything – like, you know, there are so many different types of specialists out there. It’s very, very unlikely that any one single person at Lulu is going to be able to recommend the perfect fit freelancer for what your project or your brand is looking for.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So.
Matt: For those reasons and many more.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Yes. But I will link in the show notes, a landing page on Lulu's website that is some of our trusted and vetted partners and services that we recommend. But instead of this episode being something that we're going to sit here and recommend specific people or that we're going to convince you why you need a freelancer. We're assuming the premise here is that you're already aware of the fact that you need some additional help with your content.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So we're not really going to talk about the why or the who, but rather how. How to go about researching people, finding like, the right fit for you, what to look for, what red flags you might want to avoid, maybe. And, and things like that.
Matt: Yeah, I think that's well-put. Yeah. I mean, if anybody assumed we were going to come on and give them specific recommendations then I'm sorry we hurt your feelings, but. I'll give you recommendations. With caveats. But I'm not going to do it on microphone, no.
Lauren: Fair.
Matt: So yeah, I mean, some of us at Lulu will give you recommendations, you know, face to face. And after we can have a conversation about, like you said, what what are those, components of, of your content that would help us, you know, maybe guide you in the right direction. But to be fair, a lot of people at Lulu don't work with freelancers.
Matt: They wouldn't know what to tell you.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: That’s not the business we're actually in. So. But we do often have contact with freelancers, editors, designers, people like that. We do work heavily in the space of, you know, that area of publishing. There are many times where we have to have conversations with, with freelancers or designers or layout specialists or things like that. So this episode is to, to tell you, like you said, the how and the why and the where and – that's the important stuff, really.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: I mean, word of mouth is great and we'll get into that. But, do you need a freelancer? Most of the time the answer’s gonna be yes. What's the difference between specialists and generalists? Are they, you know, are they a copy editor or are they more of like, a developmental editor that specializes in paranormal romance or, you know, things like that? Where do you find them? How do you research and vet freelancers? Like, seems like that would be easy, but it's not. And then what are the things that once you've chosen a few, what do you ask them? You know, what are some of the things that you should look for? So what are some of those red flags that you mentioned that you should be looking for? And what's the process of actually hiring one? What do they charge? Things like that.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: All the important stuff.
Lauren: All the important stuff.
[9:05] – What to Know Before You Start
Matt: So we often talk about, you know, do you need editors, proofreaders, someone to help with layout and formatting, cover design, illustrations, all those things? In general, I think we always err on the side of yes, you should. In most circumstances. It is usually deeply tied to the goals of your book, what kind of book it is, things like that, but. Almost always you should. Now, can you do all this on your own? Sure. And people do. Sometimes it works out for them. More often than not, there's some element of their book that is lacking because they did everything themselves. And, and sometimes that affects your sales and sometimes it doesn't. But, there's a bit of a gamble there if you don't seek some professional help with your book.
Lauren: Yeah. I think there's a lot of like, just because you can do it on your own doesn't mean you should –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – necessarily. I think that a lot of people... I mean, even some people that we know that have plenty of experience – like graphic designers. Just because you have a decade of experience as a graphic designer does not mean that you can design a book cover. Those are –
Matt: A hundred percent.
Lauren: Those are kind of different things.
Matt: They're very different.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Well, let's rephrase that. If you're a graphic designer that specializes in mostly digital, you know, let's say marketing. You're, you're used to creating assets to be used online for the purposes of marketing, or things like that. That's wildly different than creating a book cover that's going to sell books.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: There's a lot of different components of a book cover that you need to be aware of. That will immediately affect the sales cycle of that book. You know, it's not as simple as just developing a really cool image, finding the perfect placement, and moving on.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: You know? So.
Lauren: Yeah. So, you know, it's just it's one of those things that yes, you can do it by yourself. And that is one of the cool things about self-publishing. But I would definitely go through and just ask yourself, just because you can, does that mean you want to? Do you have the time to spare on it? Do you have the budget to spare on buying back that time by paying someone else to do it for you –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – instead? And what do you want the end result to look like? I think it's really important. Like, if you don't care, if you're like oh, I'm just, I'm making a notebook for myself that no one else is ever going to see or use or whatever.
Matt: Right.
Lauren: Like – yeah, whatever. Design your own, have fun. You'll learn how to use some tools while you're doing it, in the meantime. But if you're hoping to use this book as a lead magnet that's going to get you in the door with businesses and executives at at major businesses where they're going to be hiring you for speaking sessions... You want that book to look like it was designed by a professional.
Matt: Yeah. So freelancer marketplaces are really popular right now. There's a ton of freelancers within those marketplaces. It's very easy to get overwhelmed and and kind of just choose the first couple you see that maybe have between a 4.5 and 5 star rating or whatever. Or maybe they've got a couple of keywords in their description that jumps out at you or, you know, things like that. But you really do have to step back and think about this process. If you are going to make the intentional decision to, to hire a freelancer for any facet of your book, whether it's cover design, any form of editing or layout, or all of the above, take your time. Don't get overwhelmed. Don’t just settle for the first few that look like they have some pretty good reviews. It can get overwhelming very easy. So start with one skill set at a time. If you've decided you're going to hire an editor, start there. Right? It's also chronologically the –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: – the most immediate help you would need with your manuscript, so. And spend some time researching. If I was going to go to a marketplace, I would pick no less than ten to fifteen to start with.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: And then start whittling my way down, but. Just – Yeah. Have patience. It's very easy to go down a rabbit hole, try not to. And I don't really know any other delicate way to say this, but these marketplaces have become overrun with a lot of... I won't say bad actors, but people who have decided that this is an area where they can make some quick bucks. They oftentimes will employ AI tools to, to do the work. Or at least do a big chunk of it. So you really do need to do your research when you're using a marketplace. And that's not to say that you're not going to find really good freelance help in marketplaces, because you absolutely will. But it's also really easy to, at least at first glance, not really know who's who and what's what, and really be somewhat, you know, kind of taken in by just looking at a five star, you know, review or profile.
Lauren: I think it's really important to think about this as a long term investment. And not just in the sense that it's a long term investment in your book, in your product. But it's also, this is a part of your brand. This is something – you know, there are a lot of authors and entrepreneurs and creators that they work with the same editor for their entire career.
Matt: It's true.
Lauren: This is a, this – it has the potential to be a long term relationship. So you're not just –
Matt: It’s like finding a doctor or a tattoo artist.
Lauren: Yeah. Well, I would say a tattoo artist for sure, but I was going to say this is a job interview. Treat this as a job interview.
Matt: Sure.
Lauren: This is not – you're not hiring a, like, one time, I need somebody to come in and re-tile the bathroom once and only once. You're hiring somebody who is going to be rebuilding your house with you for the next ten to twenty years.
Matt: Maybe.
Lauren: Maybe.
Matt: If you're lucky.
Lauren: Maybe. But also, like, if you do that work now, you don't have to do it later.
Matt: That's right.
Lauren: So.
Matt: Yeah.
[15:05] – Different Types of Freelancers
Lauren: I also want to just point out one thing that Matt said in there. You said something about, you know, take it kind of one at a time with the roles, and I totally agree with that. But on the high level, take it one at a time. So, I was having a conversation with somebody recently, and they were talking about looking for an editor, and they needed to find a, they needed to find a freelance editor. And they were saying, well, you know, I know I need a developmental editor, and a copywriter or a copy editor, and I need a proofreader, and I need a line editor. And I was like, alright, hold on. Because, you don’t – first of all, you don't need to hire four different people. And second of all, there's a lot of overlap between those.
Matt: Yeah, a couple of those are almost the same thing, by the way.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: These days, but –
Lauren: Right.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So yes, you you need to hire an editor. But, you know, understand the different types of editing. And maybe you can find somebody who specializes in more than one of those at a time. Maybe you'll find somebody who is a developmental editor that also does copy editing, or works with somebody else who is a copyeditor.
Matt: I think you will more often than not, yeah.
Lauren: Yes. So, you know, to absolutely break down the approach as like, I need to find an editor and then I need to find a designer. But within those categories, it's okay to consider stacking those skills, or looking for – same with a designer. If you can find somebody that does cover design and interior formatting...
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Great. Bundle those things together.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: That's totally reasonable. But you know, just, just kind of take that approach one bucket at a time. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to hire a different individual person for every single role that you can think of or that you've ever heard of.
Matt: Yeah, I would agree with that. Like when I think about an editor or hired an editor, I am looking for one that can do multiple types of editing.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: I'm not – Yeah, I'm not trying to break that up into four different types of editors. My copy editor was also my proofreader. And quite frankly, for developmental editing, a little cheat code: I just used all of my beta readers. So I was fortunate that I had some really knowledgeable, intelligent, you know, and thoughtful people that were beta readers for me. And I just used that as my developmental editing. Right or wrong, it doesn't, you know, whatever. But, yeah, my copy editor was also my proofreader. And, you know, she also probably did a few other things, maybe developmentally, to be honest with you. But yeah, when I say that, I agree with you. I think that if you can find one that can do multiple, which is a lot more often the case now. Not only is that beneficial for you, because now they're very much accustomed to your, your content, your manuscript, and they're going to have that lens to be able to look through and understand. But, like you said, you can, you have that opportunity to build that relationship. So I agree.
Lauren: Absolutely.
Matt: So along those lines, I mentioned specialists and generalists a little earlier. You know, What would you consider a specialist versus a generalist? And why would I look for one versus the other?
Lauren: Specialists I think kind of in two different ways. We've already said like the different types of editors. So you could be a specialist in that way where you're a developmental editor versus a copy editor. But also within those specific niches, some types of specialists – A developmental editor for a romance novel might not be the best choice for you on your nonfiction how to marketing guide. Maybe. You never know. I could probably edit both of those, but There's only one of me in the world.
Matt: Thank God.
Lauren: But no, I think that is something that, like, you have to find the right fit not just for the role that you need. So not just for the type of work that you need done, but also for the work that you're producing.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So you need to find somebody – in, in certain areas of this, you're going to want to find somebody who specializes in this specific industry or genre or topic or whatever it is that that makes sense to you. You're not going to find a lot of success with a developmental editor that has exclusively done mystery novels for their entire career, and you are coming in with a medical how to textbook. You just –
Matt: That could also be interesting.
Lauren: It could be interesting.
Matt: But you’re right.
Lauren: But... Medical mystery book, could be great. But that wouldn't be my first choice, if I was recommending how you would go about finding somebody for your medical text, I would not recommend working with a fiction developmental editor as your, as your first choice option there. So. Specialists versus generalists, I think there are situations where kind of anybody could suit the role, and it's more a matter of what their skill level is than what their past experience has been. I think a copy editor could probably copy edit most pieces of writing, regardless of what the content or genre is. I think somebody that does interior book formatting, maybe the, the distinctions between something that's a very like, chart and image heavy –
Matt: A textbook, or academic –
Lauren: Yeah, like.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: You know, that might be a little bit different than something that's more novel, but –
Matt: Should be.
Lauren: But a novel versus business book... The formatting is more or less the same. The design choices might be slightly different, but it's still kind of the same. Justified margins.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Header or footer, page numbers.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: All that kind of stuff. So, you know, you can be a little bit more general when you're looking for somebody in that sense and keep the specializations for things like developmental editing and cover design.
Matt: That makes sense. Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Okay. So we've talked about sort of at a high level, the kinds of freelancers and the, the categories and whether or not you really should have one. Which we said we wouldn't, but.
Lauren: But.
Matt: We can’t not talk about that.
Lauren: We can't not. And, and like I said, we've done at least two episodes where we've gone much deeper in depth on those topics. So if you want to go listen to those –
Matt: We have.
Lauren: – they will be linked in the show notes.
[21:34] – Where to Find Freelancers
Matt: So where do we find freelancers?
Lauren: That's a great question.
Matt: The first one is – and you touched on this at the top of the show – word of mouth.
Lauren: Yes. You touched on this.
Matt: Well we both did.
Lauren: We did.
Matt: We said, while we're not going to give you specific freelancers on this episode, which would be word of mouth.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: If you come find me at a show or an event, I'll give you some recommendations. And I think that's, you know, like anything, word of mouth is almost always the best way to find someone that you need.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: You know? You mentioned getting tile done in, like, getting my bathroom re-tiled. Like, unfortunately, I didn't have any good word of mouth recommendations from friends or family. But, you know, there have been other times where I was doing something, another home-related or whatever. Where yeah, of course I'd much rather have word of mouth. Like, did you use this person? Was the experience good? What was the cost factor? Like, you know, the quality, all those things. So word of mouth is always best. And, you know, I think most authors, especially ones that are repeat, they probably have some sort of small to large network of other authors that they, you know, interact with. Like, put the word out there. Ask somebody. If you have a trusted, you know, network on one of the social media channels that you – just put it out there. Hey, I'm looking to hire a freelance copy editor. Does anybody have any good recommendations before I start diving into the forums and marketplaces? And I think that, you know, again, like everything else in this world, if you can get a good word of mouth recommendation, I mean, to me, that's the most trustworthy source of information. Friends and family or peers that have, that have used these people. It's, it's less research and vetting you kind of have to do, like you've got it from the mouth of a trusted person. Like yeah, I use this person for this service and they did a great job. The price was extremely fair. You know, they were timely, accurate, detail – whatever it is. So it's less work on your part to go out there and research and then interview this person, you know, super thoroughly and ask for ten samples of work and all that stuff. The problem is that there are times where you might put the word out there. You get a bunch of recommendations back. And sometimes maybe you're not actually getting the best recommendations. Because somebody might just want to be helpful and throw something out there. So if you can keep it targeted to, to very closely trusted individuals, that's often better for word of mouth. But nonetheless, you know, I think that's always the best place to start.
Lauren: I agree, if you're in the market for a freelancer of any kind, absolutely the first place that you should start is any kind of community group that you are in. Whether it's authors, writers, in your industry specifically. If you know anybody in your industry that has also published a book. Even if they have traditionally published a book, because there are plenty of people that work in traditional publishing that freelance.
Matt: Yes.
Lauren: In addition. So if you have a friend that traditionally published a book, maybe their editor also does freelance work on the side. You never know.
Matt: Or their book coach. So, you know, book coaches aren't something that are widely talked about. But I've, you know, run into a few in my ten plus years working in publishing. And, you know, book coaches are always a really good, at least the ones I've met, source of recommendations. Because they, they work closely with, you know, freelance editors and, and designers, and even, you know, publishers and printers and things like – You know, book coaches and book consultants are often highly connected to, to all different types of players in the industry, so. They're also a great source for word of mouth referrals.
Lauren: Agents also.
Matt: Sure, yeah.
Lauren: Book agents. That's part of their job, is to be in the know about different types of people that they could potentially pair their clients with.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: The second place that you can look to find freelancers, if the referral system isn't working out for you or you're not having any luck there, or even you just want to do some research on your own for a little while first. We've also talked about this already. It's marketplaces.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So there are a lot of online marketplaces. Some that are like already just really, really broad, kind of one stop shop for different types of freelancers, something like Fiverr or Upwork or Freelancer.com. Those are all, you know, they're not really going to specialize specifically in book production. But if there's a freelancer to be found out there –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – you'll probably find at least one of them on Fiverr.
Matt: Yeah, some of them do actually, like Fiverr. I haven't looked on Upwork lately, or Freelancer.com, or there's even, you know, a couple more out there. But, I do know that Fiverr has like, they've now categorized. So if you're specifically looking for freelancers in the world of book publishing, I think is the category they have. You can click into book publishing. And then it does sort of break them out and categorize them by – It's still overwhelming.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: There's still a ton in there, and you still need to be very careful about who you're, you know, reviewing and hiring. And in terms of, you know, the work being completed, who's actually doing the work, things like that. But yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. And there there are definitely some pros and cons involved with that because yes, it can be very overwhelming. It can be, you know, you're going to definitely have to do a little bit more manual research to, to vet whoever it is that you're considering to try to seek out some sample work or try to get an understanding, maybe testimonials, reviews, honest feedback from people, things like that. Are they legit? Can you, can you tell that they're actually –
Matt: Right.
Lauren: – somebody that you want to work with?
Matt: Is it a real person or is that their sort of AI persona avatar?
Lauren: Right. Right. But I do think that most of these trusted marketplaces do also have a system built in, like a safeguard kind of built in. Where if you chose poorly and this person does not deliver the work that you've paid for, or something like that, you have a recourse for being able to, to go and be like, hey, I had a contract with this person and they didn't, they didn't produce what they were supposed to, can you pursue this –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – on my behalf? As opposed to if you go on Facebook Marketplace and you find a freelancer on there... Facebook is not holding that person accountable if they decide to ghost you with your money.
Matt: That’s right. Yeah. And then, you know again, one of the the advantages of using a marketplace is the review system.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: So again, like other things we do in life, reviews can be a dicey situation. Like, I often actually don't trust them on most platforms, especially these days. They are mostly AI bots, which has been proven, especially on places like Amazon or whatever. However, it is getting very easy to spot fake reviews versus good ones. You know, you always want to sort by the most recent, but make sure you are reading through a pretty solid handful of those reviews and looking for very, you know, specific things. If there's a theme that's lining up in the negative reviews that kind of makes itself sort of prevalent. Like that's, that's a flag for sure. And those, more often than not, obviously are not bot reviews.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: They're, they're actual human reviews. So. But yeah, you have the reviews there to, to, to hopefully help you not make a bad decision. But I do think you're right. I think most of the ones that I've seen, there is some sort of a after the delivery fact sort of recourse around like, hey, this wasn't what was talked about, this wasn't what was negotiated. And this is not what I'm happy with. So, yeah.
Lauren: I also think that there's... because I agree that the negative reviews are almost more informative and authentic these days.
Matt: Sometimes comical.
Lauren: That too. But I always, when it's something that is subjective like this, I think that you can find... Sometimes just because somebody has negative reviews doesn't mean that they're not a good fit for you.
Matt: Right.
Lauren: And so if you read through the – this is the – So, this is not subjective. But one of the things that I see all the time when I'm looking at reviews for when I'm ordering clothing online, and I'll see things all the time that are like, two star review, because this dress was really cute, but it was way too long on me. And I'm like, all right, five foot two girly over here. The dress was too long on you. I'm 5’10”.
Matt: You’re not 5’10” –
Lauren: – a dress being too long –
Matt: – by the way.
Lauren: Oh, sure. Like whatever you say. But like a dress being too long on me is a good fit. Like, I need it to be that long. So you're giving it a two star review because it was too long. I'm actively seeking out these dresses that are being described as too long.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So, you know, the same, the same can be applied to something like this.
Matt: Well, this is part of why I don't like reviews in general, though.
Lauren: That's fair.
Matt: You know, if they're not created by bots, I'd say the other 50% take half of those and strike them immediately because they are things like that. Or like my favorite Mexican restaurant. Like.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: There's reviews in there that are terrible because they thought the tacos were priced too high. Like, really? Like you're mad because the taco was $1.75 and at your local truck, they're $1.50. Like, you didn't need to write a review for that, my guy. Like, eff off.
Lauren: Was your $1.75 taco really good?
Matt: But –
Lauren: That's what I want to know.
Matt: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and like you said, dress is great, but it was too long. Like, just be careful. When you're reading the reviews actually read them. Look for patterns, look for themes in the reviews. And again, look to see are these just general, like, reviews about, you know, something that doesn't really matter for you and your book? Or are there legitimate concerns that people are raising. It sounds like humans wrote it. And this is somebody you clearly want to steer clear of – move on. There's, there's enough freelancers on these marketplaces where if you even have a shadow of a doubt. Like it's a murder trial case and you're part of the jury, if you've got a shadow of the doubt, move on.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: There's enough of them on there. You don't have to be that nit picky.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: So.
Lauren: It's also a great way for you to fact check referrals.
Matt: Yeah, that’s true.
Lauren: So if someone, if you get a bunch of people that, that are trying to be helpful and they have good intentions and they've never actually worked with this editor, but a friend of a friend –
Matt: Oh, yeah.
Lauren: – has a friend who is a freelance editor, and they pass a –
Matt: My friend's brother's fiance's –
Lauren: Yup.
Matt: – sister's boyfriend, who she went to prom with but then left her. He recommended this particular – Yeah.
Lauren: And I've heard they're great. And then, you know, okay, cool.
Matt: That's not even a referral.
Lauren: Thanks, if you say so. And then you can go search them out on some of these marketplaces and see if you can find more information on them there before you reach out.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Or make the decision not to.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And then the last – not the last place, because there's a variety, but the last one we're going to cover right now –
Matt: The three major ones.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Yeah. This is the third.
Lauren: Yes. It's going to be dedicated organizations and communities. Which is not – I'm not confusing that with when I say referrals, or when we're talking about referrals, and we're saying go to your author community or go to your industry community or your Circle group for –
Matt: Right, yeah.
Lauren: –whatever. We're talking about, like, actually dedicated to these types of freelancers.
Matt: Right.
Lauren: So Editorial Freelancers Association is something that we have referenced repeatedly throughout episodes.
Matt: And every year they put out a really nice PDF of like, what are industry standard pricing for all the different services.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: It's an extremely helpful organization. And again, they they often publish a lot of great resources that will help you choose an amazing editor for your work. So honestly, that's probably where you should start anyways.
Lauren: Yes, I agree.
Matt: If nothing else, they'll give you a lot of great information that will help you guide – or navigate yourself, sorry – through things like choosing the right editor. So that's always a great place to start.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Yes. Absolutely, highly recommend. I think the Nonfiction Authors Association also has like, not a database necessarily, but like, that's a great resource for you to go find referrals for freelancers that other members of that organization have worked with.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So I think these are really great organizations and communities to check out when you are looking for freelancers of any kind.
[34:28] – How to Research Potential Freelancers
Matt: When you are looking for freelancers, and let's say you're in the marketplace situation, or even if you got a few good referrals, but you still want to do a little bit of research. How do you research and choose the right freelancer? What are the things that you should ask? What are the red flags you should look for? You know, you mentioned earlier, which I think was the right way to categorize this. This really is like a job interview. I wouldn't stretch it out as long.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: The freelancer’ll probably take a pass on you, but you should absolutely interview them. There are things that you should know to ask and things to look for, right?
Lauren: Yeah, I mean, I think you should start kind of at the top with, with... if we're going to call it a job interview, you're going to start by putting together a pool of applicants. So, you know, you want to start by saying, okay, I need – this, this vast sea of different types of freelancers out there. I need to really narrow it down to a long list. And I need to start going out –
Lauren: This is where you go into your communities and say hey, anybody have any referrals? Anybody worked with somebody before? Also, anybody have any that you're like, avoid this person at all costs? That's, that's equally valuable in –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – in referral situations.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Like, hey, this person looks really great on the surface, but there's some red flags that you're not going to see until you're already under contract with them. So, you know, start asking around. If you don't have people to ask, but you're still using some books as comp titles, check the acknowledgments. Check the copyright pages and stuff like that, and see if you can tell from within the book itself who worked on that book.
Matt: So that's actually what I think the pro tip here is for –
Lauren: Yeah?
Matt: – this section. In our outline, Lauren has a pro tip here. I don't think that's the pro tip. I think what you just said is actually the pro tip.
Lauren: Okay.
Matt: And that can be applied to a lot of things –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: – in your publishing journey. And I don't think that's talked about enough. And I always forget about that. I'm glad that you brought that up though. Like, I can't tell you how many times I finish a great book. Like everything about it is great. It was well-written, like, well designed, well laid out, the cover’s great, like, you know, it’s just a great book. Like, from start to finish. Almost everybody who touched that book is listed in there somewhere.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: They're either in the front listed, as, you know, the editor. They this person did cover design. This person was the illustrator. Or more often than not, they're thanked in the back, in the acknowledgments – front or back, whichever – by the author themselves. Even if you're looking for an agent, boo, and you're not self-publishing, that's fine. More often than not, an author thanks their agent in the acknowledgments or something. So a great book is also a really good source of finding your next editor or designer or agent or whoever that might be.
Lauren: Yes. And it’s –
Matt: So comp titles, like you said –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: – I think that's great idea for a lot of things. So I'm glad you brought that up. That's the pro tip.
Lauren: Okay, I will I will accept that. But yes, I think that is a really, really often overlooked. I started reading the acknowledgment sections of books when I started working in the publishing industry, because I liked seeing my friends’ names in there. And, and then I started to – in the same way that we've talked about branding in other cases, where we've talked about like, you know, after a while you realize that a lot of the books that you read come from the same imprint. And now when I'm looking on bookstore shelves, if I see that imprint logo on the spine –
Matt: Right.
Lauren: – of a book, I'm more compelled to pick that book up, even if I've never –
Matt: You trust that imprint.
Lauren: – heard of it, because I trust that imprint.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Same kind of thing. I'm now surprised, although less so as I've noticed this pattern, when I'm reading the acknowledgments in the back of the books, and I realize how many books that I love have the same agent, or the same editor. Or have thanked the same group of – or they're like, connected, these authors are connected in some way, because they're all in a writing cohort together, or something like that. And there's a lot of – if there's, if you're trying to figure out your cover design and you pull twenty book covers that you really like... I bet there's some overlap in the cover designers.
Matt: Yeah. I never paid attention to the acknowledgments sections until I had to write one.
Lauren: Yeah?
Matt: And so then I went back to a lot of my favorite books, nonfiction and fiction, and started looking at the acknowledgments sections. And I was like, who are they thanking? Like, do I need to do this? Like, how thorough should it be? Like, is anybody gonna be upset if they're not included? And then that's like I said, that I realized, holy cow. Like, there's a lot of people being listed in here that I never would have thought would have been listed. And this could be a great source for somebody who is looking for these types of resources, so.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I always forget about that. But I think that's such a great idea.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Now again, this this should be done with books that you really enjoy that you think are well done. You don't want to go in the acknowledgments and and find out who the editor was for a book that was just marginal, like.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: You know. It's not solely that editors fault, but, you know, again, find find a bunch of comp titles, or books that you really like, or comp titles in your category that sold really well. Might not have been a book you read or that you liked. But again, comp titles is that it's just that it's in your category, it's in your genre. If it did really well again, go see who's thanked in there, go see who the editor was, who the cover designer was. Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely a great, great kind of untapped resource.
Matt: I agree.
Lauren: Yeah. But you can also, you know, as you're narrowing down that list – cause that is something that is manual work, which is fair. A lot of the resources that are like, market based – oh my goodness – marketplace or platform-based probably have some parameters that you can narrow down the search fields. And I would not apply all of them at once, but I would start with your top priorities.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So, you know, if you have like an absolute maximum budget, you cannot go – like, hard limit cannot go over this. That should be the first field you narrow down.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Filter out anyone that's that's going to charge more than that. And then you kind of go through there and narrow it down a little further.
Matt: If so, I will tell you – I'm sorry – in a marketplace situation, what I will tell you about marketplaces is that what I've seen the trend lately, is they'll give a range sometimes in their little profile or their ad. Like, oh, hey, you know, professional, developmental editor, worked on thgsdjhgjsdhg. My price range is between $24 and $3500. That's like... Uh, okay. So it's really hard to narrow down, sometimes, starting with price.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: So sometimes what you need to do is get a list of the things you want to ask these freelancers, with price being at the top of the list as one of the hard stops that you might have, or one of the hard lines to draw. But these days it's getting a little more complicated. Because a lot of them, not only are they not putting out like a, a fairly straightforward per word or per page price that they charge. Oftentimes, you know, especially for developmental editing, you're getting just this crazy wild range. And so it's really hard to say, like, you know, well yeah, if the range of $25 to $3000, technically you're in my budget.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: Like. So.
Lauren: Right. Yes. And we'll we'll touch on this more in a little bit actually. But yes, there are some details that are going to be variable in there. And this is why we're saying you want a larger pool of candidates.
Matt: To begin with, yes.
Lauren: To begin with, because some of them might, on the surface, seem like a good fit. And then when you find out more information, you realize that they're not going to be the right fit for you. Not necessarily because they're a bad fit, but just maybe, maybe they're not going to fit your budget needs. Or maybe they're a perfect fit, but you have a hard deadline that you absolutely need the book done by this date, and they are currently unable to get this done –
Matt: That's right.
Lauren: – in that time. So you want to start with a longer list, and then you're going to want to narrow that down a little.
[42:32] – Narrowing Down to Your Top Candidates
Lauren: So in order to narrow it down, you're going to want to like I just said, review some of their details, some of their specifications. Are they going to be able to do it within the timeline that you need it? Are they going to be able to do it within the budget that you need it? Are they going to be able to do what you're actually asking them to do? Like if it's, you know, if if you're looking for a graphic designer and you forgot to specify that you need a cover designer for a book, is this something that they can do? Or are they exclusively like digital graphic designer?
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: These are –
Matt: Or just any type of designer –
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: – that doesn't specialize in book covers, yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: You know?
Lauren: So.
Matt: They might be an amazing designer when it comes to designing... like, I don't know, like band posters for concerts that are at like 50,000 seat stadiums and you just love their work, but they've never done a book cover before.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: I'm not saying don't use them, but what we are saying is put them at the bottom of the list. Designing a book cover is not, it's not easy. It's not straightforward. And if they've never done it before... then again, there's a lot of little nuances, and things that need to be taken into account to design a cover that's going to really sell a book.
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: And let's be real, covers sell books.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So once you've kind of narrowed that, that down a little more, you’ve filtered down that list, now – now you can actually go through and really vet these options that you have left. And this is where it's going to take a little bit of effort, a little bit of research. But it's worth it. This is, this is an investment, again. But you're going to want to go review any, like, referenced published works that they've talked about. If they said, oh, here's a list of other book covers that I've done, go take a look at them. Go check. Don't take their word for it. Go take a look at those books. Do the covers look good? Do they look like something that you would want your book to look like? Cover designers, even an experienced cover designer, they have a style. They have like, this is what we do. If you're somebody who's really, really anti people on the cover, and the cover designer that you're talking to has only ever done books with people on the cover... why, why, why are you talking to them?
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: You know? That's – even if they say they can do it without people on the cover. There are other designers out there.
Matt: That's right.
Lauren: So, you know, go take a look at that. Review any testimonials and reviews that they've provided. But also take it a step further and go search them on social media. Don't search for their profiles on social media. Search for other people talking about them. Has anyone talked because in the in this industry, people that love their freelancers will talk about them. Matt has talked about who his editor was for his book.
Matt: Shout out Kate.
Lauren: And will shout her out whenever he has the opportunity to do so, because that was a good working relationship. If you go find somebody that you think is a good, is a good fit for you and you search them on social and you see twenty posts of people singing their praises, that are like unpaid, I'm just excited to talk about how great my editor was on my book... Great.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Sign with that person immediately. Let's go. Let's get it under contract.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So you're definitely going to want to do that. And if they came referred to you, ask that, ask that person questions. If the – if somebody reached out to you and was like, hey, I heard you were looking for an editor, here's mine. She was great. Really loved her. Great. Awesome. Cool. Now that you've confirmed she's a good fit for you, go back to that person that originally referred them and asked the specific details. Did they deliver what was expected? Did they deliver it on time? Did they get it right the first time, or was it something that you had to go back and forth constantly and be like, I need this, I need this, I need this? What was their communication style in general? Did they only text you or do you have an email chain back and forth? Like, how does this work? Like –
Matt: Did you have to wait five days in between each response?
Lauren: Yeah. Yes. And you know, maybe the most important question of all, would you work with them again?
Matt: Yeah. I mean, the assumption is that they would if they're referring them to you. But these are all great questions.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: I agree. And some of which, you know, again, can be found in other places, but. If you're, if you're lucky enough to get some word of mouth referrals, some from people who are very trusted and they seem very excited about this, this particular person, that's, that's the best. But these are still questions you should ask.
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: You know, assuming that everything was great is probably not the best thing to do.
Lauren: Even just to know in advance. Like the question about how much back and forth did you have?
Matt: Yes.
Lauren: That's something I think a lot of people don't realize this, if they don't have experience with this. A lot of freelancers will have built into their package, like, you only get X number of revisions.
Matt: Revisions, yeah.
Lauren: So like for a cover designer, you might have a cover designer that says you only get three revisions max. And whatever the third draft is, is the final, whether you like it or not.
Matt: Or extra drafts cost this extra amount of money.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Extra revisions, sorry.
Lauren: Yes. Which is why two of the questions that I would say right off the bat, when you're, when you're talking to a potential freelancer is: what's included in the package, and what additional expenses will I potentially accrue throughout this process?
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So if it is, you get three revisions included in the package and then any additional after that are $150 per revision, that's something you're going to want to know. Especially if you're going to if you have a set budget.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: That's something that you want to know in advance.
Matt: Or if it's an editing situation, you know, if your word count changes up or down based on, you know, editing and other things, like does that affect the price? Right? If the developmental editor suggests a bunch of things that inflate your word count by 1,000 words, 3,000 words, 5,000 words... You know, is there an extra cost now because you went from a 80,000 word job, that was quoted as an 80,000 word job, to a 85,000 word job, or –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: So you have to be aware of all those things just to – ask the right questions, yeah.
Lauren: Which is – that's another question, and Matt alluded to this earlier, when he was talking about the range that you'll see in, in what it's going to cost to hire somebody. How are you setting your prices? Are you setting it – are you charging by the hour? Are you charging by the word count? Are you charging by page count? Are you charging by total number of revisions that we do? You know, like unlimited number of revisions, but at the end, I'm going to charge you based on how many times we went back and forth and did a pass through of this work? That, that could be a big difference between two rounds of revisions and six rounds of revisions.
Matt: Which, by the way –
Lauren: You know?
Matt: A pro tip: if they charge by the hour, ask them how many pages do they typically do in an hour?
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: And then go back to the EFA organization and look at their sort of ranges for what, you know, an hourly wage would be, and how many pages should be included in that.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: I'm always a little bit leery of hourly.
Lauren: Me too.
Matt: But I don't know that that's fair. But I do know that if somebody charges hourly for editing or design, mostly for editing, they should be able to tell you the average amount of pages that are that are edited in an hour's time. Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And absolutely you're going to want to ask for details like contracts. Is there a contract in place? Do you have a formal contract? Please sign a formal contract. Just to make sure everything is in line –
Matt: I'm just gonna say right now.
Lauren: Yeah?
Matt: Don't hire anybody without a contract –
Lauren: Thank you.
Matt: – or an agreement. Like.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: A contract is not often used anymore these days. Oftentimes it's an agreement, is – But do not, do not, hire anybody without some sort of an agreement or contract where deliverables are laid out, price is laid out, and timeline is estimated or laid out. Just don't do it.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: I don't care who it is.
Lauren: In writing.
Matt: Yeah, of course. One hundred percent.
Lauren: I'm sorry to say this, but you have to be able to have those receipts where you can go back to somebody and say, hey, here is a timestamped, dated email from you –
Matt: That’s right.
Lauren: – where you promised me you were going to deliver this content, this amount, in full, by this date, and I don't have it. So absolutely, a hundred percent agree with that. And then for, for some of these different things, especially when it comes to graphic design, if you're doing any kind of cover design or even like marketing collateral or something like that, you might want to ask some questions about licensing and ownership and AI usage to make sure that you have the rights to the final product.
Matt: More than AI, stock imagery, but AI –
Lauren: Yes. That was the other one, yes.
Matt: I mean, AI is a whole nother thing, right? Like, you know.
Lauren: Yeah, because we're still figuring that out.
Matt: You may not want them to use AI at all. You may not know if they are or not. But stock imagery is a whole nother thing.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Like, that can get you in a lot of trouble. If they're not clearing those images, or they're not using the appropriate paid versions, or whatever that might be. So.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Which is also why it's important to have somebody that has experience. That's the difference between a specialist and a generalist.
Matt: Sure.
Lauren: Somebody that specializes in designing book covers already knows these things.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And they’re – hopefully, if they're a good designer and a good person – they are not going to provide you with content that you can't use.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So that's where that kind of stuff matters.
Matt: Yeah.
[52:16] – Miscellaneous Tips and Reminders
Lauren: Just real quick, because I think we've, we've touched on some of these already, but red flags. For all the questions that you're going to ask, for all the things that you want to pay attention to, there are a lot of different things that it's going to depend on what your end goal is, whether or not this this person is a good fit for you, but there are going to be some red flags right away. Obviously, if their portfolio doesn't match your genre, your expectations, your needs, your style – don't work with that person. That's, that's just realistic. If you want them to be contributing to your brand, you want to make sure it matches your branding.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: But also you want to make sure that they are not going to be overpromising on things that they absolutely could not realistically guarantee in any way. If you're getting somebody who's saying, I guarantee you that you'll hit a bestseller list. Or I guarantee you that I will be able to secure a network TV interview for you and your book – there's no way they can guarantee that. They absolutely cannot.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So, red flag for sure. Matt already said don't, don't work with somebody who doesn't want to agree to a contract or a written agreement of some kind. If someone is cagey about committing to firm deadlines or deliverables...
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: That's, that's not a good thing.
Matt: Just move on.
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: Immediately.
Lauren: Yep. You need those things locked in. If they're vague about their pricing, if they won't, if they won't answer your questions about, you know, how do you set your pricing? Can you give me an estimate for what the final cost of this is going to be?
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: That's – move on. Just keep going. And also I know these things get expensive. But if somebody is coming in at considerably cheaper than the standard market rate... I would, in fact, look that gift horse in the mouth. Like I, I would not –
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: – that's, that's not a good thing.
Matt: No.
Lauren: That's not competitive pricing. That's, that's usually a...
Matt: That’s –
Lauren: Yellow flag at minimum.
Matt: – one hundred percent, your work is getting farmed out to somebody who is just generating AI slop. Period. So, one hundred percent. Do not take something that is considerably cheaper, no matter how tempting it is. Yeah.
Lauren: Yes. Again –
Matt: And no matter often we or anybody else says that, somebody will do it. Somebody will hear that from us and be like, whatever. That's okay. You get what you pay for. So. Some slightly less alarming things, but still yellow flags, potentially. Limited portfolios, limited past experience. It's not always a bad thing. I think you said earlier on, you know, if you're looking at two different cover designers or designers. One’s, you know, a ten plus year veteran designer, does really cool work, but hasn't really done any book covers or any other genres, versus an artist you're looking at who's maybe, you know, a three to five year veteran, fairly new, but has cranked out a bunch of really good looking book covers. I'd probably go with that newer one. So, you know, again, no past experience. Okay, that's one thing. Limited past experience? You really need to take it into context what they've done compared to somebody else. But limited portfolios, again, you need to dig a little deeper into that. It's not necessarily a red flag, but it is a yellow flag. Like slow down a second. Let's take a look and see what they've actually done. Who'd they do it for? You know, how long does it take them to do that? All those other questions that we asked. And then, you know, we talked about this too. Mixed reviews or testimonials. Again, there's such a thing as subjective versus objective. You need to dig into those reviews, if this is somebody you're interested in working in. Were they just upset because the dress was too long and they're short person, or because the taco was $0.25 more than their favorite truck? Or did they have a legitimate complaint that every time they emailed this designer or editor, it took them five days to respond. Every time they responded, they were very vague. The deliverables were late. Like, those are legitimate concerns.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: So. Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. You know, yeah. Yellow flags. They're not hard and fast, immediately cut this person off your list. But fact check.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Gut check. Just take a pause.
Matt: Slow down.
Lauren: And review that a little bit.
Matt: Yup.
Lauren: Yeah. Obviously this is something we could get as in-depth as possible on this and, and never run out of topic, because there's so many different facets and elements to it. But there – as we've said throughout this episode – there are a ton of different resources that are available for different types of freelancers –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – different types of research. But I still think at the end of the day, the number one most valuable resource that you have available to you is the community that is within your industry. Whether it's your other authors in your genre, or other speakers that are in your business cohort, or people in your mastermind group, or whatever it is, start there. Those are your most invaluable resources and sources of referrals. And hey, maybe, maybe best case scenario, one of them says, hey, I'll do it for you if you do a book swap with me. And, and we'll beta read each other's manuscripts.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: That’s – yeah.
Matt: And don't forget Lauren's pro tip about comp titles. You know, checking the acknowledgments section, checking the copyright pages for who the editor and the designer were. Those are always great sources too.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Just remember none of this is a one size fits all solution.
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: So if you use these sort of markers to, to guide yourself along the way, I think you'll end up with, with some people that you're happy with. And... Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. Build your team. At the end of the day, this is a part of your branding. This is a part of your... building your business, your team of people.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Find the right fit for you. Find the right person to fill this job role. And you might find a really, really incredible long term partner.
Matt: Yeah, if you're lucky.
Lauren: If you're lucky.
[58:30] – Episode Wrap Up
Lauren: Think we did it?
Matt: Probably.
Lauren: Alright.
Matt: What do your bracelets say?
Lauren: What do they say? Live fast. Park pass. Die fun.
Matt: That's a repeat.
Lauren: That is a repeat.
Matt: But I like it.
Lauren: They're all repeats. All This and Heaven. And... I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.
Matt: Alright.
Lauren: And on that note.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Please leave us a comment or review on whatever channel of choice you like to listen to us on. Like and subscribe, if you haven't already. Let us know if you have any questions or comments or concerns. You can always email us at podcast@lulu.com. And tune back in for another new episode next week.
Matt: Yup.
Lauren: Until then, thanks for listening.
Matt: Later.
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Back in January of last year, the Wall Street Journal published a story about a leather-bound birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell had assembled for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. The book included letters from various associates, and one of them bore Donald Trump’s name. According to the article, it featured a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman with typewritten text inside. The page was signed with a recognizable squiggly “Donald” signature positioned to mimic pubic hair and closed with the ridiculously creepy line: “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump denied writing the letter and called it “a fake thing” before suing the Journal, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp, and the two reporters for a mere $10 billion. Each count asked for at least $10 billion, because apparently that’s the going rate for Donald Trump’s hurt feelings these days.
On Monday, federal judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Trump hadn’t come anywhere close to adequately alleging “actual malice,” the standard required for a public figure to win a defamation claim. For those who follow this stuff, that’s about as unsurprising as it gets.
The actual malice standard, established in New York Times v. Sullivan decision, requires a public figure to show that the defendant either knew the story was false or published it with reckless disregard for the truth (which courts have interpreted to require that the publisher actually harbored serious doubts about whether the statement was true). It does not mean, as many people assume, the colloquial meaning of “malice”: that they just don’t like the person. Trump’s complaint was heavy on boilerplate language about malice and light on, well, anything resembling actual facts supporting it. Judge Gayles was blunt about the gap:
The Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite.
The “quite the opposite” is the fun part. Trump’s own complaint described the reporters reaching out to him, as well as the FBI and the Justice Department, before publication. Trump gave them a denial, which they printed; the DOJ didn’t respond and the FBI declined to comment. Trump’s argument was essentially that since he told the Journal the letter was fake before publication, running the story anyway proved they had serious doubts about its truth and therefore acted with actual malice.
You hear this a lot from SLAPP defamation filers, pretending that a mere denial by them means that anyone printing what they’re accused of is actual malice. But that’s not how any of this works. Just because you deny something, doesn’t automatically mean the journalists have to believe it’s false. Their evidence can (and often does) reveal that the subjects of their reporting are lying in their denials. A denial is not proof of falsity. It’s just proof that you’re denying something. The court wasn’t buying any of it:
To establish actual malice, “a plaintiff must show the defendant deliberately avoided investigating the veracity of the statement in order to evade learning the truth.”…
As the judge noted, printing Trump’s denial alongside their own journalistic findings demonstrated responsible reporting — the opposite of actual malice, which would require evidence that the reporters had serious doubts about the letter’s authenticity and deliberately avoided investigating further. Then printing the denial alongside the evidence, again, was the opposite of actual malice:
The Article also informed readers that President Trump decried the Letter as a fake and denied writing it. By “allowing readers to decide for themselves what to conclude from the [Article], any allegation of actual malice [is] less plausible.” Turner, 879 F.3d at 1274. See also Michel, 816 F.3d at 703 (holding that “reporting perspectives contrary to the publisher’s own should be interpreted as helping to rebut, not establish, the presence of actual malice.”)
The judge also, somewhat gently, reminded Trump’s lawyers that actual malice is an actual legal standard, not just ‘they don’t like me.’
President Trump’s allegation that Defendants acted with ill-will is insufficient to plead actual malice. Aside from being conclusory and without factual support, “ill-will, improper motive or personal animosity plays no role in determining whether a defendant acted with actual malice.”
Meanwhile, as this lawsuit wound through the courts, the very letter Trump claimed didn’t exist surfaced publicly. The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Epstein estate and obtained the birthday book. They released it publicly, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a page that matches the Journal’s description of the letter exactly:
The judge couldn’t consider the produced letter at this stage of the litigation because Trump disputes its authenticity, which is his right procedurally. And the judge has to treat the claims in the complaint as true. But the rest of us sure can look at it. And judge for ourselves.
The court gave Trump until April 27 to file an amended complaint, and a spokesman for his legal team promised he would “refile this powerhouse lawsuit.” I suppose if you squint hard enough at a complaint a federal judge said “comes nowhere close” to meeting basic legal standards, “powerhouse” is one word you could use for it — just probably not in the way they mean.
The Journal’s defense team also sought attorneys’ fees under Florida’s anti-SLAPP statute. The judge denied the fee request for now, since Trump gets a chance to amend. But that request can be renewed, which means if the amended complaint fares no better, Trump could end up paying for the privilege of having sued the Journal over a story that appears to be true.
This is also a reminder of why we need stronger anti-SLAPP laws in every state, as well as a federal anti-SLAPP law.
This case isn’t over yet, but the judge clearly sees it as just as weak as we said it was when it was filed last year. As always, Trump files these vexatious lawsuits knowing none of them have a real shot — the goal is to burn time and money for media organizations, and scare some of them into softening their coverage or thinking twice before calling out his behavior.
The guy who presents himself as a champion of free speech remains the most anti-free speech president we’ve had in any of our lifetimes, consistently abusing the judicial system as a way to punish those who make him look bad.
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僅か (わずか) — a little 僅差 (きんさ) — narrow margin 僅かに (わずかに) — slightly 僅少差 (きんしょうさ) — narrow majority 僅少 (きんしょう) — a little 僅僅 (きんきん) — only 僅僅 (きんきん) — only 僅々 (きんきん) — only 人生僅か五十年 (じんせいわずかごじゅうねん) — life is short
It wasn’t all that long ago that GOP legislators were collectively stonewalling a clean reauthorization of Section 702. Three years ago, these legislators were seeking to end the FBI (and other IC components’) access to Americans’ communications via “backdoor” searches of the NSA’s supposedly “foreign facing” collections.
It wasn’t that the Republicans cared that Joe Public was being subjected to warrantless domestic surveillance. It was that they were being subjected to warrantless searches of their communications — something that came to light as the result of multiple investigations pertaining to Trump’s first administration.
Now that the GOP has control of the White House again, Republicans are back to not caring about the warrantless searches of US persons’ communications enabled by FISA loopholes very few congressional reps seriously want to see closed.
Another Section 702 reauthorization attempt is only weeks away. Reps who want more of the same thing we’ve been subjected to for decades have until the end of April to push a clean reauthorization through. Unfortunately for them, the FISA Court — while allowing the program to continue whether or not Congress can pass an extension — has made it clear the program needs to be overhauled because it’s still being routinely abused to perform warrantless searches targeting Americans’ communications.
The annual recertification, issued last month in a classified ruling, means that the program can continue to collect phone calls and emails through March 2027 — even if Congress fails later this month to renew the statute that underlies it.
But the judge who issued the March 17 ruling also objected to tools that agencies with access to the raw data — like the C.I.A., F.B.I. and National Security Agency — have created to allow analysts to process messages, according to unclassified talking points the administration sent to lawmakers in recent days.
The main issue is the filtering tool utilized by agencies with access to the NSA’s collections. The filter allows analysts to drill down the data to only return results pertaining to specific people who have communicated with a foreign person. It would appear agencies like the FBI are using this filter to search for US persons — something that’s supposed to be subjected to additional limitations.
From the talking points detailed by the New York Times, it seems that isn’t the case, which is why the FISA Court is ordering the government to “re-engineer the filter” to force analysts to comply with restrictions pertaining to access of US persons’ communications.
The Trump administration is allegedly “weighing” whether or not to comply with this FISA court order. The only thing that could make it comply would be to codify the order during the reauthorization process. This administration simply isn’t willing to do that.
The Trump administration wants Congress to extend the statute without changes.
“The compliance problems are bad enough, but, incredibly, rather than fix them, the Trump Administration is considering appealing the court ruling so that they never have to. This is a highly aggressive and unusual move indicative of an administration that would exploit every angle to expand its surveillance at the expense of Americans’ rights.
“Instead of addressing these problems, opponents of reform are going to try to jam a straight reauthorization of section 702 through Congress next week, while the American people are still in the dark. That’s unacceptable. This court ruling needs to be declassified so that Americans can understand what the Trump administration is actually up to. And Congress must vote for real reforms to protect Americans’ rights.”
I won’t even factor in Trump’s opinion here, because it doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t know enough about anything to be considered qualified to engage in this discussion. Further, this isn’t even necessarily a Trump thing. Pretty much every presidential administration has been unwilling to upset this particular apple cart, even when plenty of evidence of extensive rot has been made public.
But this one’s particularly problematic for the GOP, which spent most of the Biden years claiming Section 702 abuse was evidence of a “deep state” conspiracy against Trump and his congressional supporters. Now, they’re arguing the opposite: that the “deep state” it so recently opposed should be allowed to do what it wants for as long as it wants to… so long as it’s not sweeping up their communications.
Status quo seems likely to prevail yet again, especially with the Trump Administration clearly interested in increasing the amount of domestic surveillance perpetrated by Intelligence Community components. After all, without it, the “worst of worst” day laborers and factory workers can’t be kidnapped by federal officers and members of the fearsome, centrally organized terrorist group known as “antifa” can’t get caught in dragnets that are supposed to be targeting foreign adversaries. It’s going to be more abuse for the stupidest imaginable reasons because that’s just how things are going to go as long as this iteration of the GOP remains in power.
Last year the fraud-prone Trump organization announced a half-assed wireless phone company. As we noted at the time, calling this a “phone company” was generous; it was a lazy marketing rebrand of another, half-assed, “MAGA-focused” mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) named Patriot Mobile, which itself just resold T-Mobile service. So basically just another lazy Trump brand partnership.
The centerpiece of this effort was supposed to be a “bold” new $500 Trump T1 smartphone that the Trump org claimed would be “proudly designed and built in the United States” and released sometime last August. Not only was the device never going to be made in the States (all mention of that was quickly stripped from press materials), the August launch date came and went with no Trump phone.
It’s now April of 2026, and while there’s still no phone (despite a long line of rubes having plunked down $100 deposits), there is a revamped Trump Mobile website and a renewed promise of a slightly different phone, according to The Verge. This includes a revamped and gaudy new mock up of what the gold Trump T1 phone is supposed to look like, should it ever actually be released:
You’ll notice that the phone looks suspiciously like the HTC U24 Pro, a phone released two years ago and available for as little as $460 on Amazon (even less on places like eBay):
While the original “Trump phone” was announced with a $500 price tag, the backers of Trump’s latest grift insist that price was “promotional,” and the full price tag will be closer to around $1000:
“The phone is now listed with a “promotional price” of $499, which used to simply be its standard price. The site is still accepting $100 deposits, with the promise that you can “lock in” the “promotional pricing.” When I spoke to executives Eric Thomas and Don Hendrickson in February, they declared that $499 had been an “introductory” price, which would be rising after the relaunch — though they promised that early buyers would still be charged $499 total, and that the new price would be “less than $1,000.”
So there’s no phone or release date, but there’s already been a price hike on a lazy rebrand of an existing phone they just needed to spray paint gold and slap a Trump logo on. There’s simply no reason that doing this very basic rebrand should have taken so long (assuming they do plan to eventually released a phone), but as a concept the whole thing remains very on brand.
If we own a piece of land and the rain washes the topsoil downstream, do we go and get the topsoil back?
Do we own our reputation? We have influence over it, but some of it was gifted to us without our knowledge, and other parts are influenced by forces out of our control.
Do we own responsibility? Is it something we take or acquire or accept?
We can try to own our past, but the best we can do is influence our future.
Ownership is a shared understanding, a construct that can shift depending on where we stand. It’s not always up to us, but it often works better if we acknowledge it.
Object permanence: 7 years under the DMCA; NOLA mayoral candidate x New Orleans Square; Kettling is illegal; AOL won't deliver critical emails; Chris Ware x Charlie Brown; Mossack Fonseca raided; Corporate lobbying budget is greater than Senate and House; Corbyn overpays taxes; What IP means; Bill Gates v humanity; "Jackpot."
Upcoming appearances: Toronto, San Francisco, London, Berlin, NYC, Hay-on-Wye, London.
The Rights of Nature movement uses a bold tactic to preserve our habitable Earth: it seeks to extend (pseudo) personhood to things like watersheds, forests and other ecosystems, as well as nonhuman species, in hopes of creating legal "standing" to ask the courts for protection:
What do watersheds, forests and nonhuman species need protection from? That turns out to be a very interesting question, because the most common adversary in a Rights of Nature case is another pseudo-person: namely, a limited liability corporation.
These nonhuman "persons" have been a feature of our legal system since the late 19th century, when the Supreme Court found that the 14th Amendment's "Equal Protection" clause could be applied to a railroad. In the 150-some years since, corporate personhood has monotonically expanded, most notoriously through cases like Hobby Lobby, which gave a corporation the right to discriminate against women on the grounds that it shared its founders' religious opposition to abortion; and, of course, in Citizens United, which found that corporate personhood meant that corporations had a constitutional right to divert their profits to bribe politicians.
Theoretically, "corporate personhood" extends to all kinds of organizations, including trade unions – but in practice, corporate personhood primarily allows the ruling class to manufacture new "people" to serve as a botnet on their behalf. A union has free speech rights just like an employer, but the employer's property rights mea that it can exclude union organizers from its premises, and employer rights mean that corporations can force workers to sit through "captive audience" meetings where expensive consultants lie to them about how awful a union would be (the corporation's speech rights also mean that it's free to lie).
In my view, corporate personhood has been an unmitigated disaster. Creating "human rights" for these nonhuman entities led to the catastrophic degradation of the natural world, via the equally catastrophic degradation of our political processes.
In a strange way, corporate personhood has realized the danger that reactionary opponents of votes for women warned of. In the days of the suffrage movement, anti-feminists claimed that giving women the vote would simply lead to husbands getting two votes, since wives would simply vote the way their husbands told them to.
This libel never died out. Take the recent hard-fought UK by-election in Gorton and Denton (basically Manchester): this was the first test of the Green Party's electoral chances under its new leader, the brilliant and principled leftist Zack Polanski. The Green candidate was Hannah Spencer, a working-class plumber and plasterer who rejected the demonization of the region's Muslim voters, unlike her rivals from Labour (which has transformed itself into a right-wing party), Reform (a fascist party), and the Conservatives (an irrelevant and dying right party). During the race (and especially after Spencer romped to a massive victory) Spencer's rivals accused her of courting "family voters," by which they meant Muslim wives, who would vote the way their Islamist husbands ordered them to. Despite the facial absurdity of this claim – that the Islamist vote would go for the pro-trans party led by a gay Jew – it was widely repeated:
"Family voting" isn't a thing, but corporate personhood has conferred political rights on the ruling class, who get to manufacture corporate "people" at scale, each of which is guaranteed the same right to contribute to politicians and intervene in our politics as any human.
Contrast this with the Rights for Nature movement. Where corporate personhood leads to a society with less empathy for living things (up to and including humans), Rights for Nature creates a legal and social basis for more empathy. In her stunning novel A Half-Built Garden, Ruthanna Emrys paints a picture of a world in which the personhood of watersheds and animals become as much of a part of our worldview as corporate personhood is today:
Scenes from A Half-Built Garden kept playing out in my mind last month while I attended the Bioneers conference in Berkeley, where they carried on their decades-long tradition of centering indigenous activists whose environmental campaigns were intimately bound up with the idea of personhood for the natural world and its inhabitants:
On the last morning, my daughter and I sat through a string of inspiring and uplifting presentations from indigenous-led groups that had used Rights of Nature to rally support for legal challenges that had forced those other nonhuman "persons" – limited liability corporations – to retreat from plans to raze, poison, or murder whole regions.
The final keynote speaker that morning was the writer Michael Pollan, who spoke about a looming polycrisis of AI, and I found myself groaning and squirming. Not him, too! Were we about to be held captive to yet another speaker convinced that AI was going to become conscious and turn us all into paperclips?
That seemed to be where he was leading, as he discussed the way that chatbots were designed to evince the empathic response we normally reserve for people – the same empathy that all the other speakers were seeking to inspire for nature. But then, he took an unexpected and welcome turn: Pollan compared extending personhood to chatbots to the disastrous decision to extend personhood to corporations, and urged us all to turn away from it.
This crystallized something that had niggled at me for years. For years, people I respect have used the Rights for Nature movement as an argument for extending empathy to software constructs. The more we practice empathy – and the more rights we afford to more entities – the better we get at it. Personhood for things that are not like us, the argument goes, makes our own personhood more secure, by honing a reflex toward empathy and respect for all things. This is the argument for saying thank you to Siri (and now to other chatbots):
Siri – like so many of our obedient, subservient, sycophantic chatbots – impersonates a woman. If we get habituated to barking orders at a "woman" (or at our "assistants") then this will bleed out into our interactions with real women and real assistants. Extending moral consideration to Siri, though "she" is just a software construct, will condition our reflexes to treat everything with respect.
For years, I'd uncritically accepted that argument, but after hearing Pollan speak, I changed my mind. Rather than treating Siri with respect because it impersonates a woman, we should demand that Siri stop impersonating a woman. I don't thank my Unix shell when I pipe a command to grep and get the output that I'm looking for, and I don't thank my pocket-knife when it slices through the tape on a parcel. I can appreciate that these are well-made tools and value their thoughtful design, but that doesn't mean I have to respect them in the way that I would respect a person.
That way lies madness – the madness that leads us to ascribe personalities to corporations and declare some of them to be "immoral" and others to be "moral," which is always and forever a dead end:
In other words: there's an argument from the Rights of Nature movement that says that the more empathy we practice, the better off we are in all our interactions. But Pollan complicated that argument, by raising the example of corporate personhood. It turns out that extending personhood to constructed nonhuman entities like corporations reduces the amount of empathy we practice. Far from empowering labor unions, the creation of "human" rights for groups and organizations has given capital more rights over workers. A labor rights regime can defend workers – without empowering bosses and without creating new "persons."
The question is: is a chatbot more like a corporation (whose personhood corrodes our empathy) or more like a watershed (whose personhood strengthens our empathy)? But to ask that question is to answer it – a chatbot is definitely more like a corporation than it is like a watershed. What's more: in a very real, non-metaphorical way, giving rights to chatbots means taking away rights from nature, thanks to LLMs' energy-intesivity.
Empathy then, for the nonhuman world – but not for human constructs.
"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
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
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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.
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This release is an emergency release to fix an important security
vulnerability in the confinement of Tor Browser.
Changes and updates
Update Flatpak to 1.16.6, which fixes CVE-2026-34078, a major sandbox escape vulnerability. Using this vulnerability, an attacker could break the security confinement of Tor Browser and access all files that don't require an administration password, including in the Persistent Storage.
This vulnerability can only be exploited by a powerful attacker who has
already exploited another vulnerability to take control of Tor Browser.
Anna’s Archive is generally known as a meta-search engine for shadow libraries, helping users find pirated books and other related resources.
However, last December, the site announced that it had also backed up Spotify, which came as a shock to the music industry.
Anna’s Archive initially released only Spotify metadata, and no actual music, but that put the music industry on high alert. Together with the likes of Universal, Warner, and Sony, Spotify filed a lawsuit days later, hoping to shut the site down.
Through a preliminary injunction targeting domain registrars and registries, the shadow library lost several domain names. However, not all were taken down, and the site registered various new domain names as backups.
The legal pressure also appeared to pay off in other ways. Not long after the lawsuit was filed, the shadow library removed the Spotify listing for their torrents page. The same applies to the first batch of music files that was accidentally released in February.
The site’s operator, Anna’s Archivist, hoped that these removals would motivate the music industry to back down, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, they returned to court requesting a $322 million default judgment after the defendant failed to show up in court.
$322 Million, Granted in Full
Yesterday, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment against the site’s unknown operators, awarding Spotify and the major labels the requested $322 million damages award in full.
Default judgment
The music labels get the statutory maximum of $150,000 in damages for around 50 works. Spotify adds a DMCA circumvention claim of $2,500 for 120,000 music files, bringing the total to more than $322 million.
The plaintiff previously described their damages request as “extremely conservative.” The DMCA claim is based only on the 120,000 files, not the full 2.8 million that were released. Had they applied the $2,500 rate to all released files, the damages figure would exceed $7 billion.
Plaintiff(s)
Damages Sought
Amount
Warner
Statutory damages for willful copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 504(c)) at $150,000 for 48 sound recordings
$7,200,000.00
Sony
Statutory damages for willful copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 504(c)) at $150,000 for 50 sound recordings
$7,500,000.00
UMG
Statutory damages for willful copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 504(c)) at $150,000 for 50 sound recordings
$7,500,000.00
Spotify
Statutory damages for circumvention of a technological measure (17 U.S.C. § 1203(c)(3)(A)) at $2,500 for 120,000 music files
$300,000,000.00
Total
$322,200,000.00
Anna’s Archive did not show up in court, and the operators of the site remain unidentified. The judgment attempts to address this directly, by ordering Anna’s Archive to file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, that includes valid contact information for the site and its managing agents.
Whether the site will comply with this order is highly uncertain.
For now, the monetary judgment is mostly a victory on paper, as recouping money from an unknown entity is impossible. For this reason, the music companies also requested a permanent injunction.
Permanent Injunction Targets Domains
In addition to the damages award, Rakoff entered a permanent worldwide injunction covering ten Anna’s Archive domains: annas-archive.org, .li, .se, .in, .pm, .gl, .ch, .pk, .gd, and .vg.
Domain registries and registrars of record, along with hosting and internet service providers, are ordered to permanently disable access to those domains, disable authoritative nameservers, cease hosting services, and preserve evidence that could identify the site’s operators.
Domain names
The judgment names specific third parties bound by those obligations, including Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Switch Foundation, The Swedish Internet Foundation, Njalla SRL, IQWeb FZ-LLC, Immaterialism Ltd., Hosting Concepts B.V., Tucows Domains Inc., and OwnRegistrar, Inc.
Anna’s Archive is also ordered to destroy all copies of works scraped from Spotify and to file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, including valid contact information for the site and its managing agents. That last requirement could prove significant, given that the identity of the site’s operators remains unknown.
A Way Out, at a Price
In theory, Anna’s Archive has the option to prevent the domain suspension. The permanent injunction allows the site to seek relief from this measure, after showing that it has paid the full $322 million damages award and complied with all injunctive obligations.
That’s an unlikely option, to say the least. At the same time, however, it is not guaranteed that the site’s domain names will be suspended.
As reported previously, several domain names, including the Greenland-based .gl version, are linked to registries and registrars outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. court. As such, they previously did not comply to the preliminary injunction, and it is unknown whether the latest order changes that.
—
A copy of the default judgment entered by Judge Rakoff is available here (pdf).
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
One of the most remarkable staffing decisions of the second Trump administration has been to allow the anti-vaxxers to run America’s health agencies. While RFK Jr. and his cadre of lieutenants prattle on about how they’re going to be super transparent, data-driven stewards of American health, their actions have put the lie to all of it. Vague statements about diseases, disinformation about the cause and source of other diseases, missed appointment deadlines for key personnel are all combined to create an HHS full of chaos, confusion, and the storied practice of CYA.
But these are ideological people, with some of the stupidest possible ideologies governing their actions. That’s how you get a situation where the CDC produces a report on the efficacy of recent COVID vaccines, following commonly used methodology, only to have the acting CDC director bury the report because he doesn’t like what it finds.
CDC scientists and insiders told the Post that the COVID-19 vaccine study went through the agency’s standard scientific review process and was slated for publication on March 19 in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). But acting CDC director Jay Bhattacharya blocked the scheduled publication and is holding the study, claiming he has concerns about its methodology.
According to a summary the Post obtained, the study concluded that between September and December of last year, healthy adults vaccinated with a 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine saw the risk of emergency department or urgent care visits cut by 50 percent, and the risk of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations cut by 55 percent, compared with healthy adults who did not get this season’s shot.
Bhattacharya reportedly took issue with the test-negative design of the study, which is a well-established method to examine real-world data on vaccine effectiveness. This type of observational study looks at people who have symptoms related to the disease of interest (in this case, COVID-19) and have the same test-seeking behavior. Those who test positive for the disease of interest become positive cases in the study, and those who test negative are test-negative controls. Researchers then compare the two groups based on vaccination status.
So there is no misunderstanding, Bhattacharya is completely full of shit here. He is not holding this CDC study back because he’s concerned about the test-negative methodology. I know that because the same CDC under the same acting Director published a study on the efficacy of flu shots that used the same test-negative method last month, a week before this same COVID vaccine study was to be published. If Bhattacharya had a problem with the method for the COVID study, why didn’t have the same problem with the flu shot study?
The answer is obvious: the methodology is not the issue here. Instead, the problem is the mRNA nature of most COVID vaccines. That, combined with Bhattacharya’s criticisms for COVID vaccines specifically, and his support for changing of the schedule and availability for them, means this study is at odds with his ideology and might be embarrassing for him personally.
Dan Jernigan, who headed CDC’s influenza division for six years and resigned last year in protest of Kennedy’s political interference at the agency, suggested to the Post that stalling the paper fits with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda.
“The secretary has already taken steps to try and remove the availability of the vaccine from children and others, so if you’re putting out an MMWR that the vaccine is effective at preventing hospitalizations and medical care visits … that message is not in line with the direction you’ve been taking with the removal of the vaccine,” he said.
And there you have it: politics and personal CYA injected into matters of public health. Having those in charge of our health agencies prioritize their own personal stature over science, literally burying studies simply because they don’t like what they show, is certainly not going to lead to a more health America.
A few years ago agricultural equipment giant John Deere found itself on the receiving end of multiple state, federal, and class action lawsuits for its efforts to monopolize tractor repair. The lawsuits noted that the company consistently purchased competing repair centers in order to consolidate the sector and force customers into using the company’s own repair facilities, driving up costs and logistical hurdles dramatically for farmers.
“As we continue to innovate industry leading equipment and technology solutions supported by our world-class dealer network, we are equally committed to providing customers and other service providers with access to repair resources,” said Denver Caldwell, vice president, Aftermarket & Customer Support. “We’re pleased that this resolution allows us to move forward and remain focused on what matters most – serving our customers.”
Except if John Deere had cared about customer service, they wouldn’t be in this predicament.
In addition to intentionally acquiring repair alternatives to monopolize repair and drive up consumer costs, John Deere also routinely makes repair difficult and costly through the act of software locks, obnoxious DRM restrictions, and “parts pairing” — which involves only allowing the installation of company-certified replacement parts — or mandatory collections of company-blessed components.
More recently, the company had been striking meaningless “memorandums of understanding” with key trade groups, pinky swearing to stop their bad behavior if the groups agree to not support state or federal right to repair legislation. Several such groups backed off their criticism, only to have John Deere continue its monopolistic behavior, the FTC’s complaint notes.
The annoyance at John Deere’s behavior has driven a broad, bipartisan movement that’s in very vocal support for state and federal guidelines enshrining “right to repair” protections into law. Unfortunately, while all fifty states have at least flirted with the idea of a state law, only Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, California, Oregon, and Washington have actually passed laws.
And among those, not one has taken any substantive action to actually enforce the new law, something that needs to change if the movement is to obtain and retain meaningful policy momentum.
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In the 48 hours that followed, Trump announced a naval blockade that major U.S. allies immediately refused to join. He watched his favored European strongman get crushed at the polls. He picked a public fight with the Pope. And he posted an AI image of himself as Jesus Christ—then, when the blowback became too great even for this White House, Trump claimed the image merely depicted him as a “doctor.”
As Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) wryly noted, a doctor in a white robe with a red Jesus shawl, complete with glowing hands and a demon-angel bursting with light behind him, posted right after Trump attacked the Pope. Got it.
Taken individually, each episode reads like a stumble. Taken together, they form a pattern: a president who believes he can bend reality to his will.
Writing for the New York Times, Lydia Polgreen invoked D.W. Brogan’s 1952 Harper’s essay on America’s “illusion of omnipotence.” It’s the durable national belief that any problem will yield to sufficient will and power. Trump’s personal twist—what Pope Leo XIV aptly called the “delusion of omnipotence”—helps explain not just the Iran war but everything else that happened this weekend, and everything likely to happen between now and the November midterms.
“Enough of the idolatry of self and money,” said the pontiff. “Enough of the display of power. Enough of war.” He didn’t name Trump, but he didn’t need to.
Apply that diagnosis to Trump’s week, and the pattern snaps into focus.
A blockade with no allies invites Chinese defiance
After the Islamabad talks over the Iran War collapsed, Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz. He then told reporters that the United Kingdom and other countries were sending warships to join. Hours later, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer went on BBC radio and said plainly that the UK would not support the blockade and would not be “getting dragged in” to the war.
The pattern held across Europe. Germany called Trump’s comments a vague statement untethered to any new facts and repeated its categorical refusal of military involvement. Spain’s defense minister called the blockade something that “make[s] no sense,” describing it as “one more episode in this whole downward spiral.” France’s Macron announced a separate conference with the UK to form a multinational mission to restore freedom of navigation—explicitly “separate from the warring parties.”
Starmer had already been blunt the week before. In an ITV interview, he said he was “fed up” with UK families seeing their energy bills fluctuate “because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world,” placing both names in the same sentence. He told Bloomberg separately that Trump’s rhetoric toward Iran was “not words I would use—ever use—because I come at this with our British values and principles.”
Then there is the China problem. That nation buys nearly all of Iran’s oil, and the blockade, which went into effect Monday night, threatens to cut off that supply. Along with Trump’s threat to impose a 50 percent tariff on Beijing if it ships advanced weapons to Tehran, these comprise two simultaneous escalations with the world’s other superpower—with no clear endgame.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the UAE’s special envoy on Monday that “blocking the Strait of Hormuz is not in the common interest of the international community.” That’s diplomat-speak for, “We’re not cooperating with this.” The blockade Trump announced is now running headlong into the one country with both the motive and the means to keep Iranian oil flowing regardless.
International law analysts were equally clear: the U.S. has no legal authority to close or impede transit passage through the Strait. Only Iran and Oman, as coastal states, have that jurisdiction, and even they are prohibited from suspending transit passage.
In short, Trump ordered a blockade of a waterway he has no legal right to blockade, to enforce terms he couldn’t get Iran to accept at the negotiating table, while claiming allied support he doesn’t have.
These delusional, maximalist demands, which already rendered the Islamabad talks impossible, will likely sink the blockade, too. Trump cannot close a strait that China has committed to keeping open without triggering escalation. And we already know what usually happens when Trump has to face down Xi Jinping.
The autocrat gets voted out
As the Islamabad talks were collapsing, Hungarian voters were delivering a separate verdict on the limits of Trump’s reach. The U.S. had dispatched Vance to Budapest in the final days of the campaign to prop up Viktor Orbán, and Trump had vowed to use “the full Economic Might” of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s economy if Orbán won.
Orbán lost in a historic landslide. Péter Magyar’s Tisza party won 138 of 199 parliamentary seats, a two-thirds supermajority, in the highest voter turnout since the fall of communism. Orbán, who had won four consecutive supermajorities over 16 years, conceded the election to the relief of democracy advocates everywhere. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen noted, “Europe’s heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight. Hungary has chosen Europe.”
This matters far beyond Hungary. Orbán was MAGA’s international flagship, held up by the American right as a working model of illiberal Christian nationalist governance. His reign was proof you could consolidate power, dismantle democratic norms, and still win elections.
Hungarian voters rejected that model by the largest margin in their post-communist history. Sen. Minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had a direct message to send: “Pay attention, Donald Trump. Wannabe dictators wear out their welcome. November 2026 can’t come soon enough.”
By inserting himself directly into those elections, Trump imposed his delusional belief that another country’s presidential endorsement could prop up an autocracy against the will of the voters. At its core, this was an assertion of his power over people who didn’t want it (not unusual for a sexual predator, I should add). If anything, Trump’s interference in the election may have pushed voters toward Péter Magyar and the opposition.
Picking a fight with the Pope
When Trump landed at Joint Base Andrews, he pulled out his phone and attacked Pope Leo XIV.
The trigger apparently was the Pope’s prayer vigil remarks about the “delusion of omnipotence” behind the Iran war. On Truth Social, Trump blasted the pontiff as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” claimed he only got the job because the Vatican wanted the best way to “deal with President Donald J. Trump,” and warned the pope to “stop catering to the Radical Left.” To reporters on the tarmac, Trump said: “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess.”
Leo answered from the papal plane en route to Algeria. “I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel,” he told reporters. Vatican official Fr. Antonio Spadaro went further: “Trump doesn’t debate Leo: he begs him to retreat into a language that he can dominate. The attack is a declaration of impotence … If Leo were irrelevant, he wouldn’t merit a word.”
The response from within Trump’s own coalition was unusually sharp. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was “disheartened” by Trump’s comments. “Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”
Andrew Chesnut, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Catholic studies chair, told Axios he could not think of any historical parallels “from Western Christian majority countries of such pointed and public attacks on the Pope,” and noted that no prominent Catholic voices publicly defended the attacks: “All the major cardinals and bishops who made pronouncements are backing the pope and criticizing Trump.”
Notably, Trump’s approval among white Catholics had already fallen from 59 to 52 percent between February 2025 and January 2026. A Fox poll now has his approval among Catholic voters at 48 percent, with 52 percent disapproving. Catholics are about one in five voters nationally, and Trump won them by somewhere between 10 and 20 points in 2024. That margin is eroding—and that was before he attacked the Pope.
Church historian Massimo Faggioli noted that Pope Leo has managed to reunite bishops who were previously sympathetic to Trump. “MAGA now is different from MAGA before,” Faggioli said. Notre Dame historian Kathleen Sprows Cummings put it more sharply: “For most of this country’s history, Americans viewed the pope as a war-mongering, money-grubbing, anti-democratic menace who had designs on the White House. Today, the menace is in the White House, and the pope is the one defending the ideals of liberty and human dignity.”
Applying Pope Leo’s diagnosis to Trump’s attacks on him, the delusional assumption that a modern American pontiff would simply defer to an American president ignores the pope’s divine authority. It derives from an institution that has lasted for millennia, outlasting emperors, not just second-term presidents.
Jesus Christ, Donald
Then came Trump’s most controversial—and, to his evangelical base, most reviled—move of the week.
Shortly after his attack on the pope, Trump posted an AI-generated painting of himself in a long white robe, one hand resting on the forehead of a man in a hospital bed with light beaming from his head, surrounded by eagles, fireworks, and the Statue of Liberty. The image was broadly read as depicting Trump as Jesus Christ healing the sick.
The backlash came this time not from the left but from the religious right. Conservative evangelical writer Megan Basham called it “OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy.” Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said the president should delete it “no matter the intent.” Conservative activist Brilyn Hollyhand wrote: “This is gross blasphemy. Faith is not a prop. You don’t need to portray yourself as a savior when your record should speak for itself.” David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network—among Trump’s most reliable evangelical defenders—posted: “TAKE THIS DOWN, MR. PRESIDENT. You’re not God. None of us are.”
Trump could have stood by the post, but he chickened out as usual. He even took the post down. Trump later told reporters, rather incredibly, that he didn’t understand what the problem was. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor,” he said, “making people better. And I do make people better.”
The New York Times’ David French wrote in response that the image was “behavior that’s so self-evidently deranged that merely seeing it should lead to fury and disgust,” and expressed concern that some evangelicals had become so captured by Trump that they would not say so publicly.
Trump’s impulse to cast himself as a figure beyond criticism—healer, omnipotent savior, mythical force beyond reproach—ran directly into the one community that takes the question of blasphemy quite seriously.
The price of delusion
All of this “delusional omnipotence” is unfolding, as the AP noted, six months before midterm voting begins. Trump is already contending with low approval ratings and strong dissent from his MAGA base over the cost and direction of the Iran war. And in the near term, he has no easy way out of any of the messes he has created.
He announced a blockade his closest ally disavowed within hours. He poured political capital into propping up a strongman who got demolished by his own people. He attacked an American pope who responded without flinching. And he posted a divine self-portrait, then couldn’t satisfactorily explain why he did it.
Each episode follows the same logic: assert authority you don’t actually have, then have no plan for when the world declines to comply.
In short, a delusion of omnipotence, just as Pope Leo had observed.
Every time Trump reaches for more power than he has, he runs into the limits of what that power can actually do. And each time he runs into those limits without a plan, he pays for it with the coalition that made him president.
As we work our way towards a better future for the internet, the most encouraging and exciting part is the people out there building towards that future. Kickstarter founder Yancey Strickler is one such person, and his new company Metalabel has some extremely interesting projects in the works, including the Dark Forest Operating System. This week, Yancey joins the podcast to talk all about his projects and their role in building a better internet.
In early March, 438 security and privacy researchers from 32 countries signed a massive open letter warning that age verification mandates for the internet are technically impossible to get right, easy to circumvent, a serious threat to privacy and security, and likely to cause more harm than good. While many folks (including us at Techdirt) have been calling out similar problems with age verification, this was basically a ton of experts all teaming up to call out how dangerous the technology is — by any reasonable measure, a hugely significant collective statement from the scientific community on an active area of internet regulation.
It got about a day of press coverage, and then legislators everywhere went right back to doing the thing the scientists just told them was dangerous.
We’ve been writing about the serious problems with age verification mandates for years now. The arguments haven’t changed, because the underlying technical realities haven’t changed. But this letter deserves far more attention than it received because of how thoroughly it tears apart every assumption that age verification proponents rely on.
The letter starts by acknowledging what should be obvious: the signatories share the concerns about kids encountering harmful content online. This matters, because the go-to response to any criticism of age verification is to accuse critics of not caring about children. These are hundreds of scientists saying: we care, we’ve studied this, and what you’re proposing will make things worse.
We share the concerns about the negative effects that exposure to harmful content online has on children, and we applaud that regulators dedicate time and effort to protect them. However, we fear that, if implemented without careful consideration of the technological hazards and societal impact, the new regulation might cause more harm than good.
Some will argue that this is meaningless without a proposed “fix” to the problems facing children online, but that’s nonsense. As these experts argue, the focus on age verification and age gating will make things worse. It’s the classic “we must do something, this is something, therefore we must do this” fallacy dressed up as child protection.
The fact that child safety problems are specific and complex is exactly why simplistic bans and age-gating cause so much damage. And it’s a genuine indictment of our current discourse that refusing to embrace a non-solution somehow gets read as not caring about the problem itself.
From there, the letter walks through the actual problems with these commonly proposed solutions in a level of detail that should be mandatory reading for any legislator voting on these laws. (It almost certainly won’t be, but we can dream.)
First, the biggest problem: these systems are ridiculously easy to circumvent. This point gets hand-waved away constantly by politicians who seem to think that because something sounds like it should work, it must. The scientists have a different view, grounded in actual evidence from actual deployments:
There is ample evidence from existing deployments that lying about age is not hard. It can be as easy as using age-verified accounts borrowed from an elder sibling or friend. In fact, there are reported cases of parents helping their children with age circumvention. There is evidence that, shortly after age-based controls appear, markets and services that sell valid accounts or credentials quickly arise. This enables the use of online services deploying age assurance at an affordable price or even for free. This is the case even if the verification is based on government-issued certificates, as shown by the ease with which fake vaccination certificates could be acquired during the COVID pandemic
We just recently talked about the evidence in Australia showing that a huge percentage of kids have simply learned how to get around age gates. Australia’s biggest accomplishment: teaching kids how to cheat the system.
The letter makes a point that almost never appears in the legislative debates: The threat model for age verification is fundamentally broken because the people building these systems assume the only adversary is a teenager. But since every adult internet user will also be subjected to these checks, and many adults will not want to submit to this kind of surveillance, we’re going to be creating huge incentives for adults to get around these age checks as well, meaning that new industries (some likely to be pretty sketchy) will arise to help people of all ages avoid this kind of surveillance. And that, alone, will make it easier for everyone (kids and adults) to bypass age gates (though in a way that will likely make many people less safe overall):
As its main goal is to restrict the activities of children, it is common to believe that the only adversary is minors trying to bypass age verification. Yet, age verification mechanisms also apply to adults that will have to prove their age in many of their routine online interactions, to access services or to keep them away from children-specific web spaces. As these checks will jeopardize their online experience, adults will have incentives to create means to bypass them both for their own use or to monetize the bypass. Thus, it is foreseeable that an increase in the deployment of age assurance will result in growing availability of circumvention mechanisms, reducing its effectiveness.
The circumvention problem alone should be enough to give legislators pause. But the letter goes further, addressing what happens to people who can’t circumvent the systems, or who try to and end up worse off.
One of the strongest sections addresses the perverse safety consequences. Deplatforming minors from mainstream services doesn’t make them stop using the internet. It pushes them toward less regulated, less secure alternatives where the risks are dramatically higher, and where these services care less about actually taking steps to protect kids:
If minors or adults are deplatformed via age-related bans, they are likely to migrate to find similar services. Since the main platforms would all be regulated, it is likely that they would migrate to fringe sites that escape regulation. This would not only negate any benefit of the age-based controls but also expose users to other dangers, such as scams or malware that are monitored in mainstream platforms but exist on smaller providers. Even if users do not move platforms, attempting circumvention to access mainstream services from a jurisdiction that does not mandate age assurance might also increase their risk. For example, free VPN providers might not follow secure practices or might monetize users’ data (especially non-EU providers that are not subject to data protection obligations), and websites accessed in other jurisdictions through VPNs would not provide the user with the data protection standards and rights which are guaranteed in the EU.
And as we keep explaining: age verification makes adults think they’ve “made the internet safe,” which creates all sorts of downstream problems — including failing to teach young people how to navigate the internet safely, while doing nothing to address the actual threats. As the letter notes, it creates a false sense of security:
The promise of children-specific services that serve as safe spaces is unrealizable with current technology. This means that children might become exposed to predators who infiltrate these spaces, either via circumvention or acquisition of false credentials that allow them to pose as minors in a verifiable way.
So the system designed to “protect the children” could end up creating verified hunting grounds for predators, while simultaneously pushing kids who get locked out of mainstream platforms toward sketchy fringe sites.
Some child safety measure.
The privacy concerns are equally serious. Age verification mandates give online services a justification — indeed, a legal requirement — to collect far more personal data than they currently do. The letter notes that age estimation and age inference technologies are “highly privacy-invasive” and “rely on the collection and processing of sensitive, private data such as biometrics, or behavioural or contextual information.”
And this data will leak. It always does. The letter points to a concrete example: 70,000 users had their government ID photos exposed after appealing age assessment errors on Discord. That’s what happens when you force the creation of massive centralized databases of sensitive identity information. You create targets.
The most alarming part of the letter is the one that gets the least discussion: centralization of power. The scientists warn, bluntly, that age verification infrastructure doubles as censorship infrastructure:
Those deciding which age-based controls need to exist, and those enforcing them gain a tremendous influence on what content is accessible to whom on the internet. Recall that age assurance checks might go well beyond what is regulated in the offline world and set up an infrastructure to enforce arbitrary attribute-based policies online. In the wrong hands, such as an authoritarian government, this influence could be used to censor information and prevent users from accessing services, for example, preventing access to LGBTQ+ content. Centralizing access to the internet easily leads to internet shutdowns, as seen recently in Iran. If enforcement happens at the browser or operating system level, the manufacturers of this software would gain even more control to make decisions on what content is accessible on the Internet. This would enable primarily big American companies to control European citizens’ access to the internet.
This should be the part that makes everyone uncomfortable, regardless of their political orientation.
This brings us to what is already happening to real people right now.
A recent article in The Verge details how age verification systems are creating serious, specific harms for trans internet users. Kansas passed a law invalidating trans people’s driver’s licenses and IDs overnight, requiring them to obtain new IDs with incorrect gender markers. Combine that with age verification laws requiring digital identity checks, and you get exactly the kind of discriminatory exclusion the scientists warned about:
“These systems are specifically designed to look for discrepancies, and they’re going to find them,” said Kayyali. “If you are a woman and anyone on the street would say ‘that’s a woman,’ but that’s not what your ID says, that’s a discrepancy.” The danger of these discrepancies extends not just to trans people, but to anyone else whose appearance doesn’t match normative gendered expectations.
“A lot of age estimation systems are built on a combination of anthropological sex markers and skin texture. This means they fall over and provide inaccurate results when faced with people whose markers and skin texture, well, don’t match,” explains Keyes. For example, one of the most prominent markers algorithms measure to determine sex is the brow ridge. “Suppose you have a trans man on HRT and a trans woman on HRT, the former with low brow ridges and rougher skin, the latter with high ridges and softer skin,” Keyes explains. “The former is likely to have their age overestimated; the latter, underestimated.”
So you have biometric systems that are specifically designed to flag discrepancies between someone’s appearance and their identity documents. And you have a government that is deliberately creating discrepancies in trans people’s identity documents. The result is predictable and ugly: trans people get locked out, flagged, forced to out themselves, or simply blocked from accessing services that everyone else uses freely.
Most of these verification systems are black boxes with no meaningful appeal process. The laws themselves are written with deliberately vague language requiring platforms to verify age through “a commercially available database” or “any other commercially reasonable method,” with nothing about transparency, accuracy, or redress for people who get wrongly flagged or excluded.
And in many of these laws, the definitions of content “harmful to children” are flexible enough to encompass LGBTQ+ communities, information about birth control, and whatever else a given administration decides it doesn’t like. As one of Techdirt’s favorite technology and speech lawyers, Kendra Albert, noted to The Verge:
“I think it’s fair to say that if you look at the history of obscenity in the US and what’s considered explicit material, stuff with queer and trans material is much more likely to be considered sexually explicit even though it’s not. You may be in a circumstance where sites with more content about queer and trans people are more likely to face repercussions for not implementing appropriate age-gating or being tagged as explicit.”
So to summarize: the age verification infrastructure being built across the world (1) doesn’t actually work to keep kids from accessing content, (2) pushes kids toward less safe alternatives, (3) creates verified “safe spaces” that predators can infiltrate, (4) forces massive collection of sensitive personal data that will inevitably leak, (5) creates infrastructure purpose-built for censorship and authoritarian control, (6) systematically discriminates against trans people, people of color, the elderly, immigrants, and anyone whose appearance doesn’t match neat bureaucratic categories, (7) concentrates enormous power over internet access in the hands of governments and a handful of tech companies, and (8) lacks any scientific evidence that it will actually improve children’s mental health or safety.
Seems like a problem.
And 438 scientists from 32 countries put their names on a letter saying so. The letter closes with this:
We believe that it is dangerous and socially unacceptable to introduce a large-scale access control mechanism without a clear understanding of the implications that different design decisions can have on security, privacy, equality, and ultimately on the freedom of decision and autonomy of individuals and nations.
“Dangerous and socially unacceptable.” That isn’t just me being dramatic. That’s the considered, collective judgment of hundreds of researchers whose professional expertise is specifically in the systems being deployed.
Meanwhile, the laws keep passing. Nobody seems to have bothered asking the scientists. Or, more accurately, the scientists volunteered their expertise in the most public way possible, and everyone in a position to act on it decided that the political appeal of “protecting the children” was more important than whether the proposed method of protection actually protects children, or whether it creates a sprawling new infrastructure for surveillance, discrimination, and censorship that will be almost impossible to dismantle once it’s built.
The scientists’ letter called for studying the benefits and harms of age verification before mandating it at internet scale. That seems like a comically low bar. “Maybe understand whether this works before requiring it everywhere” shouldn’t be a controversial position. And yet here we are, with legislators around the world charging ahead, building systems that security experts have told them are broken, in pursuit of goals that the evidence says these systems can’t achieve, at a cost to privacy, security, equality, and freedom that nobody in a position of power seems interested in calculating.
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If you’re not corrupt, you generally don’t have to say certain things.
Let’s take a look at ex-NYC mayor Eric Adams who, while dealing with plenty of corruption investigations and allegations, protested his innocence by saying stuff no one who wasn’t hip deep in corruption would ever say:
“Investigators have not indicated to us the mayor or his staff are targets of any investigation,” the mayor’s chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, said in a statement. “As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has repeatedly made clear that all members of the team need to follow the law.”
This isn’t something that’s nuanced or complex. Most people in any supervisory position never need to tell their subordinates to not break the law. It’s the lowest of low bars that doesn’t even deserve comment, much less “repeatedly.” On the rare occasion that someone does break the law, you may want to reinforce this concept.
But this statement suggests a lot of people working for the mayor really wanted to break the law, but were perhaps occasionally deterred by the “repeated” reminder that breaking the law wasn’t acceptable. Not that this repeated reminder worked. Plenty of people in Mayor Adams’ orbit were subjects of law enforcement investigations. So, this exhortation seems less like a deterrent and more like the laziest form of plausible deniability.
President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting to laughs, according to people with knowledge of the comments. That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.
In one conversation with advisers in the dining room next to the Oval Office last year, Trump said he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he left office, some of the people said.
It’s not just a question of “why would you say that?” It’s also a question of “why would you feel the need to say that?”
We already know Trump isn’t afraid to use his pardon powers to reward supporters and financial benefactors. His mass pardon of January 6 insurrectionists was startling in its transparent self-interest. Trump now appears to be offering pre-emptive pardons, which is only going to encourage his officials to break more laws and engage in more open corruption, now that they’ve been assured they’ll never be punished for it.
“The Wall Street Journal should learn to take a joke, however, the President’s pardon power is absolute,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said.
That deflection is just as damning as Trump’s own statements. Even if he’s just making a joke (something that’s almost impossible to believe since Trump seems incapable of humor, much less self-deprecating humor), it’s an incredibly stupid joke to make when he’s already abused this power to pardon a group of people who committed federal crimes in hopes of illegally elevating him to the position of president despite losing the election.
This “it’s just a joke” deflection is further undercut by the press secretary’s next words: Trump’s “pardon power is absolute.” That says that even if Trump isn’t joking, these pardons are going to happen and no one can stop them from happening.
That’s what really matters here. Trump has nothing to fear from anyone. The Supreme Court has already blessed a lot of his theories of absolute executive power. The only thing stopping Trump from pardoning people who commit crimes on his behalf is shame, and he’s entirely devoid of that human quality.
We can already see the scorched earth this political party will leave behind if it’s forced from office in the next election. All we can hope is that Trump fails to follow through with his pardon threat, allowing a bunch of loyalists to be punished for his actions. And that end result is all but assured. Trump has fired plenty of loyalists and yet still has people willing to be thrown under the bus for the cause. Wait, that’s not entirely accurate. Trump is surrounded by loyalists who are willing to ask where each bus is located and when they should lie down under the wheels.
Of course, this is all win-win for Trump. If he doesn’t pardon anyone, those punished for enabling him will be treated as martyrs. And if he does wipe the slate clean as he exits the Oval Office, he’ll once again escape the accountability that is supposed to come with the position. Given what’s been said by Trump, I’d expect his underlings to amp up their illegal efforts. When you have nothing to lose but your soul, it makes sense to sell it while it’s still a seller’s market.
Since the first court order late 2000’s, European countries have been at the forefront of pirate site-blocking efforts.
These blocking actions initially relied on measures that required Internet providers to restrict access to notorious pirate sites. More recently, however, blocking requirements have spread to other online intermediaries.
For example, in several countries, blocking injunctions expanded to third-party DNS resolvers such as Cloudflare, OpenDNS and Google. Not much later, VPN services became a target, as these could also be used to circumvent blocking orders.
While major rightsholders argue these measures are effective and proportionate, critics highlighted overblocking incidents where anti-piracy measures restricted access to legitimate sites and services, restricting the free flow of information.
A new report published by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) today adds substantial weight to that critique. CEPS is not part of the EU, but it operates as a leading independent think tank that advises on EU policy.
Benefits and Costs of Website-Blocking Legislation
The study, titled The Benefits and Costs of Website-Blocking Legislation: An Economic, Legal and Policy Assessment, examines website-blocking measures across all 27 EU Member States and assesses whether those measures are effective, proportionate, and compatible with EU law.
The report’s central finding is blunt. It concludes that site blocking is associated with substantial risk of unintended consequences and harmful side effects. These adverse effects, including overblocking, are not always fully recognized before site-blocking measures are enacted.
The report
The report suggests that blocking schemes are prone to overblocking because these rightsholders are not liable for mistakes, nor do they bear the costs, which are typically paid by the ISPs or other intermediaries.
“These problems are exacerbated by the fact that rightsholders bear none of the costs of website blocking and are thus incentivised to pursue stringent blocking orders without concern for the collateral damage they cause – there is no back-pressure,” the report reads.
Italy and Spain: A Pattern of Collateral Damage
The report examines six EU jurisdictions in detail, and in each case, the findings are critical of site blocking.
Italy’s Piracy Shield, operated by regulator AGCOM, requires ISPs to block notified domains and IP addresses within 30 minutes, with no prior court order. This system has repeatedly resulted in overblocking, where the anti-piracy system blocked access to legitimate sites and services.
Instead of addressing the collateral damage concerns, AGCOM fined Cloudflare €14.2 million in January, after the company refused to globally filter its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. Cloudflare has since appealed the fine, while challenging the legitimacy of the Piracy Shield system.
Spain has also seen reports of similar collateral damage through its blocking regime. For example, the report notes that when LaLiga was granted a court order in its favor, it targeted a series of Cloudflare-owned IP addresses starting in February 2025. These blocked pirate streams, but also 3,300 lawful services that used the same infrastructure.
“The collateral damage was significant for ordinary users, businesses, and services that had no connection whatsoever to piracy,” the report notes, adding that the court formally dismissed Cloudflare’s appeal in March 2025.
Meanwhile, in Belgium, site-blocking orders have targeted DNS resolvers, which led to OpenDNS temporarily exiting the country in April 2025. The company eventually returned as the ruling was suspended pending appeal, but by then it had already done its damage.
“The episode illustrates how overreaching court orders can have unintended consequences for the broader digital ecosystem, and how disproportionate liability exposure can sometimes incentivise service provider withdrawal rather than compliance,” the report writes.
Report Questions Blocking Effectiveness
Beyond the collateral damage, the report also questions whether blocking achieves its stated objective of stopping piracy. After all, users are typically good at bypassing blocking measures.
The report cites various academic studies, including a 2023 paper published by researchers from Chapman University and Carnegie Mellon University, which found that site blocking led to a modest increase in visits to legal sites. According to the report, it’s unclear if these effects last.
“Recent research confirms that blocking can sharply reduce access to targeted IPTV and streaming piracy services, but no study in the past five years provides a rigorous estimate of how long these effects persist,” the report reads.
Interpret with caution
The report does find that illegal consumption of films and music has declined substantially over time. However, it attributes this to increasing availability and affordability of legal content, not to enforcement.
Rightsholders are well aware of the limits of site blocking. In response, they expanded their blocking requests to also cover DNS resolvers and VPN providers, as we have seen in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere.
The CEPS report does not see stricter blocking measures as a solution; it suggests a wide range of other recommendations for the EU, member states, and copyright holders.
IP Blocking Should Be Abolished
The report makes 12 formal recommendations. The most significant is that IP-based blocking should be avoided altogether, due to its inherent tendency to block large numbers of legitimate service sites. DNS-level or URL-level blocking should be used instead.
CEPS points out that this conclusion was also reached following reviews conducted by local telecoms regulator TKK, which effectively banned IP-address blocking in the country.
“To the extent that blocking is used at all, better targeted mechanisms such as DNS-level or URL-level blocking should be used instead, consistent with the Austrian TKK’s reasoning. IP-based blocking is inherently overinclusive because shared IP addresses serve thousands or millions of legitimate domains,” the report reads.
Other recommendations include a requirement for rightsholders to contribute to the costs of implementing blocking measures, and the option to be held liable for damages caused by overblocking at their request.
#
Target
Recommendation Summary
1
Rightsholders
Reflect on pricing schemes and restrictions on availability and convenience, such as geo-blocking. Widespread availability of affordable content is the most effective means of combating piracy.
2
Member States
Measures to assist users in distinguishing legal from illegal content, including improved education, should be part of a comprehensive strategy.
3
European Union
Whether content is illegal or infringing should be judged under the laws of the country of use, not the country of origin.
4
Rightsholders
Whenever legally and practically feasible, rightsholders should first pursue infringers who reproduce content without consent before addressing intermediaries.
5
European Union
Additional EU-level guidance is needed on whether and how to block, taking into account the principle of subsidiarity and the need to avoid market fragmentation.
6
Member States
Blocking orders should be subject to prior or rapid judicial review, as a standard to be required across Member States.
7
European Union
IP-based blocking should be avoided altogether. If blocking is used, better targeted mechanisms like DNS-level or URL-level blocking should be used instead.
8
Member States
Any delegation of blocking authority to private entities must be accompanied by meaningful oversight and safeguards.
9
Member States
Blocking orders should be time-limited with periodic review, and the geographical scope should be clearly defined and limited.
10
European Union
Rightsholders should contribute to implementation costs and bear liability for damages caused by overblocking implemented at their request.
11
Member States
National regulators should assess blocking orders for compliance with Article 3(3) of the Open Internet Regulation before implementation, not merely after the fact.
12
European Union / Member States
Enforcement and coordination of hybrid warfare content blocking should be strengthened at EU level, and national regulators should be provided with sufficient technical capacity and clear guidance for consistent implementation.
The report also calls for all blocking orders to be subject to prior or rapid judicial review, to be time-limited with periodic reviews, and narrow in scope.
According to the report, the UK blocking model comes closest to its ideal. English High Court orders are time-limited, technically evidenced, and require rightsholders to demonstrate that proposed blocking methods will not affect legitimate content. There hasn’t been any significant overblocking reported in the UK either.
Nord Security Funded the Study
CEPS writes that the study was conducted at the request of and with the support of Nord Security, parent company of NordVPN. However, the think tank states that the analysis and conclusions are entirely independent and reflect the views of the authors alone.
Speaking with TorrentFreak, a Nord Security spokesperson confirmed its support of the study while stressing that the research was conducted independently.
“Website-blocking measures are expanding across Europe, yet there has been limited independent analysis of whether they are effective, proportionate, and compatible with EU law. Nord Security funded this CEPS study because we believe policy in this area should be shaped by evidence, not assumptions,” Nord told us.
As one of the world’s most widely used VPN services, NordVPN has a major stake in the blocking debate. The company has been targeted by blocking orders, including in France, where it appealed alongside other VPN services.
Nord Security also attended the report’s presentation in Brussels this afternoon, where its Regulatory Policy & Compliance Counsel Emilija Beržanskaitė was critical about site-blocking efforts. At the same hearing, the EU’s Intellectual Property Office and the EU’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology were also present.
For now, the report arrives at a moment when intermediaries are pushing back against blocking regimes across Europe, while the European Commission is yet to issue harmonized guidance on how member states should address blocking concerns.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
More than 1,000 top Hollywood professionals ranging from Glenn Close to Denis Villeneuve have signed off on a new letter opposing the merger between Larry Ellison’s Paramount/CBS and Warner Brothers, warning that the massive $111 billion deal will result in unprecedented layoffs at a time when Hollywood, and American consumers, are already reeling from layoffs and higher costs.
“This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries—and the audiences we serve—can least afford it,” the authors wrote. “The result will be fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world. Alarmingly, this merger would reduce the number of major U.S. film studios to just four.”
As we’ve noted previously, the massive combined debt created between the Skydance/CBS merger and the upcoming Warner Brothers merger would cause unprecedented layoffs across Hollywood, despite David Ellison’s repeated false claims to the contrary.
Ellison’s over-extension on AI, and the unprecedented debt load from his media ambitions, could easily combine to result in financial headaches that would make past Warner Brothers mergers, including the disastrous AT&T ownership period, seem quaint.
With Trump corruption ensuring no meaningful federal review of the deal (despite ongoing pretense by his DOJ), the most likely avenue for a blockade of the deal would come courtesy of a lawsuit by a coalition of states attorneys general, likely led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“We are grateful for their leadership, and stand ready to support all efforts to preserve competition, protect jobs, and ensure a vibrant future for our industry, for American culture, and for our single most significant export,” the authors note.
When you have competition, your story doesn’t have to justify the absolute price, simply the difference between you and the next-best option.
Price is based on value, not on the cost of production.
Thanks to Baumol’s cost disease, productivity doesn’t always correlate with the price of labor.
Luxury goods are worth more because they cost more. If you sell a luxury item, raise your price and then improve the story to make it a bargain.
It’s better to explain your fair price once than to apologize for low quality over and over.
Asking, “what’s your budget?” is lazy and selfish. Your job is to figure out what your client wants, what they’re afraid of, and what sort of story they are eager to buy.
When everything else is equal, we always want the cheapest option. But everything else is rarely equal.
When someone says, “that’s too expensive,” what they mean is that the story you’ve told them so far (and the reputation you’ve earned) doesn’t match the price you’re charging. You probably don’t need a lower price, but you might need to earn a better story.
“It might not be for you,” is almost always part of “we make the best (for someone).”
Bargains, sales and coupons are a sport and a narrative. They’re not just a discount, they create their own sort of value and expectation.
Convenience is often underappreciated as a component of value.
The customers you get because you are the cheapest are the first ones to leave when someone else is even cheaper.
The problem with racing to the bottom is that you might win.
The most resilient slogan you can earn is, “you’ll pay a bit more, but you’ll get more than you paid for.”
In praise of (some) compartmentalization (permalink)
If there's one FAQ I get Q'ed most F'ly, it's this: "How do you get so much done?" The short answer is, "I write when I'm anxious (which is how I came to write nine books during lockdown)." The long answer is more complicated.
The first complication to understand is that I have lifelong, degenerating chronic pain that makes me hurt from the base of my skull to the soles of my feet – my whole posterior chain. On a good day, it hurts. On a bad day, it hurts so bad that it's all I can think about.
Unless…I work. If I can find my way into a creative project, the rest of the world just kind of fades back, including my physical body. Sometimes I can get there through entertainment, too – a really good book or movie, say, but more often I find myself squirming and needing to get up and stretch or use a theragun after a couple hours in a movie theater seat, even the kind that reclines. A good conversation can do it, too, and is better than a movie or a book. The challenge and engagement of an intense conversation – preferably one with a chewy, productive and interesting disagreement – can take me out of things.
There's a degree to which ignoring my body is the right thing to do. I've come to understand a lot of my pain as being a phantom, a pathological failure of my nervous system to terminate a pain signal after it fires. Instead of fading away, my pain messages bounce back and forth, getting amplified rather than attenuated, until all my nerves are screaming at me. Where pain has no physiological correlate – in other words, where the ache is just an ache, without a strain or a tear or a bruise – it makes sense to ignore it. It's actually healthy to ignore it, because paying attention to pain is one of the things that can amplify it (though not always).
But this only gets me so far, because some of my pain does have a physiological correlate. My biomechanics suck, thanks to congenital hip defects that screwed up the way I walked and sat and lay and moved for most of my life, until eventually my wonky hips wore out and I swapped 'em for a titanium set. By that point, it was too late, because I'd made a mess of my posterior chain, all the way from my skull to my feet, and years of diligent physio, swimming, yoga, occupational therapy and physiotherapy have barely made a dent. So when I sit or stand or lie down, I'm always straining something, and I really do need to get up and move around and stretch and whatnot, or sure as hell I will pay the price later. So if I get too distracted, then I start ignoring the pain I need to be paying attention to, and that's at least as bad as paying attention to the pain I should be ignoring.
Which brings me to anxiety. These are anxious times. I don't know anyone who feels good right now. Particularly this week, as the Strait of Epstein emergency gets progressively worse, and there's this January 2020 sense of the crisis on the horizon, hitting one country after another. Last week, Australia got its last shipment of fossil fuels. This week, restaurants in India are all shuttered because of gas rationing. People who understand these things better than I do tell me that even if Trump strokes out tonight and Hegseth overdoes the autoerotic asphyxiation, it'll be months, possibly years, before things get back to "normal" ("normal!").
Any time I think about this stuff for even a few minutes, I start to feel that covid-a-comin', early-2020 feeling, only it's worse this time around, because I literally couldn't imagine what covid would mean when it got here, and now I know.
When I start to feel those feelings, I can just sit down and start thinking with my fingers, working on a book or a blog-post. Or working on an illustration to go with one of these posts, which is the most delicious distraction, leaving me with just enough capacity to mull over the structure of the argument that will accompany it.
I can't do anything about the impending energy catastrophe, apart from being part of a network of mutual aid and political organizing, so it makes sense not to fixate on it. But there are things that upset me – problems my friends and loved ones are having – where there's such a thing as too much compartmentalization. It's one thing to lose myself in work until the heat of emotion cools so I can think rationally about an issue that's got me seeing red, and another to use work as a way to neglect a loved one who needs attention in the hope that the moment will pass before I have to do any difficult emotional labor.
Compartmentalization, in other words, but not too much compartmentalization. During the lockdown years, I transformed myself into a machine for turning Talking Heads bootlegs into science fiction novels and technology criticism, and that was better than spending that time boozing or scrolling or fighting – but in retrospect, there's probably more I could have done during those hard months to support the people around me. In my defense – in all our defenses – that was an unprecedented situation and we all did the best we could.
Creative work takes me away from my pain – both physical and emotional – because creative work takes me into a "flow" state. This useful word comes to us from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term in the 1960s while he was investigating a seeming paradox: how was it that we modern people had mastered so many of the useful arts and sciences, and yet we seemed no happier than the ancients? How could we make so much progress in so many fields, and so little progress in being happy?
In his fieldwork, Csikszentmihalyi found that people reported the most happiness while they were doing difficult things well – when your "body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." He called this state "flow."
As Derek Thompson says, the word "flow" implies an effortlessness, but really, it's the effort – just enough, not too much – that defines flow-states. We aren't happiest in a frictionless world, but rather, in a world of "achievable challenges":
Thompson relates this to "the law of familiar surprises," an idea he developed in his book Hit Makers, which investigated why some media, ideas and people found fame, while others languished. A "familiar surprise" is something that's "familiar but not too familiar."
He thinks that the Hollywood mania for sequels and reboots is the result of media execs chasing "familiar surprises." I think there's something to this, but we shouldn't discount the effect that monopolization has on the media: as companies get larger and larger, they end up committing to larger and larger projects, and you just don't take the kinds of risks with a $500m movie that you can take with a $5m one. If you're spending $500m, you want to hedge that investment with as many safe bets as you can find – big name stars, successful IP, and familiar narrative structures. If the movie still tanks, at least no one will get fired for taking a big, bold risk.
Today, we're living in a world of extremely familiar, and progressively less surprising culture. AI slop is the epitome of familiarity, since by definition, AI tries to make a future that is similar to the past, because all it can do is extrapolate from previous data. That's a fundamentally conservative, uncreative way to think about the world:
The tracks the Spotify algorithm picks out of the catalog are going to be as similar to the ones you've played in the past as it can make them – and the royalty-free slop tracks that Spotify generates with AI or commissions from no-name artists will be even more insipidly unsurprising:
Wu says it's a mistake to attribute the regretted hours of scrolling to addiction or a failure of self-control. Rather, the user is falling into "passive flow," a condition arising from three factors:
I. Engagement without a clear goal;
II. A loss of self-awareness – of your body and your mental state;
III. Losing track of time.
I instantly recognize II. and III. – they're the hallmarks of the flow states that abstract me away from my own pain when I'm working. The big difference here is I. – I go to work with the clearest of goals, while "passive flow" is undirected (Thompson also cites psychologist Paul Bloom, who calls the scroll-trance "shitty flow." In shitty flow, you lose track of the world and its sensations – but in a way that you later regret.)
Thompson has his own name for this phenomenon of algorithmically induced, regret-inducing flow: he calls it "zombie flow." It's flow that "recapitulates the goal of flow while evacuating the purpose."
Zombie flow is "progress without pleasure" – it's frictionless, and so it gives us nothing except that sense of the world going away, and when it stops, the world is still there. The trick is to find a way of compartmentalizing that rewards attention with some kind of productive residue that you can look back on with pride and pleasure.
I wouldn't call myself a happy person. I don't think I know any happy people right now. But I'm an extremely hopeful person, because I can see so many ways that we can make things better (an admittedly very low bar), and I have mastered the trick of harnessing my unhappiness to the pursuit of things that might make the world better, and I'm gradually learning when to stop escaping the pain and confront it.
"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
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
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With all that RFK Jr. has done, and failed to do, as the Secretary of HHS, he should be terribly busy cleaning up mess after mess. The measles outbreak that is going to cause America to lose its elimination status is still ongoing and on pace to quadruple last year’s case total, so he could work on that. He could be busy finding a CDC Director, a position left vacant well beyond the federally mandated limit of 210 days. Or a Surgeon General. Or he could be working to undo the harms and effects of the misinformation that he and Trump have been pumping into the media ecosystem.
But it seems that, despite reporting that the White House wants to rein him in so he doesn’t get the GOP murdered in the midterms, Kennedy has instead decided its time to make history as the first sitting cabinet secretary to host his very own podcast.
The show, titled “The Secretary Kennedy Podcast,” will launch next week and feature Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine crusader who has reshaped the country’s health policy, in conversation with doctors, scientists and agency staff, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials told the AP ahead of the launch. In the teaser video, in a slick HHS-branded studio with ominous music playing in the background, Kennedy bills it as a new way to expose corruption and lies that have made Americans sick.
“We’re going to name the names of the forces that obstruct the paths to public health,” Kennedy says in the nearly 90-second clip.
We all know where this is going. Before entering into government, Kennedy hosted his own podcast previously. It covered such sane topics as:
Google and Mind Control
Vaccines During Pregnancy (featuring anti-vaxxer Lyn Redwood)
EMR, Cell Phones, & Cancer
IRS: Pro-Pharma Anti-Health
Censorship & Twitter Files with Matt Taibbi
So, you know, a conspiracy theory podcast, featuring all of Kennedy’s favorite topics. Anyone looking at this podcast as a source of information is clinically insane. This is just another megaphone through which to growl his anti-science, anti-medicine conspiratorial views. That he is making history in doing so when he has far better things he could be doing is simply the rotten cherry on top of this shit sundae.
Tyler Burger, HHS digital communications manager and the producer of the new podcast, said while Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary has a podcast, officials believe Kennedy’s will be the first to be hosted by a sitting cabinet secretary.
“We’re kind of bringing podcasting into the government as an official form and arm of our messaging,” Burger said. He said the set for the show was pieced together largely with items the agency already had, and has the capacity for a total of four people to sit in conversation together.
While I appreciate Kennedy for giving me what will surely be much, much more about which to write, there is danger in this. You can be sure that Kennedy will not be inviting dissenting viewpoints onto his show. Anyone coming across it, with the imprimatur of a sitting Secretary as its host, may fall victim to thinking that what is being presented is official federal policy, the viewpoints of real doctors and scientists, or… you know… sane.
It won’t be any of that. I sincerely hope someone in the White House catches wind of this and puts a stop to it. Sadly, I doubt that is forthcoming.
The Trump administration has restricted the First Amendment right to record law enforcement by issuing an unprecedented nationwide flight restriction preventing private drone operators, including professional and citizen journalists, from flying drones within half a mile of any ICE or CBP vehicle.
In January, EFF and media organizations including The New York Times and The Washington Post responded to this blatant infringement of the First Amendment by demanding that the FAA lift this flight restriction. Over two months later, we’re still waiting for the FAA to respond to our letter.
The First Amendment guarantees the right to record law enforcement. As we have seen with the extrajudicial killings of George Floyd, Renée Good, and Alex Pretti, capturing law enforcement on camera can drive accountability and raise awareness of police misconduct.
A 21-Month Long “Temporary” Flight Restriction?
The FAA regularly issues temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) to prevent people from flying into designated airspace. TFRs are usuallyissued during natural disasters, or to protect major sporting events and government officials like the president, and in most cases last mere hours.
Not so with the restriction numbered FDC 6/4375, which started on January 16, 2026. This TFR lasts for 21 months—until October 29, 2027—and covers the entire nation. It prevents any person from flying any unmanned aircraft (i.e., a drone) within 3000 feet, measured horizontally, of any of the “facilities and mobile assets,” including “ground vehicle convoys and their associated escorts,” of the Departments of Defense, Energy, Justice, and Homeland Security. Violators can be subject to criminal and civil penalties, and risk having their drones seized or destroyed.
In practical terms, this TFR means that anyone flying their drone within a half mile of an ICE or CBP agent’s car (a DHS “mobile asset”) is liable to face criminal charges and have their drone shot down. The practical unfairness of this TFR is underscored by the fact that immigration agents often use unmarked rental cars, use cars without license plates, or switch the license plates of their cars to carry out their operations. Nor do they provide prior warning of those operations.
The TFR is an Unconstitutional Infringement of Free Speech
While the FAA asserts that the TFR is grounded in its lawful authority, the flight restriction not only violates multiple constitutional rights, but also the agency’s own regulations.
First Amendment violation. As we highlighted in the letter, nearly every federal appeals court has recognized the First Amendment right of Americans to record law enforcement officers performing their official duties. By subjecting drone operators to criminal and civil penalties, along with the potential destruction or seizure of their drone, the TFR punishes—without the required justifications—lawful recording of law enforcement officers, including immigration agents.
Fifth Amendment violation. The Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to due process, which includes being given fair notice before being deprived of liberty or property by the government. Under the flight restriction, advanced notice isn’t even possible. As discussed above, drone operators can’t know whether they are within 3000 horizontal feet of unmarked DHS vehicles. Yet the TFR allows the government to capture or even shoot down a drone if it flies within the TFR radius, and to impose criminal and civil penalties on the operator.
Violations of FAA regulations. In issuing a TFR, the FAA’s own regulations require the agency to “specify[] the hazard or condition requiring” the restriction. Furthermore, the FAA must provide accredited news representatives with a point of contact to obtain permission to fly drones within the restricted area. The FAA has satisfied neither of these requirements in issuing its nationwide ban on drones getting near government vehicles.
EFF Demands Rescission of the TFR
We don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the TFR was put in place in January 2026, at the height of the Minneapolis anti-ICE protests, shortly after the killing of Renée Good and shortly before the shooting of Alex Pretti. After both of those tragedies, civilian recordings played a vital role in contradicting the government’s false account of the events.
By punishing civilians for recording federal law enforcement officers, the TFR helps to shield ICE and other immigration agents from scrutiny and accountability. It also discourages the exercise of a key First Amendment right. EFF has long advocated for the right to record the police, and exercising that right today is more important than ever.
Finally, while recording law enforcement is protected by the First Amendment, be aware that officers may retaliate against you for exercising this right. Please refer to our guidance on safely recording law enforcement activities.
The government’s reliance on grand juries to bring charges against activists, protesters, and the president’s personal enemies has been misplaced. Increasingly, grand juries are refusing to give the government what it wants: rubber-stamped indictments that will allow it to move forward with vindictive prosecutions.
But there’s still something grand juries offer that regular courts can’t: secrecy. If the government doesn’t want the public to know how it’s building cases, it’s best bet to drag everyone involved in front of a grand jury whose secrecy can’t easily be pierced without a concerted effort by involved parties and the assistance of sympathetic judges.
There’s a good reason the government doesn’t want the public to know what it’s doing in this case detailed by Ryan Devereaux for The Intercept. There’s some shady stuff happening here, along with some incredibly incompetent stuff.
According to a subpoena obtained by The Intercept, Reddit has until April 14 to provide a wide range of personal data on one of its users, whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been trying unsuccessfully to identify for more than a month.
That’s the brief summation. The details, however, make this whole thing look sketch as fuck. Reddit received the first demand for this user’s data on March 4. Two days later, it informed the user that the government was seeking this information. The Reddit user secured legal representation from the Civil Liberties Defense Center.
The user’s lawyers looked through the targeted account and couldn’t find anything that might be considered criminal.
Commenting on a Minnesota Star Tribune article, another Reddit user posted that Ross might be welcomed as a hero in Florida or Texas. John Doe responded by sharing that Ross had lived in Chaska, Minnesota; grew up in Indiana; and served in the Indiana National Guard — biographical details that were circulating widely at the time. “Hopefully he moves up to Stillwater State Penitentiary,” they wrote.
In another post, a Reddit user asked what they should write on an anti-ICE protest sign. John Doe suggested the lyrics to a song: “Urine speaks louder than words.” In a third instance, Doe wrote, “TSA sucks and we all know it.” According to the Reddit user’s attorneys, these were the most aggressive posts they could find.
While one would hardly expect legal reps to dish out inculpatory information in response to journalist’s questions, the lack of anything possibly law-breaking speaks for itself. The whole thing looks like a fishing expedition by the DOJ on behalf of ICE — something that’s confirmed by the administrative subpoena ICE issued in hopes of unmasking this user.
In its summons, ICE indicated the basis for its request was a provision of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. John Doe informed the court that they had nothing to do with the kind of activities at issue in the near-century-old statute, which governs boat show sales, wild animal imports, forfeited wines and spirits, and cross-border trade in other goods.
In case you’ve forgotten, the C in ICE stands for “Customs.” That means whoever “wrote” this subpoena didn’t even care enough to ensure the correct boilerplate was copy-pasted into the subpoena. ICE wants to punish this person for their speech, which it seemingly believes adds up to a federal crime. In support of its demand for user info, it inserted boilerplate pertaining to customs enforcement.
Then again, this might have been intentional laziness. As The Intercept notes, the Trump administration tried to use the same customs statutes to unmask his critics back in 2017. Those efforts were criticized by the still-operable Office of the Inspector General.
ICE withdrew the tariff-related subpoena. Then the DOJ sent another one nearly a month later, this time targeting Reddit itself:
This time, instead of requesting information on an individual user, the government ordered Reddit itself to appear before a grand jury — not in California, but in Washington.
The request came not from an ICE field agent but rather from a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in D.C., where Reddit has received the highest number of federal law enforcement information requests. The records sought spanned a period roughly three times longer than what ICE had originally requested.
That’s the backdoor the DOJ is trying to use. It can’t get the stuff it thinks will generate an indictment via the usual Smoot-Hawley whatever the fuck. And since it’s not interested in seeking an actual warrant (which would require judicial review) to compel Reddit to produce user data and information, it’s hoping it can accomplish the same thing in a secret court far away from anything resembling an adversarial process, much less the watchful eyes of a federal judge.
That’s the Department of Justice deliberately routing around a crucial part of the justice system in hopes of securing ill-gotten “wins” against critics of Trump, his policies, and his administration in general. With any luck, this attempt won’t work because it’s been exposed. But rest assured, this administration will never stop trying to bypass the systems of checks and balances that might occasionally prevent it from doing whatever it wants.
Since the first court order 
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