Mike Masnick

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Mike Masnick

This is part two of my series on using AI tools to fight back against tech company control. Part one explained why we can get beyond just begging billionaires to fix our tools. This part shows exactly how I built my own tool — with zero coding skills and almost no money. A few weeks back, I got tired of productivity apps that don’t work the way I think and decided to build my own. Not for millions of users or venture capital — just for me.

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Mike Masnick

This is part one of a two-part series on using AI tools as one piece to fight back against tech company control of our lives. Part two shares the details of how I built my own task management tool in a few days for next to no money and without any coding skills. But first, we need to talk about why this matters. Earlier this year, I wrote about how people need to take back some control and agency over the tools they use online. As I wrote at the time:The internet was supposed to liberate us.

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Mike Masnick

A federal appeals court just delivered yet another reality check to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s transparently retaliatory investigation into Media Matters — and the timing couldn’t be better, given that the FTC just opened its own bullshit investigation into the same organization for the same supposed “crime”: reporting factual information that made Elon Musk sad.

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Mike Masnick

Picture this: You’re a researcher who has spent years developing a grant proposal, gone through layers of expert review, and received National Science Foundation (NSF) approval. Then some kid barely out of college — whose main qualification appears to be founding a company that puts ads on the blockchain — logs into a Zoom meeting, pays more attention to his fingernails than the discussion, and kills your grant with a disinterested thumbs down. Welcome to science under DOGE. This isn’t hyperbole.

4 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Mike Masnick

When NPR sued Donald Trump Tuesday, it had an easy argument to go with. Normally, in First Amendment retaliation cases against the government, you have to pull together a bunch of disparate strands to prove the retaliatory intent of the actions.