Notices by Karl Bode (karlbode@masto.ai)

Over at Dame Magazine I wrote about how America's right wing propaganda problem--and our bipartisan refusal to take media reform seriously--might very well be terminal:

https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/01/02/americas-right-wing-propaganda-problem-might-be-terminal/

remember to thank your favorite trump supporter in a few years

I wrote a little bit about what you can expect under a new Trump FCC.

spoiler: absolutely none of it is good

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/13/if-you-like-being-ripped-off-by-comcast-youll-love-trumps-likely-new-fcc-boss/

if I can't violate labor laws and dump toxic heavy metal wastewater into coastal wildlife preserves all human progress will immediately end

post-Chevron, corporate lawyers will insist that ANY regulatory effort to protect consumers or implement reforms violates the law, regardless of impact or logic
and net neutrality is going to be one of the earliest casualties

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/06/6th-circuit-temporarily-puts-net-neutrality-on-ice-as-the-post-chevron-gop-assault-on-the-regulatory-state-accelerates/

step 1: lobby Congress into total corrupt gridlock and dysfunction

step 2: bribe the supreme court so it rules that independent regulators lack all independence and authority

step3: tell anybody who complains that "if the public wants (X) reform, Congress has to pass a new law"

step 4: see step 1

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/fcc-suffers-major-setback-in-attempt-to-defend-net-neutrality-rules/

spoiler: they don't like that Biden's female, minority FTC enforcer has actually engaged in something vaguely resembling real antitrust reform for the first time in decades

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/18/business/silicon-valley-tech-billionaires-trump/index.html

you read through story this and at no point does the author try to balance their claims with, you know, actual reality or context, or even a fleeting mention of the fact the guy they're actually supporting is a criminal racist sociopath looking to dismantle the pillars of democracy

https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/16/andreessen-horowitz-co-founders-explain-why-theyre-supporting-trump/

again, the press' failure in this moment is so severe, profound, and widespread that it almost doesn't feel real

I'm starting to feel like I'm one of the people in a John Carpenter film trying to get people to see the fucking all-obliterating monster at the door and everybody's just standing around with a slack-jawed look on their face wondering why I'm being so loud at the tupperware party

I 100% believe this is a fatal gut shot to any sort of coherent, stable federal governance

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-chevron-regulations-environment-4ae73d5a79cabadff4da8f7e16669929

shitty Reason columnists and Libertarian think tankers covertly on company payrolls will spend the next six straight months pretending critics of this decision are being hyperbolic, but I don't think the deadly impact on consumer protection, the environment, and public safety is even fathomable

and the feckless, "both sides" press coverage is going to fail utterly to properly explain the stakes of this ruling to the public, in part because the billionaire owners of a highly consolidated media support the total lobotomization of the regulatory state

now that they've fully defanging federal regulators, ensuring ANY attempt at reform is bogged down in perpetual legal bog, the corporatists and fascists can shift their cooperative focus toward crushing the last vestiges of state rights

everything is a local fight now

this is why we can't have nice things

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/04/trumplicans-successfully-kill-program-that-helped-poor-americans-afford-broadband/

so you ban tiktok with a giant patriotic flourish

but you leave data brokers unregulated and refuse to pass a privacy law

dodgy and unregulated international data brokers turn around sell all the same (probably more) sensitive user data to chinese intelligence anyway

problem solved ???

also if congress gave two shits about national security, they would meaningfully combat corruption and avoid making NYC real estate conmen with fourth grade reading levels president

and if they gave the slightest shit about consumer privacy they'd pass a meaningful privacy law for the internet era and regulate data brokers

but they simply don't, and so much of the tiktok hyperventilation in Congress (and at the FCC) is entirely performative

tiktok isn't absent of privacy, natsec, and surveillance issues, but 90% of the "ban tiktok" sentiment in Congress is mostly driven by racism and Facebook protectionism

this is not a regulatory body that actually gives two shits about consumer privacy or security

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/07/tech/congress-bill-bans-tiktok-america/index.html

so not only did Amazon charge Prime Video customers (who already pay $140 annually) $3 extra every month just to avoid ads that didn't exist previously, they stripped away functionality unless you pay the troll toll

enshittify ALL the things!

https://www.theverge.com/24071417/amazon-prime-video-no-dolby-vision-atmos