They know where you've been and they're going to share it. A security researcher has identified 287 Chrome extensions that allegedly exfiltrate browsing history data for an estimated 37.4 million installations.…

The Pentagon's new high-energy laser works great against party balloons.

The airspace shutdown over El Paso grounded every flight at the international airport and forced medevac planes to reroute 45 minutes to Las Cruces, New Mexico. The administration blamed Mexican cartel drones breaching U.S. — Read the rest

The post "Cartel drone threat" that shut El Paso's airport was a party balloon appeared first on Boing Boing.

If a beautiful woman in a surgical mask asks if she's pretty, the correct answer — according to decades of Japanese folklore — is "average." Anything else and you're in trouble. Say no, and she kills you with her long scissors. — Read the rest

The post If this masked woman asks if she's pretty, the correct answer is "average" appeared first on Boing Boing.

In life, some things are always true. One such truth is that wherever there is instability, pain and suffering in the world, former Navy SEAL and mercenary kingpin Erik Prince will be there trying to make a profit out of it. Like a fly on an open wound…

The Trump loyalist is now operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And he's got a drone armada and a bunch of Israeli contractors with him. Prince signed a deal with Congo in 2025 to support the government in a conflict with Rwanda-backed rebels.

Haaretz reported on 11 February:

Blackwater founder Erik Prince deployed a private security force to operate drones and help the Democratic Republic of Congo's army secure the strategic city of Uvira against Rwanda-backed rebels

His entourage includes:

a private security force trained by Israelis to operate drones and help the Democratic Republic of Congo's army secure the strategic city of Uvira

But Prince, descendant of a line of US industrialists, is a busy man if nothing else…

Prince made a name in Iraq, where his now-defunct firm Blackwater is famous for the massacring of civilians. The early stages of that unpopular US occupation saw a boom in private military firms being used by the US and others, as well as by foreign oil firms. Trump eventually pardoned those convicted for the killings. Prince raked in millions anyway.

Blackwater was re-branded as Xe in 2009, then Academi in 2011. What hasn't changed is that Prince has been making money out of war and chaos for decades.

Prince has interests in Ukrainian drones, Israeli occupation and the US dirty war with Venezuela. Prince sought to securitise Europe's frontier against desperate refugees. He has been described as a real-life Bond villain and a hardcore Trump man from the start:

Erik Prince has always been politically connected to Maga, the Maga movement, and that's going back to 2015.

He is also reported to be:

 a central figure among a web of other contractors trying to sell Trump advisers on a $25bn deal to privatize the mass deportations of 12 million migrants.

Prince also ran private military contractors to Haiti and is implicated in illegal arms deals in Libya. There doesn't seem to be an authoritarian regime or shadowy outfit he won't roll with: the UAE, Ecuador, China, Russia, the CIA… and the list goes on.

Now we know what sort of man this is, back to Congo.

Kinshasa hired the mercenaries

to help secure and improve tax revenue collection from Congo's vast mineral reserves.

Sources in the country told the press:

Prince's contractors operated in coordination with Israeli advisers who were involved in training two Congolese special forces battalions on day and night operations, according to a fifth source briefed on the operation.

They added the Israeli mandate is "training only":

The AFC/M23 rebels briefly seized the city on the border with Burundi in December in a major blow to ongoing US- and Qatar-backed peace negotiations. They withdrew after Washington threatened to retaliate

And Hareetz said:

The US has offered Congo support brokering an end to the conflict in return for access to the nation's critical mineral resources.

Trump's art of the deal at work again…

Now Prince's mercenaries are on the ground. Neither his nor the Congolese government's spokespeople offered any comment. Prince is again confirming his role as colonialist grim reaper figure. In truth, he probably relishes that persona. It follows that he and Trump are natural bedfellows. Like the US president, Prince embodies the spirit of American capitalism and its role across the world. The trail of bodies his operations have left behind seems to confirm this.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

The UK government has admitted that a study into the suitability of Scottish sites for new nuclear power projects could have been "a waste" of money. The government commissioned Great British Energy-Nuclear (GBE-N), a public body, to carry out the study.

The revelation came after Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) secretary of state Ed Miliband told Scottish journalists in October 2025 that:

given the growing interest in nuclear in Scotland, I'm asking GBE-N to assess Scotland's capability for new nuclear power stations, including at Torness and Hunterston.

This is going to be a very, very big issue in the Scottish election campaign. We are saying yes to new nuclear in Scotland.

Scotland is due to go to the polls to elect a new Scottish parliament and Scottish government in May 2026. Labour is hoping to wrest back control from the Scottish National Party (SNP).

In an article about the same interview published in October 2025, the Scotsman newspaper reported that a "senior UK government source" had said they were considering submitting planning applications for new nuclear developments at Torness and Hunterston because they expected a Scottish Labour victory at the Holyrood election.

The UK Labour Party and Scottish Labour support nuclear power and nuclear weapons. This position is coming under pressure as the Green Party of England and Wales, which vehemently opposes all nuclear, increasingly challenges Labour in public opinion polls.

Under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, the government released documents to the Canary about Miliband's request to GBE-N. These included a Q&A document prepared by DESNZ officials. It revealed that officials knew there would be concerns about new nuclear proposals in Scotland.

No new nuclear can be built in Scotland because planning policy is a devolved matter, and the ruling SNP opposes nuclear power. The rebuttal in the DESNZ Q&A was that there is "cross-party interest in new nuclear" in Scotland.

The documents released under FOI also revealed that a DESNZ official, whose name was redacted, had sought to reassure GBE-N colleagues that DESNZ was not "behind the briefing" in an email sent on 22 October 2025 at 4:02pm.

That position was contradicted by an email in a separate earlier conversation where, on 21 October 2025 at 6:46pm, John Staples, DESNZ director for new nuclear strategy and fusion energy, said:

our SpAds [special advisors] want SoS [secretary of state] to be able to say the below to Scottish journalists.

'Below' in the email were lines drafted for Miliband which included:

I will ask Great British Energy - Nuclear to begin assessing Scotland's capability for new nuclear power stations.

The internally prepared Q&A included a question which asked:

Isn't this study a waste of money?

The DESNZ answer said:

New nuclear projects can deliver millions of pounds of investment and thousands of high-quality jobs to a region - UK ministers want to understand the potential for new projects right across Great Britain.

The Canary approached the Labour Party for comment, which deferred to DESNZ. DESNZ did not respond to a request for comment.

A Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) spokesperson told the Canary:

It is obvious that an assessment of the viability of new nuclear sites in Scotland would be a waste of money, since the foremost issue is not the viability of sites but Scottish government policy.

Energy policy is devolved to Holyrood and the Scottish government very sensibly opposes new nuclear plants in Scotland.

There are a whole host of reasons why new nuclear plants in Scotland would be a terrible idea, including the absolutely exorbitant cost of nuclear plant construction, the reliance on destructive and unjust international uranium supply chains, and the enormous and cross-generational burden of decommissioning nuclear plants, which in the case of Dounreay is expected to take hundreds of years.

In particular, the notion that Scotland, which is a net energy exporter and has the potential to become an international renewables powerhouse, should pivot to costly nuclear projects at this stage is somewhat absurd.

Investing the same sums invested in nuclear power plants - scores of billions and climbing for Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C - into the grid, home insulation and the renewables sector across Scotland would be an immeasurably better investment.

For Scottish CND, another concerning element of the renewed push for nuclear power is the deep imbrication [overlapping] of the 'civil' and military nuclear industries, as openly promoted in the 2025 Industrial Strategy.

From this perspective, investment in new nuclear power plants can be seen as defence spending by stealth and a means of shoring up the UK nuclear weapons industry - something which is of no benefit to Scotland and indeed causes major risks and harms in Scottish communities.

Cross-party Scottish politicians elected to the Holyrood and Westminster parliaments criticised the commissioning of the study.

Scottish government energy secretary Gillian Martin MSP told the Canary:

The Scottish government does not support the creation of new nuclear reactors in Scotland.

New nuclear would be incredibly expensive and the levy placed on energy bills to pay for nuclear reactors will cost Scottish electricity bill payers £300m over the next decade.

Nuclear reactors also produce a legacy of dangerous radioactive waste. Instead, we are focused on supporting the development of Scotland's immense renewable energy potential - which provides more jobs, is faster to deliver, is safer, and more cost effective than the creation of new nuclear reactors.

Significant growth in renewables is providing key opportunities for our future energy workforce in Scotland, with independent scenarios from Ernst and Young showing that with the right support, Scotland's low carbon and renewable energy sector could support nearly 80,000 jobs by 2050.

The SNP's Westminster energy spokesperson Graham Leadbitter MP told the Canary:

People in Scotland are already paying a tax for new nuclear power stations in England they neither want nor need, driving up energy bills at a time households are already under serious financial pressures.

Scotland is blessed with an abundance of clean, renewable energy already, enough to power our nation many times over.

So this Westminster obsession with nuclear isn't based on need, or even any desire from people living here who would rather not pay hand over fist for expensive and unnecessary nuclear power.

Instead what they should be focusing on is delivering on their promise to cut energy bills by £300 which have instead, under Labour's rule, risen significantly higher.

People in Scotland are tired of these out-of-touch diktats from Westminster politicians about what should be built here, all while ignoring the genuine concerns of the people who live and work here.

It's no wonder more and more people are concluding that decisions about Scotland should be made in Scotland with the full powers of independence.

Scottish Greens net zero spokesperson Patrick Harvie MSP told the Canary:

There is a clear majority against new nuclear power programmes in Scotland.

New nuclear would waste time, money and political attention which should be spent on the real challenges we face on climate and energy policy.

Scotland has made impressive progress in building an energy system based on renewables, which are cheaper, faster to deliver and far safer for people and the environment. There's still plenty of potential for renewables to keep growing.

The UK government shouldn't be wasting money trying to push nuclear projects on Scotland, against the wishes of Scotland's parliament.

If they care about cutting emissions and cutting fuel poverty, they'd be changing electricity price regulation to pass on the low cost of renewable generation to billpayers, which would cut the cost of living and create a powerful incentive to switch away from fossil fuels for heat and transport.

If the UK government won't do that, it should give Scotland the power to do so for ourselves.

Scotland should not have to deal with the distraction of UK Labour's nuclear fantasy, when we need both governments to scale up and speed up in eradicating fuel poverty and in the race to net zero.

Featured image via the Canary

By Tom Pashby

Findings from a new national survey from Internet Matters and Full Fact highlight a significant challenge to the government's intention to lower the voting age. Extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds risks becoming a missed opportunity to strengthen democratic participation and trust in politics, unless young people get more support to navigate political information online.

The survey quizzed more than 550 young people aged 13-17, and over 800 parents and carers across the UK. It found that young people do not feel well-equipped to assess the political information they are encountering online from a young age.

Children are navigating political content well before voting age. 74% of those aged 13-14 have seen content about news, politics or current affairs online.

Children lack foundational skills for evaluating political information. Only 53% of young people aged 13-17 who have seen political information online are confident in telling whether it's true or false. And just 59% feel confident distinguishing fact from opinion online.

Misinformation and AI are undermining trust in elections. 63% of young people say they're concerned about voters being misled by false or misleading claims during elections. 60% are concerned that AI-generated content may affect the results of a general election. And the same number ignore what politicians and political parties say because they don't know if they can trust them.

Parents think children aren't ready to make informed electoral decisions. 52% of parents think young people are unprepared to vote. Only 49% express confidence in their child's ability to recognise satire.

Young people believe there's a shared responsibility for helping them to identify false or misleading information online. This spans across schools, parents and carers, government, and social media companies.

Internet Matters and Full Fact are calling on parliament and government to take four immediate steps to ensure support for newly enfranchised voters to participate confidently in democratic life.

1. Schools need support to strengthen media and digital literacy across the curriculum through access to high-quality resources and comprehensive teacher training. A recent independent review of the curriculum in England highlighted the need to equip young people with the ability to make informed decisions and to help them to understand how opinions, AI-generated content and satire can all influence democratic participation.

2. The government needs to establish a clear, coordinated national approach to media literacy. This should involve supporting young people and adults, including parents and carers. The government should urgently publish its 'vision statement' on media literacy, setting out objectives, priorities and measures of success.

3. The government must commit to sustained funding to deliver media literacy education outside schools. This should include the Electoral Commission delivering evidence-based public information campaigns on issues such as misinformation.

4. Parliament must require social media companies to support users' media literacy on platforms, including labelling AI-generated content, design features that support critical evaluation (e.g. read-before-you-share prompts and source information labels), and user controls for recommender systems.

Rachel Huggins, CEO of Internet Matters, said:

Young people are growing up in a digital world where much of their political information comes from online platforms, where it can be difficult to judge what is a fact and, with the rise of AI-generated content, even what is real.#

Lowering the voting age will only succeed if young people - and the parents and carers supporting them - are given the tools to navigate and engage successfully within that world, rather than attempting to shut them out of it.

Mark Frankel, Head of Public Affairs at Full Fact, said:

By the age of 13, many young people are engaging with political information. Rather than banning them from social media, we need to teach children the skills to navigate and assess these sources of political information.

MPs debating the Elections Bill need to send a clear message that future elections will be protected from disinformation and AI, to keep young people engaged with politics.

Emily Darlington MP, Member of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee said:

We have seen from the Committee's inquiry into the 2024 summer riots just how damaging misinformation can be for our democracy. This research shows that a majority of kids agree, and that they're worried about how safe our democracy is in this new age of AI and mis/disinformation.

If the next generation of voters doesn't have confidence in our democracy, we have a responsibility to act before it's too late. Online platforms must be participants in the fight to protect trust in our democratic processes, rather than undermine it.

Kirsty Blackman MP, Co-Chair of the APPG on Political and Media Literacy, said:

These findings underline what members of the APPG have long argued: extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds must come with a whole-of-society commitment to equipping young people to navigate the digital information environment they already inhabit.

When 6 in 10 young people are concerned about the potential for misinformation and AI-generated content affecting elections, protecting our democracy means embedding political and media literacy education in the National Curriculum, supporting teachers to deliver it, and holding tech platforms to account through media literacy by design.

Stella, a student aged 14, told Internet Matters:

I think it's important for children and young people to be taught how to navigate the information they see online from a young age, so they can feel confident forming their own views about politics and voting. The earlier this support starts, the better prepared young people will be to take part.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

Infamous outsourcing company Maximus is telling employers their staff living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) need to exercise more to "boost energy" and "get more done".

Amid a shocking and, likely, wilful misrepresentation of the devastating chronic systemic neuroimmune disease, the notorious privatisation giant is promoting dangerous treatment "strategies", namely, Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), that a leading UK health body roundly discredited in 2021.

Maximus, with its decades of hoovering up government contracts to profit from making chronically ill and disabled people's lives hell, appears to have appointed itself the oracle of:

Creating inclusive workplaces for people with disabilities.

Setting aside the first red flag that it's clearly not operating from the Social Model of Disability and using community-preferred 'disabled people', its history of benefit deaths and harm hardly screams authority on inclusivity. Nevertheless, the 'Kill Yourself' scandal benefit assessor has a whole host of advice for employers with disabled staff — because of course it does.

Specifically, it's providing this in the form of free 'toolkits' on particular health conditions and disabilities.

One of these offers information to employers on ME. The first issue to note here is that, instead of ME, it heads its webpage:

Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis toolkit

So to start with, Maximus is ignoring the community-preferred term. Not only that, but it's also conflating 'chronic fatigue'; the symptom, with 'chronic fatigue syndrome'; the condition.

And naturally, with that strong start, it's all only further downhill from there.

A sparsely-informative three-page spread tells employers that ME is a:

long-term chronic fluctuating illness affects many parts of the body, including the nervous and immune systems.

It then states that:

The most common symptoms are severe fatigue or exhaustion, problems with memory, concentration and muscle pain.

Predictably, the toolkit fails to even mention the hallmark of ME — post-exertional malaise (ME). This involves a disproportionate worsening of other symptoms after even minimal physical, social, mental, or emotional exertion. And it's the key reason that Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) is dangerous for people living with ME.

So with this omission, it opens the door to the guide promoting GET and GET-type rebrands ('activity management'). This is despite the fact that in 2021, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) removed GET as a treatment recommendation in the treatment of ME.

There's a brief mention of pacing. However, any good work it does highlighting this, it quickly undoes with talk of increasing activity.

A separate page on its website gives further alarming advice to employers around staff with ME. In an A-Z of Disabilities, Maximus tells employers to give "onsite exercise classes" and "discounts on gym memberships".

This is because, according to the self-appointed ME expert (emphasis ours):

Symptoms may be worsened by over-exercising or too much inactivity

Of course, no gaslighting guide to cover for employers unprepared to make genuine accommodations for people with ME would be complete without an undercurrent of psychologisation.

Maximus was only too happy to hawk this psychosomatic intimation. In the toolkit, it lists CBT amid its "treatment strategies". NICE downgraded this 'think yourself better' garbage for people living with ME in 2021 as well. For years, psychologising clinicians have used it as a stick to beat ME patients with. The unsubtle implication is always that it's all in their heads.

The A-Z is no less minimising. It tells employers to "reduce stress by promoting mindfulness" and signposts to Maximus's own Access to Work Mental Health Support Service.

Parts of the guidance point to "large or unhealthy meals" and "lack of relaxation" as exacerbating symptoms. People with ME will likely have specific dietary requirements due to symptoms and co-occurring conditions. However, the suggestion that it's their unhealthy lifestyle that's making their ME worse is insulting. The aim — and effect — is to shift responsibility away from employers and the medical profession who are failing ME patients everywhere.

If all this weren't bad enough, another toolkit gives practically the same advice to employers over long Covid.

Maximus might be forgiven (though still wrong) for hosting an error-riddled toolkit like this in 2021. But over four years after NICE published its updated guidelines, it's indefensible that the outsourcing giant is STILL peddling these harmful stereotypes and treatments for people living with ME.

According to source page information, the A-Z webpage is from 29 September 2022. In other words, it published this nearly a year after the NICE guideline changes. And Maximus even updated this again in January 2025.

To make matters worse, in the toolkit's case, source information dates the toolkit to 2 December 2025. Maximus seems to have even modified the page in early January 2026. So, this is essentially brand new guidance it's promoting to employers.

This isn't the first time Maximus has produced flawed information around ME either. The Canary previously exposed how alongside other outsourcing giants like Serco and Capita, it compiled problematic ME training materials for staff administering Work Capability Assessments (WCA).

It's another glaring example of why profit-driven private companies should be nowhere near services supporting chronically ill and disabled people inside or outside of work. In this instance, the information is out-of-date and actively dangerous.

What's patently clear is that it should not be posing as any sort of expert in ME or long Covid. But Maximus's fallacious advice is very convenient for corporate capitalists and a government hell-bent on coercing chronically ill and disabled people into low-waged, inaccessible, and inappropriate work.

And at the end of the day, misinformation and manipulations like this are nothing you wouldn't expect from a money-grubbing megacorporation like Maximus.

Featured image provided via the author

By Hannah Sharland

800 arms firms have sent an open letter to chancellor Rachel Reeves demanding she open a special 'war' bank just for them. These massive scroungers want guaranteed flows of state cash so they can line their pockets from global instability. Reeves doesn't appear to have answered them yet. But Keir Starmer has pledged to build the UK economy around war — despite evidence suggesting defence spending does little for growth.

Politico reported:

More than 800 British defense companies have urged Chancellor Rachel Reeves to launch a global rearmament bank to guarantee lending to the sector as the U.K. government attempts to ramp up military spending

The letter was coordinated by Make UK Defence, a trade body for arms firms. They want the UK signed up to a Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB). A former senior NATO official is leading the charge:

The DSRB was conceived by former head of NATO innovation, Rob Murray, with the aim of creating a multilateral AAA-rated bank providing loans to allied governments, potentially allowing the U.K. to borrow directly from the institution at a lower cost.

The British government ruled out such a measure in September 2025. But now they are under pressure from the arms firms looking to guarantee a few more third homes and yachts for shareholders.

Make UK Defence chief Andrew Kinniburgh wrote in the letter seen by Politico:

It is therefore essential that defence spending is accelerated in a way that translates into real industrial capacity and military capability. The DSRB could be a significant pillar in achieving this, alongside our NATO and non-NATO allies.

Politico explained that arms firms are sad they don't have all of the money:

A multinational rearmament bank would also provide credit guarantees to commercial banks, allowing them to lend at a greater scale to defense businesses, which report struggles in accessing finance, particularly among small and medium-sized firms.

Please, won't somebody think of the arms firms?

On a side-note, if you look at Make UK Defence's website you'll find its backers include everything from establishment think-tanks like the Royal United Service Institute (RUSI) to arms firms like Lockheed, Boeing and Anduril. You'll also see various military charities like the RAF Benevolent Fund and SSAFA.

Perverse. But at least they're committed to Net Zero. Great work, team. All is forgiven…

A spokesperson for the UK treasury said:

We are committed to deepening cooperation with our allies to deter and disrupt threats — including strengthening the UK's unshakeable commitment to NATO.

But Labour's economic plans have holes in them so big you could drive an aircraft carrier through them.

The Labour government has decided to build an economy around Military Keynesianism. Their logic is off. Economist Michael Burke has said:

There is an entire body of thought devoted to the idea of promoting military spending as an economic benefit dubbed by its supporters as 'military Keynesianism'.

John Maynard Keynes was a socialist-ish economist whose work on government spending informed many positive state programs in the 20th century.  But what Starmer has proposed is a "vulgarisation of Keynes' work":

supporters suggest any type of government spending is beneficial to the economy, and given that military spending enhances the power and prestige of the country, then military spending should be prioritised.

It's easy to get bogged down in complex economics here. But here is Burke's key point:

military spending has one of the lowest 'employment multipliers' of all economic categories.

He added:

It ranks 70th in terms of the employment it generates, out of 100.

So what sort of economic activity actually is good? Well:

Health is rated number 1.  Everything from agriculture to energy to food manufacture, chemicals, iron and steel, to computers, construction, and a host of others in between all have greater 'employment multipliers' than military spending.

Labour obsession with handing out free money to arms firms seems more ideological than useful. That said, they have stated they aren't going to start up a war bank. But Starmer's government is weak and getting weaker. They're still inured to NATO, the US and the demands of global capital. Time will tell if they hold out in the face of pressure from Big Death.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Lakenheath Alliance for Peace has updated us with details of more flights from supposed RAF bases in the UK.

On 9 February six F-35As, from 134th Fighter Wing based in Vermont in the USA, landed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. They were escorted by three KC-135R air-departed to-air refuelling planes that landed at 'RAF' Mildenhall.

This is on top of 12 F-15Es, from the 494 Fighter Squadron based at Lakenheath, which departed for the Middle East / West Asia in January. Earlier in that month 12 F-15Es from Seymour Johnson air base in the US passed through Lakenheath on their way from the US to West Asia.

As well as fighter jets at least 14 C-17 transport planes left RAF Lakenheath for West Asia.

The UK has also been bolstering its presence in the region. On 6 February six F-35Bs from RAF Marham in Norfolk left for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. They'll join the Typhoons already in Cyprus carrying out missions over Iraq and Syria. Typhoons from 12 Squadron also deployed to Qatar in January.

Several states including Saudi Arabia, UAE and even Israel have expressed concerns about the possible attack on Iran. And they've denied over-flight for forces taking part in any potential attack on Iran.

Anti-war campaigners have raised concerns that the UK is falling into another military conflict and increasing military tensions. They are holding a demonstration at RAF Marham on 28 February. And there's an International Peace Camp at RAF Lakenheath from 1-6 April.

Peter Lux from Lakenheath Alliance for Peace said:

Although we are obviously against military conflict this is an issue that should concern everyone. No matter how noble you think your cause is, no matter how right you feel you are, once you drop the first bomb and unleash the horrors of war you do not know what the consequences will be.

Yet again, after the debacle of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria which cost hundreds of UK lives and hundreds of thousands of others we are blindly walking into another conflict with little discussion or even awareness of what is being prepared.

If it all goes wrong - for example Israel suffers huge losses - it must be remembered that they have nuclear weapons which would unleash untold horrors.

Featured image via YouTube / Military Aviation Channel

By The Canary

Meta has decided to let Threads users make custom tweaks to its all-important algorithm, but don't expect your preferences to stick and do expect to bring your best manners.…

A wondrous illuminated manuscript, which gathers and illustrates the marvels of the world and beyond.

DETROIT, Michigan — This week, the Trump Administration is expected to announce a suite of rollbacks that bolster the coal and fossil fuel industries, threatening to keep our coal plants online longer and make our environment and climate dirtier. The administration is expected to revoke the Environmental Protection Agency's longstanding ... [continued]

The post Sierra Club: Trump's Latest Environmental Rollbacks Are Yet Another Move To Cut Corners For The Coal And Fossil Fuel Industries appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Banning sales to Chinese-government-affiliated companies, apparently, is not enough. A bipartisan group of American lawmakers this week called on the Trump administration to enact a blanket ban on the sale of equipment used in the production of advanced semiconductors to all of China.…

Book them now

Early bird tickets are on sale for the 42nd IIW, which began on a Gillmor Gang podcast the last day of 2004. In my biased but correct opinion, IIW is the most leveraged tech conference on Earth. This one will happen on April 28th to 30th, Tuesday to Thursday. But for the full experience, block out the whole week, so you can catch to catch VRM Day on Monday the 27th, and the Agentic Internet Workshop on Friday, May 1. All will be at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

MyTerms will be a wide weave (not just one thread) of conversation through all three events, each of which are open space: no keynotes, no panels, no booths. It's all breakouts gathered around work and conversation toward outcomes. 

Song du jour

Time Loves a Hero, by Little Feat, which is incorrectly stil absent from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Assholes

Literally.

Remembering when radio was radio

Nice write-up on one of the greatest radio stations ever: WQDR/94.7 in Raleigh, during its album rock era, which ran from 1971 to 1984, as I recall. My own involvement (as a creative director for the station's ad agency) ran from '78 to '83 or so. (Hard to nail the dates down, because many good friends worked there and I we all hung out a lot. 

As a side thing, it's worth noting that the big FM stations in that part of the country have a lor of range. WQDR when hung out there, was 100,000 watts on a 1200 foot tower, wth a signal that stretched from Winston-Salem to Greenville. On hot summer morning, you could get them from the mountains to the beach. Earlier, when WRAL/101.5 was a thousand feet up the WRAL/5 tower, it was 250,000 watts and bragged about being audible "from Hatteras to Hickory." Later, it dropped to 100,000 watts at close to 2000 feet, on the new WRAL/5 tower, which was dropped by ice in 1989. Both WRAL and WQDR are close to the top of the replacement tower today, when most of us aren't listening to radio on radios anymore. We're getting streams and podcasts on our phones. Only some of that comes from radio stations, and most radio stations lack local talent and programming. Telle est la mort.

Which always creeped me out, but he has a case

Don Marti is a (somewhat provisionally, but still actually) fan of rewarded interest.

This is going to be one of the shortest articles in my series on how to cancel your subscriptions to the best VPNs. Unlike most providers, Mullvad VPN does not automatically renew an expired subscription unless you tell it to. Thanks to its unique pricing approach, cancelling Mullvad is the default option.

When you sign up for Mullvad, you pay for as many months upfront as you want at the constant rate of 5 Euro per month (varying with exchange rates). Each month, Mullvad takes 5 Euro out of your account until there's nothing left. If you're no longer satisfied with Mullvad, all you have to do is stop putting money in.

If you happen to have originally signed up for Mullvad earlier than the middle of 2022, you may have an auto-renewal account grandfathered in. Mid-2022 is when Mullvad stopped auto-renewing subscriptions and got rid of PayPal integration altogether, but people who had signed up before then had the option to leave auto-renewal on.

If you're in this group, cancelling is simple. Just sign into your account page, click on the word Subscriptions, then click Unsubscribe.

There's one more exception to the usual method of cancelling Mullvad. If you got your subscription through an app store instead of Mullvad's website or app, the app store is the one processing your money. You'll need to cancel through them instead.

On an iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app, whose icon shows gray gears. Tap your name at the top of the screen to reach your Apple ID page, then tab Subscriptions. Scroll down until you find your Mullvad subscription, tap it, then hit Cancel Subscription.

On an Android phone, open the Google Play Store, whose icon is a triangle in the Google colors. At the top-right, tap the circle with the first letter of your username in it. Hit Payments & Subscriptions, scroll down to find Mullvad, then tap it and hit Cancel Subscription.

You can go the extra mile and delete your account if you're sure you'll never want to use Mullvad again. Send an email to support@mullvadvpn.net, provide your account number and request that the account be terminated. You'll get a reply confirming deletion.

Mullvad offers refunds on any purchase within 14 days. To start a refund request, send an email to support@mullvadvpn.net, including your Mullvad account number and your payment token. If you aren't sure what your payment token is, find the charge for Mullvad on your bank statement and look for something in the format VPN*(10-digit number).

Payments made in cash can't be refunded, apparently because that's considered a form of money laundering in Sweden. If you got Mullvad through a voucher, request your refund through the store the voucher came from.

Mullvad is one of the best VPNs, especially in terms of privacy. However, I've found it to be a bit slow at times, with a somewhat limited server network. Luckily, Proton VPN is almost as private as Mullvad — the only thing it's missing is the ability to sign up without an email. It's also got a larger server network and better overall download speeds.

Windscribe is another privacy-optimized VPN with a better record than Mullvad in my unblocking tests. Surfshark is the fastest VPN of them all, while ExpressVPN is ideal for beginners. If you liked Mullvad's cheap pricing, CyberGhost is a highly affordable alternative.

Anthropic is upgrading Claude's free tier, apparently to capitalize on OpenAI's planned integration of ads into ChatGPT. On Wednesday, Anthropic said free Claude users can now create files, connect to external services, use skills and more.

Anthropic added the ability for paid users to create files in September. Starting today, free users of the chatbot can also create and edit Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Word docs and PDFs. Claude's file creation abilities are powered by Sonnet 4.5.

Meanwhile, Connectors allow free users to link Claude to third-party services. There's a long list of available ones, including Canva, Slack, Notion, Zapier and PayPal.

Skills, on the other hand, let you teach Claude to "complete specific tasks in repeatable ways." In short, the chatbot loads folders of instructions, scripts and other resources when performing relevant tasks. Other upgrades to the free tier include longer conversations, interactive responses and improved voice and image search.

Claude's free-tier upgrades appear to be a direct response to ChatGPT's planned introduction of ads for its free users. Anthropic's announcement today ended with the tag line, "No ads in sight." This follows the company's promise last week that Claude will remain ad-free. Anthropic even poked fun at OpenAI's cash-seeking move in a Super Bowl ad (below), which also took a swipe at GPT-4o's penchant for kissing ass.

Apple has released the software update 26.3 for its various platforms. This includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. In other words, don't be surprised when your iPhone notifies you of a pending update.

Unfortunately, there isn't all that much to talk about here. Consider this a minor update that focuses primarily on bug fixes, which is important but not exactly fun. It is worth noting that the new iOS and iPadOS has an especially long list of fixes. There are 37 security issues addressed by the update, according to a report by 9to5Mac. 

iOS 26.3 and iPadOS 26.3 do include a new tool for transitioning from an Apple device to an Android device, which is handy. It transfers photos, notes, messages, apps and other data to an Android phone but doesn't do anything with health data, protected notes or photos. There's also a new option to forward notifications from an iPhone or iPad to another device, but only for users in the EU. 

The update to macOS Tahoe 26.3 is just bug fixes and security enhancements. The same goes for watchOS 26.3.

Why the small fries update? Rumors have been swirling that Apple is saving the big guns for the next release. Insiders have suggested that software update 26.4 will include the long-awaited Siri refresh and new emoji functionality.

Amazon has announced that it will bring its same-day prescription delivery service to 4,500 new cities and towns by the end of 2026. The company originally launched Amazon Pharmacy in 2020 with a two-day delivery option, and has continued to increase the availability and delivery speed of the service in the years that followed, including expanding access to nearly half of all US residents in 2024.

The company's announcement doesn't break down all the new cities same-day deliveries will be available in, but does note that the delivery option is coming to Idaho and Massachusetts for the first time. In the past, access to same-day deliveries has been determined by where Amazon has fulfillment centers that it can open pharmacies in. Amazon Pharmacy also offers next-day delivery and in some cities, the ability to pick up prescriptions from Amazon's OneMedical offices.

Amazon reportedly applied for Amazon Pharmacy trademarks in the UK, Canada and Australia in 2020, but has yet to expand its prescription delivery service to those regions. In 2023, Amazon launched RxPass, a separate $5 per month subscription that lets Amazon Prime customers order from a collection over 50 common medications for a flat fee. Amazon began letting Medicare recipients access the subscription in 2024.

A Harvard Business Review study is answering the question 'what will employees do if AI saves them time at work?' The answer: more work.…

In 1951, Bertrand Russell closed an essay on liberalism and fanaticism with what he called a "Liberal Decalogue" — ten rules for honest thinkers, not to replace the original commandments but to supplement them. Writing in The New York Times Magazine, he argued that liberalism was not a creed but a temperament, one built on the admission that you are probably wrong about something. — Read the rest

The post "Do not feel absolutely certain of anything." Bertrand Russell's 10 rules for thinking clearly, from 1951 appeared first on Boing Boing.

ChatGPT knows me pretty well. I've asked it hundreds of questions by now, and told it my reactions. It's saved me hundreds of hours of time, and given me information, quite quickly and precisely, that no search engine could ever have managed. The tool is trained with one purpose in mind: To make you want to use it more and make it impossible for you to do things without it. That's not cynicism; that's business.

AI is following the same enshittification model that, as Cory Doctorow has explained, just about every other online tool has used: Suck you in with free or cheap offerings, then jack up the price, move all the free stuff to the expensive 'premium' versions, and then steal and re-sell your data to unethical corporations for predatory surveillance pricing, and clutter all the responses with ads 'curated' especially for what it has discerned you are most likely to buy from its real customers, big corporations.

In short, this is the honeymoon stage of AI, at least for 'consumers'. The misunderstandings, unpleasant surprises, ultimata and abuses will soon follow, leading, for all but the ultra-rich customers who can afford un-enshittified versions, to an angry and bitter divorce. As I keep saying, use it while you can.

Yesterday, I asked it what I thought was an innocuous question:

If unrelated people who live together in a house are called 'housemates', what is the term for unrelated people who live together in an apartment?

Here was its response. If you're impatient, skip to the part I highlighted and underlined:

It's… still housemates

Two U.S. government officials and a member of Congress pushed back on Wednesday on Trump administration claims about the reasons for the sudden closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas.

After the Federal Aviation Administration quickly rescinded an order to ground flights for 10 days, Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, and other Trump administration officials claimed that a Mexican drug cartel drone incursion prompted the shutdown. "The threat has been neutralized," Duffy said. "Mexican cartel drones breached U.S. airspace. The Department of War took action to disable the drones," another Trump administration official told The Intercept.

But two government officials with knowledge of the reasons for the shutdown say the closure was connected to the Department of War's new counter-drone laser technology and a misunderstanding by — or miscommunication with — FAA headquarters of the risks it might pose to air traffic in and around El Paso.   

The government officials told The Intercept that the counter-drone laser system near Fort Bliss was tested this week. One official said a cartel drone may have been damaged or disabled by the new system. Another said that a Mylar party balloon was destroyed. The incidents appeared to be different events.

Cartel drone activity isn't unusual along the border, the sources said. The situation, as they described it, never constituted a threat.

"There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly."

Asked if the closure stemmed from testing of counter-drone technology near Fort Bliss, a Department of War spokesperson said: "We have nothing further to provide."

During a call with reporters on Wednesday morning, Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents Texas' 16th Congressional District in El Paso, also said that drone activity is frequent in the area and in this case did not pose a danger.

"There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly," Escobar said. "There was nothing extraordinary about any drone incursion into the U.S. that I'm aware of."

Escobar emphasized that she had been in communication with Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. — the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee — who she said had received the same information. Escobar added: "If there were any incursion that would have posed a threat, the Armed Services Committee would have been made aware, and that would have been shared with me in my conversation with the ranking member this morning."

Smith's office did not return a request for comment prior to publication.

Late Tuesday night, the FAA announced it would halt all flights for 10 days due to "special security reasons," surprising Escobar and other state and local officials. The shutdown went into effect at 11:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday and was lifted a little before 7 a.m. on Wednesday. "The temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted. There is no threat to commercial aviation," the FAA announced on X on Wednesday morning. "All flights will resume as normal." 

Escobar made the point that the closure order came from Washington, not local authorities or reigonal air traffic control. "I want to emphasize that this was an FAA decision," she said. "It was their decision. There was no information provided to me or my office, no information or advance notice provided to the airport or to the city of El Paso, which is the municipality that operates the airport."

The post Officials Dispute Trump Explanation of El Paso Airspace Closure. "There Was Not a Threat." appeared first on The Intercept.

More than 1,000 properties flooded in London in 2021, resulting in insurance losses of more than £281 million. Record-breaking floods continue to hit the UK.

In the capital, 13% of properties have been classed as having a high or medium risk of flooding. Danger-to-life warnings could soon become a reality, especially for people living in east London on low-lying land next to the river Thames.

Boroughs like Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney are built on former marshland. These areas would have originally absorbed water naturally, but have been used for urban development. More than 85% of London marshland was lost during the 20th century. London has lost the natural buffer that used to help water drain away. As the sea level rises and storm surges get more prevalent, chances of flooding are greater.

London is one of the most urbanised cities across the world with 78% of land being urban. With significant impermeable surfaces made of concrete, asphalt and rooftops, water is prevented from draining into the ground. Rapid surface water runoff overwhelms drainage systems and surface water runoff flooding is one of the greatest threats to east London.

Large-scale infrastructure like the Thames Barrier and tidal flood defences protect London from large-scale river flooding, but they cannot prevent surface water flooding from local storms. As these structures age, maintenance costs rise. Relying solely on them is a risky strategy for the future, especially as storm surges become more intense due to climate change.

Read more: Britain is at bursting point and its flood barriers need to be updated

Specialist bodies like the Environment Agency monitor water quality in rivers to reduce infection risks when water is contaminated. However, many parts of east London have Victorian-era sewer systems designed for much lower rainfall, so they are easily overwhelmed. This means the chance of sewage contamination is heightened in these areas. Around 39 million tonnes of untreated sewage are estimated to be discharged into the Thames every year.

East London also faces high levels of deprivation. Many people lack the resources to cope with floods and possible water contamination, often due to being constrained by socioeconomic inequities. High child poverty rates in east London boroughs like Tower Hamlets (47%), Newham (45%) and Hackney (45%) mean that flood preparation is often overlooked.

Aside from strengthening infrastructure and physical barriers, there are natural ways to manage flood risk.

Our research shows that merging nature with urban infrastructure improves the protective capacities and flood resilience of an urban river like the Thames. And initial insights from our ongoing social research show that creative ways of communicating with people can help people better understand - and support - natural flood solutions.

Planting suitable wetland species alongside rivers and roof tops helps delay surface water runoff by up to 90%. Plants absorb water and release it over several hours rather than releasing it immediately like impermeable surfaces such as concrete and tarmac. This slows down the flow of water into the drainage system and reduces the risk of overwhelming the sewers and pollution spills.

In the Netherlands, there are hundreds of green roofs on bus stops. Data shows that each square metre green of roof cover absorbs 20 litres of water, reducing how much water enters the drains. More natural solutions like these can also improve air quality, attract pollinators and provide shade (which prevents the sun from heating up buildings or walkways).

Green roofs on bus stops are now a common sight in some UK cities, including Brighton and Cardiff. Introducing them to east London would be a good first step.

One charity-led initiative, East London Waterworks Park, involves rewilding a former depot. By converting land covered by concrete into swimming ponds, with reedbeds for filtration, this project provides more space to hold floodwater and a place for the local community to socialise and engage with nature.

At the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, an area that used to be a depository for building rubble has been transformed into a large-scale sustainable urban drainage system. This involves the creation of open spaces interspersed with natural features like reedbeds, wetlands and swales (marshy channels) that slow down runoff.

This helps slow down the flow of water into rivers, especially during intense rainfall. Studies show that improved water management at the park has saved 4,000 homes from flood risk since it opened in 2014.

London's population is increasing. This constrains its resources and exacerbates the effects of increased urbanisation. Socioeconomic inequities raise the level of vulnerability of London's population. Flood risk is a national security threat, not just an environmental issue.

Including nature in urban resilience plans helps reduce risk and empower people. But policymakers need evidence of which solutions are more effective before they'll act.

Don't have time to read about climate change as much as you'd like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation's environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who've subscribed so far.

Ravindra Jayaratne receives funding from the Royal Society, UK.

Maciej Pawlik is affiliated with the Green Party of England and Wales.

Dave Moses Joins the New Jersey Motorsports Park Team as the Riders Club Track Supervisor

MILLVILLE, NJ (February 11, 2026) - New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP) is proud to announce that Dave Moses, long-time Riders Club Coach, has officially joined the NJMP team as the Riders Club Track Supervisor.

Moses history of track instruction includes NJMP Riders Club since 2019 and four years at Absolute Cycle Experience. For years, he led the intro-class in discerning proper racing techniques by providing real-time feedback and post-session debriefs.

In his new role as NJMP's Riders Club Track Supervisor he will help oversee the Riders Club instructors as well as enforce organizational policies to ensure a safe and cohesive track day experience for all.

"We are thrilled to officially add Dave to the NJMP team," remarks Charity Giovanelli, Riders Club Director, "Dave shows a true passion for the sport, and even more so, for safety and procedure. With him on the team, the Riders Club will continue to provide superior club management for its members."

The New Jersey Motorsports Park Riders Club is a private membership experience for road-racing enthusiasts. The program offers track days and other benefits in a safe and controlled environment run by experienced management and certified instructors.

In 2026, the Riders Club boasts a reduced registration rate, an improved cancellation policy, benefits with partner RevZilla, and reciprocal track resources.

The post NJMP Hires New Riders Club Track Supervisor appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

T-Mobile is claiming it's now the first wireless carrier to integrate generative AI "directly into a wireless network," and it's rolling out real-time call translation as the first feature delivered on top of its new AI-filled cellular network. …

If you've seen the viral AI work pic trend where people are asking ChatGPT to "create a caricature of me and my job based on everything you know about me" and sharing it to social, you might think it's harmless. You'd be wrong.…

Thirteen European countries have formed an alliance called EuroPA to build a continent-wide payment system that routes around Visa and Mastercard — and the $24 trillion in annual transactions the two American companies currently handle, Cory Doctorow writes in Pluralistic. — Read the rest

The post Europe builds its own payment network, ditches Visa appeared first on Boing Boing.

Technically — TECHNICALLY! — we still have a system that relies on three co-equal branches to ensure that any single branch can't steamroll the rest of the system (along with the nation it's supposed to serve) to seize an unequal amount of power.

Technically.

What we're seeing now is something else entirely. The judicial branch is headed by people who are willing to give the executive branch what it wants, so long as the executive branch is headed by the Republican party. The legislative branch — fully compromised by MAGA bootlickers — has decided to simply not do its job, allowing the executive branch to seize even more power. The executive branch is now just a throne for a king — a man who feels he shouldn't have to answer to anyone — not even his voting bloc — so long as he remains in power.

The courts can act as a check against executive overreach. But as we've seen time and time again, this position means nothing if you're powerless to enforce it. And that has led to multiple executive officials telling the courts to go fuck themselves when they hand down rulings the administration doesn't like. A current sitting appellate judge no less made a name for himself in the Trump administration by demonstrating his contempt for the judicial system he's now an integral part of.

Only good things can come from this! MAGA indeed!

And while this is only one person's retelling their experience of being caught in the gears of Trump's anti-brown people activities, it's illustrative of what little it matters that there are three co-equal branches when one branch makes it clear on a daily basis that it considers itself to be more equal than the rest of them. (via Kathleen Clark on Bluesky)

This is from a sworn statement [PDF] in ongoing litigation against the federal government, as told by "O.," a Guatemalan resident of Minnesota who has both a pending asylum application as well as a Juvenile Status proceeding still undergoing in the US. None of that mattered to ICE officers, who arrested him in January 2026 and — within 24 hours — shipped him off to a detention center more than a thousand miles from his home.

O. was denied meals, access to phones, access to legal representation, stuffed into overcrowded cells, and generally mistreated by the government that once might have honestly considered the merits of his asylum application.

But the real dirt is this part of the sworn statement, which again exposes this administration's complete disinterest in adhering to orders from US courts, much less even paying the merest of lip service to rights long considered to be derived from none other than the "Creator" himself.

ICE did not tell me that my attorney had been trying to call me and contact me while I was in Texas. They didn't tell me my attorney Kim, had retained another attorney, Kira Kelley, to file a habeas petition on my behalf, or that a court had granted it and ordered my release. They just kept holding me there and occasionally trying to get me to self-deport.

[…]

I was put in a cold cell where I had to sleep on the bare cement floor. Around 10 in the morning my cellmate asked to speak to an ICE officer. Three officers came into the cell so I had a chance to speak to them too. One officer told me that I "had no chance of returning to Minnesota" and that "the best thing for [me] is self-deportation." She told me that if I fought my case, I would spend two to three more months here in El Paso. She offered me $2600 to self-deport. I refused. I wanted to talk to my attorney. They didn't tell me the judge had already ordered my release and return to Minnesota. If I hadn't managed to talk to my attorney who told me a while back that I was ordered released, I might have given up at this point and signed the self deportation forms because the conditions were so unbearable.

So… you see the problem. A court can order a release. But the court relies on the government to carry out this instruction. If it doesn't, the court likely won't know for days or weeks or months. At that point, a new set of rights abuses will have been inflicted on people who should have been freed. When the government is finally asked to answer for this, it will again engage in a bunch of bluster and obfuscation, forcing the court system to treat the administration like a member of the system of checks and balances even when it's immediately clear the executive branch has no desire to be checked and/or balanced.

While more judges are now treating the executive branch as a hostile force unwilling to behave honestly or recognize restraints on its power, the imbalance continues to shift in the administration's favor, largely because it can engage in abusive acts at scale, while the court is restrained to the cases presented to it.

But if you're outside of the system, you can clearly see what's happening and see what the future holds if one-third of the government refuses to do its job (the GOP-led Congress) and the other third can't handle the tidal wave of abuses being presented to it daily. The executive branch will become a kingdom that fears nothing and answers to no one. But the bigger problem is this: most Americans will see this and understand that this will ultimately destroy democracy. Unfortunately, there's a significant number of voters who actually welcome these developments, figuring it's better to lick the boots of someone who prefers to rule in hell, rather than serve the United States.

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Over the years, we've written approximately one million words explaining why Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is essential to how the internet functions. We've corrected politicians who lie about it. We've debunked myths spread by mainstream media outlets that should know better. We've explained, re-explained, and then explained again why gutting this law would be catastrophic for online speech.

And now I find myself in the somewhat surreal position of saying: you know who nailed this explanation better than most policy experts, pundits, and certainly better than any sitting member of Congress? A YouTuber named Cr1TiKaL.

If you're not familiar with Charles "Cr1TiKaL" White Jr., he runs the penguinz0 YouTube channel with nearly 18 million subscribers and over 12 billion total views. He's known for deadpan commentary on internet culture and video games. He's not a policy wonk. He's not a lawyer. He's just a guy who apparently bothered to actually understand what Section 230 says and does—something that puts him leagues ahead of the United States Congress.

In this 13-minute video responding to actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt's call to "sunset" Section 230, Cr1TiKaL laid out the case for why 230 matters with a clarity that most mainstream coverage hasn't managed in a decade:

Dismantling section 230 would fundamentally change the internet as you know it. And that's not an exaggeration to say it. Put it even more simply, section 230 allows goobers like me to post whatever they want, saying whatever they want, and the platform itself is not liable for whatever I've made or said. 

That is on me personally. 

The platform isn't going to be, you know, fucking dragged through the streets with legs spread like a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey for it and getting blasted by lawsuits or whatever. Now, of course, there are limitations in place when it comes to illegal content, things that actually break the law. That is, of course, a very different set of circumstances. That's a different can of worms, and that's handled differently. But it should be obvious why section 230 is so important because if these platforms were held liable for every single thing people post on their platforms, they would get into a lot of hot water and they would just not allow people to post things. Full stop. because it would be too dangerous to do so. They would need to micromanage and control every single thing that hits the platform in order to protect themselves. No matter how you spin it, this would ruin the internet. It's a pile of dogshit. No matter how much perfume gets sprayed on it or how they want to repackage it, it still stinks. 

Yes, the metaphors are colorful. But the underlying point is exactly correct. Section 230 places liability where it belongs: on the person who actually created the content. Not on the platform that hosts it. This is how the entire internet works. Every comment section, every social media post, every forum—all of it depends on this basic principle.

Also, he actually reads the 26 words in the video! This is something that so many other critics of 230 skip over, because then they can pretend it says things it doesn't say.

And unlike the politicians who keep pretending this is some kind of special gift to "Big Tech," Cr1TiKaL correctly notes that 230 protects everyone:

This would affect literally every platform that has anything user submitted in any capacity at all. 

Every. Single. One. Your local newspaper's comment section. The neighborhood Facebook group. The subreddit for your favorite hobby. The Discord server where you talk about video games. The email you forward. All of it.

He's also refreshingly clear-eyed about why politicians from both parties keep attacking 230:

Since the advent of the internet, section 230 has been a target for people that want to control your speech and infringe on your First Amendment rights.

This observation tracks with what we've pointed out repeatedly: the bipartisan hatred of Section 230 is one of the most remarkable examples of political unity in modern American governance—and it's driven largely by politicians who want platforms to moderate content in ways that favor their particular political preferences.

Democrats have attacked 230 claiming it enables "misinformation" and hate speech. Republicans have attacked it claiming it enables "censorship" of conservative voices. Both cannot simultaneously be true, and yet both parties have introduced legislation to gut the law. Cr1TiKaL captures this perfectly:

When Democrats were in charge, it caught a lot of scrutiny, claiming that it was enabling the spread of racism and harming children. With Republicans in power, they're claiming that it's spreading misinformation and anti-semitism. This is a bipartisan punching bag that they desperately want to just beat down.

The critics always trot out the same tired arguments about algorithms and echo chambers and extremism. As if removing 230 would somehow make speech better rather than making it disappear entirely or become heavily controlled by whoever has the most money and lawyers. Cr1TiKaL cuts right through this:

There are people that are paying a lot of money to try and plant this idea in your brain that section 230 is a bad thing. It only leads to things like extremism and conspiracy theories and demonization and that kind of thing. That's not true. 

Anyone who stops and thinks about this for even just a moment, firing on a few neurons, should be able to recognize how outrageous this proposal is. How would shutting down conversation and shutting down the ability to express thoughts and opinions somehow help combat the rise of extremism and conspiracies? that would only exacerbate the problem. Censorship doesn't solve these issues. It makes them worse. 

He even anticipates the point we've made countless times about what the internet would look like without 230:

Platforms would not allow just completely unfiltered usage of normal people expressing their thoughts because those thoughts might go against the official narrative from the curated source and then the curated source might go after the platform saying this is defamatory. These people have just said something hosted on your platform and we're coming after you with lawsuits. So they just wouldn't allow it. 

This is a point we keep repeating and you never hear in the actual policy debates, because supporters of a 230 repeal have no answer for it beyond "nuh-uh."

The people who most want to control online speech are exactly the people you'd expect: governments and powerful interests who don't like being criticized. Section 230 is one of the things standing in their way.

And when critics inevitably dust off the "think of the children" argument, Cr1TiKaL delivers the response that shouldn't be controversial but apparently is:

Be a parent. It is not the internet's job to cater to your lack of parenting by just letting your kid online. Fucking lazy trash ass parents just sit a kid in front of a computer or an iPad and then are stunned when apparently they find bad shit. Be a parent. Be involved in your kids' life. Raise your children. Don't make it the internet's job to do that for you. 

Is this delivered with the diplomatic nuance of a congressional hearing? No. Is it correct? Absolutely. The "protect the children" argument for dismantling 230 has always been a dodge—a way to make critics of the bill seem heartless while ignoring that Section 230 doesn't protect illegal content and maybe, just maybe, the primary responsibility for what media children consume should rest with the adults responsible for those children.

We've been writing about Section 230 for years, trying to explain to policymakers and the general public why it matters. And most of the time, it feels like shouting into the void. Politicians keep lying about it. Journalists keep getting it wrong. The mythology around 230 persists no matter how many times it gets corrected.

And we've heard from plenty of younger people who now believe that 230 is bad. I recently guest taught a college class where students were split into two groups—one to argue in favor of 230 and one against—and I was genuinely dismayed when the group told to argue in favor of 230 argue that 230 "once made sense" but doesn't any more.

So there's something genuinely hopeful about seeing a young creator with an audience of nearly 18 million people—an audience that skews young and is probably not spending a lot of time reading policy papers—get it right. Not just right in a general sense, but right in the specifics. He read the law. He understood what it does. He correctly identified why it matters and who benefits from dismantling it.

Maybe the generation that grew up on the internet actually understands what's at stake when politicians threaten to fundamentally reshape how it works. Maybe they're not buying the moral panic narratives that have been trotted out to justify every bad piece of tech legislation for the past decade.

Or maybe I'm being optimistic. Either way, Cr1TiKaL's video is worth watching. It's profane, it's casual, and it's more correct about Section 230 than anything you'll hear from the halls of Congress.

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