From the That-Was-That Dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2020, Ajit Pai put the final bullet in net neutrality and decided to move forward with unconstitutional rulemaking on Section 230. At the same time, Clarence Thomas joined the growing brigade opposing Section 230, and Congress introduced yet another anti-230 bill—because, sure, why not?
We also examined the pretty crummy results of the current Supreme Court term on issues we care about and dedicated an episode of the podcast to what the TikTok order meant for innovation.
But surely the biggest story was when Facebook and Twitter tried to limit the spread of a sketchy New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. This resulted in a huge mess of ridiculousness and ultimately led Twitter to adjust its hacked document policy.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2015, the US, Canada, and Australia decided to prioritize Big Pharma’s interests over poorer nations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Meanwhile, the USTR was fishing for academics to astroturf in favor of the agreement.
At the same time, James Comey claimed that “dozens” of terrorists had evaded the FBI because of encryption. While the administration stated it wouldn’t seek encryption backdoors, Senator Chuck Grassley pushed the DOJ to resume efforts advocating for them.
We also covered the rise of mass copyright infringement shakedown factories in the US, which quickly resulted in an amusing demonstration when one such group sued another over trademark infringement. It became clear how these groups were constantly copying each other’s tactics.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, an anti-piracy group was caught planting evidence in a case against a Usenet provider, adding another layer to the ongoing saga of copyright enforcement overreach.
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/18/this-week-in-techdirt-history-october-12th-18th/
