If you were a nerd online in the early ‘10s, you may recall Lore Sjöberg’s Dungeons & Dragons-inspired Speak with Monsters. The webcomic went dark years ago and it’s been only available in spotty online archives. But it’s getting republished (with an archival installment every Friday) in Sjöberg’s newsletter, starting with a strip based on the early D&D illustration below.
The Free Speech Coalition is challenging a Texas law that requires proof of age to access adult sites — and more broadly, the Supreme Court will be weighing the tradeoffs of making people identify their ages online. Oral arguments were just scheduled for early next year.
[Free Speech Coalition]
Google is facing compounding penalties in Russia for restricting propaganda YouTube channels. It doesn’t seem terribly worried:
“We have ongoing legal matters relating to Russia,” the company noted in the report. “For example, civil judgments that include compounding penalties have been imposed upon us in connection with disputes regarding the termination of accounts, including those of sanctioned parties. We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect.”
Nothing beside remains:
In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history. The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at risk — in digital form — of disappearing from public view without ever being archived.
[Internet Archive Blogs]
It can’t hurt to try!
[itch.io]
This case involves not typical “deepfake” image fakery, but use of AI-powered tools to generate a 3D model with a real child’s face. It’s a slight variation of a pattern we’re beginning to see regularly, including in the US.
Your vote matters. Here’s how it will change the future.
A blockchain company bought two game studios in almost complete secrecy, apparently to avoid the toxic reputation of crypto in games:
KUSK Law partner Don McGowan ... told Game Developer that there’s nothing illegal about keeping these purchases a secret, but that it is “fucking weird.”
Spoiler: it gutted them both.
IA is slowly recovering from the cyberattack it faced earlier this month, and its latest update brings back a read-only version of archive.org — its digital library full of old games, magazines, videos, and more.
[Internet Archive Blogs]