Stovetop

Obligatory IANAL, but…

Generally a search warrant needs to be issued by a local authority, and that requires the crime to be prosecutable in the place where it was issued.

So in theory, California is potentially able to refuse requests to search for things that are not illegal in California but may be illegal somewhere else.

That being said, it looks like there are specific practices in place making it easier to issue warrants for electronic data like this scenario, even across state lines.

And in this particular circumstance, the alleged offense is even illegal in California (abortion of a viable fetus), so it’s a bit of a moot point anyways. A Californian judge would have issued this warrant if a local police department requested one.

Baseless speculation here, but my gut tells me that Microsoft is going to put a remaster-focused studio to task on a current-gen Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim triple pack, a la the Master Chief Collection, to tide people over.

Remastering Skyrim is the easy way out, but Oblivion is still trapped on the 360 (if you don’t have a PC) and Morrowind is the darling title of the franchise that people would love to see remastered (and was recently used as an example by Nvidia on “how to remaster a game”). Remaster the earlier two and then just shove the Xbox One copy of Skyrim Anniversary Edition in there for funsies is something people would get behind, more than just another port of Skyrim alone.

Consoles are by far the best bang for your buck right now in terms of performance vs cost. A decent GPU alone today costs as much as a PS5/Series X. Unless you need a powerful desktop for other purposes, it’s cheaper to buy a console and a decent laptop separately than it is to build a gaming PC.

You sorta can. The difference in your scenario is that your neighbor doesn’t need you to mow their lawn, but Reddit requires moderators in order for the business of Reddit to function.

Here is a guide published by the state of California about whether someone should qualify as an employee of a company. Read through the first couple pages of checklists and ask yourself if a moderator fits the criteria they’re looking for.

For the first 3 questions, a “Yes” answer is an indictator that the person is an employee.

1. Do you instruct or supervise the person while he or she is working?

• I would say that likely counts as a yes, because moderators have a code of conduct which is mandated by Reddit, and they must follow it in order to keep their jobs.

2. Can the worker quit or be discharged (fired) at any time?

• Reddit does not have protections in place for moderators, who can be removed from their positions at any time. Likewise, moderators can walk from their job at any time.

3. Is the work being performed part of your regular business?

• This is definitely a yes, because Reddit relies on subreddits for its business, and subreddits require moderators.

For the next 3 questions, a “No” answer indicates that the person is an employee and not an independent contractor.

4. Does the worker have a separately established business?

• This is a bit of a gray area. For the majority of moderators, this would be a no at surface value, but some subreddits that concern a specific product/company sometimes have representatives from that company on the mod team. However another criteria of this category is that moderators have the ability to add/remove other moderators at their discretion, which is an indicator that they qualify as independent contractors and not employees. Should this go to trial, this will be an item that is argued.

5. Is the worker free to make business decisions which affect his or her ability to profit from the work?

• This would likely be a no for most moderators. To expand further, one of the example criteria is whether the individual is free to utilize their own tools/resources to do their work, and Reddit limiting API access is specifically one example of this not being the case. But if the subreddit is a front for a business (as in, the subreddit’s primary purpose is to sell/support a paid product or service), it likely would not qualify.

6. Does the individual have a substantial investment in their job which would subject him or her to a financial risk of loss?

• Similar to the above, I think this would be a no for most moderators. Reddit controls the platform and dictates what resources moderators are/aren’t allowed to utilize when doing their jobs, so there is no independent financial investment from the moderators that is at risk.

It’s not cut-and-dry, and I think that’s what might make this difficult to take to court, but the argument certainly exists and the case could at least result in better terms for how Reddit must work with their moderators.

It’s almost like they never considered that moderators use the same third party apps as the rest of their users, either.

Though based on the leaked internal memo, it looks like Reddit doesn’t think very much of their users at all.