EU Court to Rule On 'Right to Be Forgotten' Outside Europe (wsj.com) 182
China's Censors Can Now Erase Images Mid-Transmission (wsj.com) 90
Free Speech vs Billionaires: Netflix Streams A New Documentary About The Gawker Verdict (businessinsider.com) 199
Knappenberger also showcases what happened to the Las Vegas Review-Journal at the end of 2015. The paper's staff was suddenly told that the paper had been sold, though they were never told who the new publisher was. A group of reporters found that the son-in-law of Las Vegas casino titan Sheldon Adelson was a major player in the purchase of the paper. According to the movie, Adelson had a vendetta with the paper's columnist John L. Smith, who wrote unflattering things about him in a 2005 book. Smith was even ordered after the paper was bought that he was never to write about Adelson in any of his pieces. For Knappenberger, there's no other way to look at it: The suppression of the media by billionaires is happening.
Knappenberger said if any legal documents arrive from the billionaires discussed in his movie, "We're ready for it." But he added that the bigger issue is getting people to understand that the loss of the free press is "the most important thing facing our country." Or, as a former Gawker editor says in the film, "If you're not pissing off a billionaire, what's the point?"
China Tells Carriers To Block Access to Personal VPNs By February (bloomberg.com) 173
Facebook's Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men From Hate Speech But Not Black Children (propublica.org) 355
Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument (cnet.com) 69
Google Announces New Measures To Fight Extremist YouTube Videos (cnet.com) 286
Here's CNET's summary of the four new measure Google is implementing:
- Use "more engineering resources to apply our most advanced machine learning research to train new 'content classifiers' to help us more quickly identify and remove such content."
- Expand YouTube's Trusted Flagger program by adding 50 independent, "expert" non-governmental organizations to the 63 groups already part of it. Google will offer grants to fund the groups.
- Take a "tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies -- for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content." Such videos will "appear behind a warning" and will not be "monetized, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements."
- Expand YouTube's efforts in counter-radicalization. "We are working with Jigsaw to implement the 'redirect method' more broadly. ... This promising approach harnesses the power of targeted online advertising to reach potential Isis recruits, and redirects them towards anti-terrorist videos that can change their minds about joining."
Can Twitter Survive By Becoming A User-Owned Co-Op? (salon.com) 124
The idea makes sense from a labor standpoint. Twitter's value comes from user's tweets, which provides the backbone for digital advertising revenue. Twitter also sells this user-generated data to third parties that use it mainly for market research. This bloc of user-shareholders could theoretically overtake the control major institutional shareholders...have over the company. Because a lot of owners of a few shares of the company would have little to lose if the stock price doesn't grow or wavers, Twitter would be less beholden to meeting Wall Street's often brutal expectations.
China To Implement Cyber Security Law From Thursday (reuters.com) 59
Wikipedia's Switch To HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship (vice.com) 170
Egypt Blocks 21 Websites For 'Terrorism' And 'Fake News' (reuters.com) 55
China Censored Google's AlphaGo Match Against World's Best Go Player (theguardian.com) 93
FCC Won't Punish Stephen Colbert For Controversial Trump Insult (slashdot.org) 305
Comcast Proves Need For Net Neutrality By Trying To Censor Advocacy Website (fightforthefuture.org) 153
"This is exactly why we need Title II net neutrality protections that ban blocking, throttling, and censorship," said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, "If Ajit Pai's plan is enacted, there would be nothing preventing Comcast from simply blocking sites like Comcastroturf.com that are critical of their corporate policies," she added. "It also makes you wonder what Comcast is so afraid of? Are their lobbying dollars funding the astroturfing effort flooding the FCC with fake comments that we are encouraging Internet users to investigate?"
Could there be a better example to illustrate why ensuring strong Net Neutrality protections by regulating ISPs as common carriers is so important?
Wikipedia Is Being Blocked In Turkey (turkeyblocks.org) 94
stikves added Access to Wikipedia has been blocked in Turkey as a result of "a provisional administrative order" imposed by the Turkish Telecommunications Authority (BTK)... Turkey Blocks said an administrative blocking order is usually expected to precede a full court blocking order in coming days. While the reason for the order was unknown early on Saturday, a statement on the BTK's website said: "After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, ADMINISTRATION MEASURE has been taken for this website (wikipedia.org) according to Decision Nr. 490.05.01.2017.-182198 dated 29/04/2017 implemented by Information and Communication Technologies Authority."
The BBC adds reports from Turkish media that authorities "had asked Wikipedia to remove content by writers 'supporting terror.'"
Google Looks at People As it Pledges To Fight Fake News and 'Offensive' Content (betanews.com) 173
Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales is Launching an Online Publication To Fight Fake News (cnn.com) 190
Richard Stallman Interviewed By Bryan Lunduke (youtube.com) 172
Click through to read some of the highlights.