I don’t know how many times it needs to be said, but since so many are still insisting the opposite is true, I guess many more times: Twitter’s moderation policies were not driven by some anti-conservative bias, nor were they pushed by the government to block Trump or his supporters. We have, of course, discussed […]
This week the Biden administration basically re-announced the $42.5 billion in broadband funding that will soon start flowing to the states to shore up U.S. broadband access. Despite press reports that this funding is somehow new, it came as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Not too surprisingly, numerous Republicans that voted […]
Back in January, Walled Culture wrote about an interesting initiative by the German online audio distribution platform and music sharing service SoundCloud, with its Fan-Powered Royalties (FPR) approach. At the time, we noted that it was a kind of halfway house to the true fans idea this blog has promoted many times. We also pointed out that one […]
Look, we were not kind when Genius first accused Google of copying lyrics from its site. The only interesting bit was the cleverness with which Genius figured out Google had copied the lyrics from its site, by sneakily adding in curved or non-curved apostrophes to see if the same ones showed up in Google’s version […]
We just got done noting how the FCC has spent most of the last decade under the bootheel of the telecom lobby, and in an era where all DC policy is fixated on “big tech,” (often for very good reasons) nobody much seems to care or have noticed. For four years under Trump, the FCC […]
Lately, concerns about allowing minors to use social media have been front and center in the public discourse, but ways in which they use it productively have been absent from the conversation. My own anecdotal experience does not constitute comprehensive data, but it’s important to understand how social media can be extremely useful for teens […]
The UK government desires direct control of the internet. This has been the plan for years. A bill that would criminalize encryption while mandating client-side scanning to control the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has been on the front burner for years. The bill would also turn hate speech into a crime and […]
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A few months back I attended a workshop regarding keeping children on the internet safe, and at some point a debate broke out over whether social media was “more like” cigarettes or chocolate (i.e., obviously addictive and harmful or just a little unhealthy in large doses), and a long term trust & safety executive who […]
So a few weeks ago Trump FCC boss Ajit Pai came out of hiding to issue a dumb blog post about how killing net neutrality must not have been a bad idea because the internet still works. In his post, he prattles on about how secretly wonderful the U.S. broadband industry is, proving that his […]
It’s crazy just how many posts we’ve done here on the subject of tattoos. But if you go and review the posts we have done on this topic, you will notice that the majority of them involve tattoo artists as the ones asserting intellectual property rights, not those who got the tattoo on their person. […]
There have been plenty of laws passed to keep prisoners from profiting from depictions of their crimes, encompassing not only their own recountings, but those put together by others. These so-called “Son of Sam” laws got their name from serial killer David Berkowitz, who authorities speculated was going to sell off the rights to his […]
Recently, we announced our latest game project: FutureCast, created in partnership with the United Nations’ Global Pulse group. It’s a highly adaptable strategic forecasting tool that aims to explore “pathways of change” for different future scenarios by bringing together groups of stakeholders for a fun, insight-generating exercise. This week, we’re joined by Minke Meijnders and […]
One of Elon’s big promises when he took over Twitter was that he would get rid of spam bots. So far that’s been a huge fucking failure. That’s from the Wall Street Journal, which has been generally supportive of Musk’s tenure at Twitter. But, the article makes it clear that Musk has totally failed to […]
Copyright is still high on the list of censorial weapons. When you live in (or target) a country that protects free speech rights and offers intermediaries immunity via Section 230, you quickly surmise there’s a soft target lying between the First Amendment and the CDA. That soft target is the DMCA. Thanks to plenty of […]
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Let’s start off with this point, which some seem to ignore when I talk about this stuff: I think many of the “concerns” about disinformation are totally overblown. People act as if disinformation has a sort of bizarre mind-control over other people (never themselves) to the point that they act as if disinformation itself is […]
While the Biden administration has been a bit of a hot mess on broadband consumer protection (see: the Gigi Sohn fiasco), the administration has done some amazing things for overall investment in broadband. Largely thanks to both COVID relief legislation (The American Rescue Plan Act, ARPA) and the IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). When […]
Law enforcement officers and sexual assault go hand-in-hand. Give someone enough power and they’re sure to abuse it. That’s just human nature. Only the best people should be trusted with this much power, but this nation tends to believe that only the most law enforcement will do. Consequently, our hiring practices — not to mention […]
The saga of Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard continues. The two biggest remaining hurdles over which Microsoft has to jump to get the deal over the finish line at this point are in the UK with the CMA and in America with the FTC. While Microsoft appeals the CMA’s refusal to allow the deal to […]
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