Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and other journalists are being punished for covering the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Local authorities recently issued an arrest warrant for Goodman and arrested at least two independent reporters — and this crackdown on press freedom will continue if we don't speak up now.
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How Facebook plans to take over the world
“Disrupting Facebook would be like trying to disrupt telephone calls, it’s so ubiquitous,” says Paul Adams, former Facebook staffer.
If live video is Facebook’s phase four, then artificial intelligence and virtual reality look like being big parts of phase five. Both of these fit its strategy of monetizing as many of our social interactions as possible.
Source: theguardian.com
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The mass recording of inmate calls is itself a fairly recent practice, sold by private telecommunications companies, like Securus, to jails and prisons as a security measure — a way to thwart violent uprisings, for example, or curb the introduction of contraband into a facility. This bulk surveillance — the recording and long-term storage of millions and millions of routine communications — raises serious concerns about the privacy rights of incarcerated persons and their loved ones, says David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project.
Source: theintercept.com
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It’s a growing trend in the wireless space as companies look for ever more ways to hook data-hungry mobile users. But the practice has drawn scrutiny from net neutrality advocates who argue that sponsored data or “zero rating” lets rich, powerful companies pay to win, tilting the playing field against entrepreneurs and start-ups who can’t afford to pay the new fees.
Source: Washington Post
Engagement is a big buzzword in journalism today. But what if the future of journalism lies not only in building the right app or tech tool but in developing deep and meaningful connections between reporters and residents?
That’s what Free Press’ News Voices: New Jersey project set out to discover six months ago.
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The so-called dark web, for all its notoriety as a haven for criminals and drug dealers, is slowly starting to look more and more like a more privacy-preserving mirror of the web as a whole. Now it’s gained one more upstanding member: the non-profit news organization ProPublica.
On Wednesday, ProPublica became the first known major media outlet to launch a version of its site that runs as a “hidden service” on the Tor network, the anonymity system that powers the thousands of untraceable websites that are sometimes known as the darknet or dark web. The move, ProPublica says, is designed to offer the best possible privacy protections for its visitors seeking to read the site’s news with their anonymity fully intact. Unlike mere SSL encryption, which hides the content of the site a web visitor is accessing, the Tor hidden service would ensure that even the fact that the reader visited ProPublica’s website would be hidden from an eavesdropper or Internet service provider.
“Everyone should have the ability to decide what types of metadata they leave behind,” says Mike Tigas, ProPublica’s developer who worked on the Tor hidden service. “We don’t want anyone to know that you came to us or what you read.”
Source: Wired
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On Thursday, settlements were reached for two civil rights lawsuits between Muslim Americans and the New York Police Department. The cases were brought against the NYPD by after officers secretly infiltrated mosques and Muslim organizations to gather information. What they NYPD will now have to do.
Source: mic.com
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“I think of the Internet as its own community, and if you want to compare it to a local library, they’re going to catalog all the small things that happened. If you want to know what happened in a part of New York City in the 1700s, I know a library would have cool letters, or maps or something like that. Something like Star Wars Kid, you had to download the video and had to be involved in some weird Internet pocket to see it. But now a viral video gets posted six times and it becomes a vine, it becomes a gif set, and you kind of can’t escape it. I think it’s important to catalog these things because you know the history of the Internet.”
Hero status. -Emily
Source: Washington Post
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Facebook is trying to mislead users into helping undermine net neutrality in India
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 22, 2015
Contact: Evan Greer, 978-852-6457, press@fightforthefuture.org
Fight for the Future has received several reports of U.S. based Facebook users receiving notifications encouraging them to “Act Now to Save Free Basics in India.”
Free Basics is a so-called “zero rating” plan that offers potential internet users free access to Facebook and a select few other websites, but not to the entire Web. It’s been roundly criticized as a violation of net neutrality that will deepen the digital divide rather than address it. Now it appears that Facebook is using its own platform to lobby against Indian Internet activists who have been successfully opposing the scheme.
“Facebook is abusing its near-monopoly status to mislead users into lobbying for Facebook’s corporate interests. It’s hard to imagine a better example of why we so desperately need net neutrality protections,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, “No corporation or government should be able to decide what we can see and do on the Internet––no matter how nicely they wrap the package, as soon as we give them this power we’re throwing away our basic human right to free expression.”
“Facebook’s Free Basics scheme is like trying to address global hunger by feeding everyone free McDonald’s cheeseburgers,” added Jeff Lyon, CTO of Fight for the Future, “It doesn’t actually address the root cause of the problem, and it benefits corporations way more than than the general public.”
Open Internet activists in India have vehemently opposed the Free Basics scam, which changed its name from Internet.org after its initial announcement generated public outcry. It’s particularly alarming that Facebook is enlisting U.S. users in its campaign against net neutrality protections in India, sparking questions about sovereignty and raising concerns about Facebook undermining the democratic process.
Fight for the Future and other groups will be monitoring this situation closely and plan to continue opposing Free Basics and all other “zero rating” schemes that violate the principles of net neutrality.
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Fight for the Future is a grassroots advocacy group with more than 1.4 million members that fights to protect the Internet as a powerful platform for freedom of expression and social change. They’re best known for organizing the massive online protests against SOPA, for net neutrality, and against government surveillance. Learn more at https://www.fightforthefuture.org and https://www.twitter.com/fightfortheftr
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Three notable changes relating to digital access and digital divides are occurring in the realm of personal connectivity, according to new findings from Pew Research Center surveys.
- 1) Home broadband adoption seems to have plateaued.
- 2) There has been an increase in “smartphone-only” adults – those who own a smartphone that they can use to access the internet, but do not have traditional broadband service at home.
- 3) 15% of American adults report they have become “cord cutters” – meaning they have abandoned paid cable or satellite television service.