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States May Ban Online Censorship

Until now, the Masters of the Universe have seemed invulnerable. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Amazon have grown accustomed to getting their way without effective opposition. Competitors can’t challenge their market domination, and the Biden-Harris junta evidently doesn’t want to rein them in. Unless the states intervene, Big Tech owns us.

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Some states, though, have decided to enter the fray. Many have accused major tech platforms of online censorship. Florida and Montana led the way, considering laws forbidding censorship in social media, browser search engines, and online shopping fora.

Add Texas to the list. Texas Senator Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) sponsored a bill that could penalize Amazon, Facebook, Google, or Amazon for blocking access to information or commentary.

The bill would authorize Texans banned or suspended by Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube to sue them.

Hughes said, “We don’t allow a cable company to cut off your television because it doesn’t like your religion.”

What do the states say this is about?

Governor Greg Abbott backed the Hughes bill. “Big Tech’s effort to censor conservative viewpoints is un-American”, Abbott said, “and we’re not going to allow it in the Lone Star State.” Abbott accused several firms of leading “a dangerous movement to censor conservative voices and religious freedoms.”

To this, Abbott’s targets have a prepared response. Online firms have long claimed safe harbor under Section 230 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The section treats them as ‘common carriers’, not as publishers. They would, therefore, be immune from defamation or copyright infringement lawsuits for material posted on their platforms. The reasoning is that they don’t control what users post, any more than the phone carrier controls voice conversations.

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Abbott and Hughes argue that certain firms have forfeited these exemptions. They’ve done so, Abbott says, by acting as publishers. Rejecting content for political, religious, or social reasons is the behavior of a publisher. And publishers don’t qualify for Section 230 protection.

Will the states prevail in court? Check this space for updates.

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World Wide Web Inventor Calls for Its Overhaul

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, is unhappy with it.  He has been saying for years that it has evolved into something far different from what he envisioned. Not much more than ten years ago, the web was a decentralized open platform, but since then a few corporate giants have come to dominate it. Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon hold a near-stranglehold over online information and commerce, and web surfers have to surrender privacy to get much use out of the web.

Image result for world wide web images

So what can we do to correct this sorry state of affairs? Well, Berners-Lee is hard at work on an alternative. Next week, he will launch a for-profit business called  Inrupt. Based on a crowd-sourced platform called Solid, it is meant to enable developers all over the world to wrest control of the web away from governments and corporate giants.

“It’s a historical moment.”

If Berners-Lee and his crew are successful, Google, Facebook, and Amazon will soon be struggling for survival. Berners-Lee is open about hisdesire not only to challenge them, but to take them down.. He jokingly (?) says his goal is ‘world domination’, and he says he wants a completely new internet. He said he is not consulting with Google or Facebook about how he will upend their business models. In his words: “We’re not asking their permission.”

“We have to do it now”, he said of Inrupt. “It’s a historical moment.”

Why now?

The need for a disruptive internet model has never been more obvious. For the last five years, one scandal after another has reminded us that our personal data is subject to manipulation and theft.

You’ve no doubt heard the news about Cambridge Analytica and the Obama reelection campaign hijacking Facebook user data to aid their political campaigns. Twitter and YouTube have been caught blocking, shadow-banning, or demonetizing conservative content. Google vacuums up personal data for ads, and apparently adjusts search functions for political reasons. In a recently released video of a Google corporate conference, several executives spoke of “our values”, with some pledging to use the platform to promote them. All of ‘our values’ were blatantly political.

We obviously- and urgently- need drastic overhaul of the world wide web. Otherwise, we will soon lose all semblance of honest and objective online information service.

Who’s in control?

Berners-Lee and Inrupt propose to address the failings of the dominant internet systems with a platform called Solid. With it, the user can create his own ‘personal online data store’ or POD. It will feature his calendar, music library, video library, contact list, to-do list, chat, and research tools. It’s like combining Outlook, WhatsApp, Slack, Spotify, and Google on the same browser- all available at the same time.

Most importantly, the data is under the user’s control. All the data he produces will be protected within his POD. The information will be secure, out of reach for his ISP, Google, Facebook, or any advertising engine- unless the user wants to release it. He can customize the degree of access he wants to provide for each bit of data.

This is a huge departure from the current internet model. In the last few years,  Google, Facebook, and other firms have been holding and controlling most online data in ‘silos’ that they built.

In the Solid web model, there are no silos.

What happens next?

Beginning almost immediately, developers can start building their own apps for the Inrupt platform. And Berners-Lee will spend the autumn tutoring developers and executives in building apps for Solid and Inrupt.

Tim Berners-Lee has set a daunting goal for himself. Can he really replace the current world wide web with something far better? Don’t bet against it. He has a record of bringing into fruition projects that others thought impossible.

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HULU LIVE TV SERVICE 

Hulu

What had been rumored for months is now official. Hulu has confirmed that it will soon be launching a live streaming TV service.

Cord Cutter News, having acquired a copy of a survey Hulu sent to a small sample of its elite subscribers, reported that the internet video streaming service will charge $35.00 for its basic channel package streamed to one in-home or mobile device. For $50.00 per month, the customer will have the option of streaming the package to multiple devices. The offer includes 20 hours of DVR storage and live or on-demand access to all four major broadcast networks.

This last item is interesting, because CBS has not been mentioned in news reports about about carriage rights deals for Hulu’s new service.

For $20.00, the customer can increase DVR storage capacity to 300 hours.

The basic package likely will have about 80 channels, including AMC, ESPN, TBS, TNT, and USA. Sling TV, the pioneer in multichannel streaming TV, charges only $20.00 for its basic package, but it has only 27 channels. PlayStation Vue offers 55 channels in its Access Slim package for $30.00 per month.

Early reports indicate that Hulu’s live TV service will sell HBO as a $15.00 per month premium option, and Cinemax for $10.00 per month. Showtime, WWE, and Starz/Encore are also likely to be in its lineup, probably as $10.00 premium options. NFL RedZone and FOX Soccer Plus may also be included as premium options.

Hulu’s Live TV service is likely to become active late this year.

YouTube is another veteran internet video streaming service that has begun to offer paid curated content. Its $10.00 per month ‘Red’ platform offers ad-free video geared for teenagers and young adults.

(To get the most out of streaming video services, you need a reliable internet connection. If yours doesn’t measure up, talk to us. We can help.)

 

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PRIVACY AND THE WEB

The internet has been a huge benefit for most of us. It opens up nearly the entire store of the world’s knowledge to us, and it enables easier and faster communication. It comes at a huge cost, though: loss of privacy.

Your browser tracks your website visits in order to help advertisers identify your interests, so they can more easily identify the pitches you will respond to. Your posts on social media, and tags by others about you on social media, can live on forever, despite your best efforts to suppress them.

Some of the more prominent browser operators and social media sites have attempted to limit damage to personal privacy. There is only so much they can do, though. Parties determined enough to find and publicize the information can usually do so.  When Google attempted to comply with the European Union’s 2014 “Right to Be Forgotten” law, the British Broadcasting Company aggregated and reposted the links to its own stories that the search engine had delisted. The State of California enacted an “eraser button” law for minor children. Under its terms, minors are guaranteed a means to erase their social media posts, but the law can’t keep others from disseminating the information in them.

Any technical fixes may reduce our vulnerability, but they don’t eliminate it. Last June, Google expunged links to revenge porn from its search engine, and deleted the information in them. This makes revenge porn much more difficult, but not impossible. YouTube’s “face-blurring” tool can prevent being tagged by facial recognition apps. This is especially useful for participants in public gatherings, such as political demonstrations. It won’t prevent publication on other social media sites, though. And a person whose face has been blurred can still be identified by clothing, posture, or other distinctive features.

It would be unrealistic to expect to be forgotten on the internet. The best we can hope for is obscurity. Once your information is online, whether posted by you or others, you can’t control who sees it. With some prudence and a few technical fixes, though, you can shield yourself from casual spies. Only the most motivated, persistent, and technically savvy can find what you’re hiding.

To some, this will be cold comfort. For most of us, though, it will be enough. Take a few simple steps to guard your online privacy, and you probably will be fine. Use complex passwords that will be difficult to break. Disable tracking cookies on your browser. Be careful about the websites you visit. Above all else, remember your mother’s advice: avoid doing anything in a public venue you don’t want the whole world to know about. Be especially wary where cameras are likely to be present.

If you have ever been online, your privacy won’t be absolute. With a few basic precautions, though, you should be able to avoid serious problems.