Posts under ‘Free Speech’

This story in Editor & Publisher, about American media’s unwillingness to print or broadcast the cartoons that have so dramatically inflamed many in the Muslim world, speaks volumes about the industry’s lowest-common-denominator approach to its audience. From the article: Doug Clifton, editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, agreed that the offensive nature precluded running […]

The Nation: The End of the Internet? The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online. The modest hyperbole in this […]

I’m at the second Al Jazeera forum in Doha, the base of operations of the Arabic news broadcaster that is about to launch an international network in competition with CNN, BBC and others. Later today, I’m speaking on a panel about blogs and other grassroots media. My Berkman Center colleague, Ethan Zuckerman, another speaker here, […]

From Dave Farber’s Interesting People mail list: Here’s what censorship does. Compare Google China: http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen Google the rest of the world: http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen

As usual, my new colleague Rebecca MacKinnon serves up the best round-up and commentary on Google’s cave-in to China’s government. Key quote: At the end of the day, this compromise puts Google a little lower on the evil scale than many other internet companies in China. But is this compromise something Google should be proud […]

Denise Howell has a detailed blog posting about the American Bar Association panel I joined last week in southern California: “Who Owns The News? Attempts by sports organizations and entertainers to control coverage.” My major point was that in the age of bottom-up media, controlling everything is impossible — and a lousy idea in any […]

I’m at the American Bar Association’s Communications Law conference, at a mock Senate hearing about the so-called “Free Flow of Information Act,” a bill that went before Congress last year but went nowhere. Some of the people who testified, including former NY Times reporter Judith Miller, is “testifying” before one former senator, Slade Gorton, and […]

Later this morning I’ll be on a panel at the American Bar Association’s Communications Law conference. The title of the panel: “Who Owns The News? Attempts by sports organizations and entertainers to control coverage.” It refers to the tendency of these industries to lock down journalism on what they do, at all levels — essentially […]

The Ledger (Lakeland, Florida) News Coverage of Speech to Be Limited. When Sean Hannity, the Fox Network commentator, speaks at Southeastern University Friday night, his words won’t reach a wide audience. The news media will be allowed to watch and take pictures of the first few minutes of Hannity’s hourlong speech. After 10 minutes, all […]

UPDATED CNET: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail. Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime. It’s no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity. Update: Daniel Solove makes a strong case that CNET has […]