Posts under ‘Issues’

CNET: Apple abandons effort to unmask leaker. The case, filed in the superior court of Santa Clara County, drew national attention not only because it involved unreleased products–but also because it was one of the first to set the rules of how the rights of uncredentialed online journalists should be balanced against the rights of […]

So the folks at Public Knowledge put out an audio of Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens’ astonishingly ignorant — and inadvertently hilarious — treatise on the Internet (and why he’s against Network Neutrality). That was helpful. Now comes Boldheaded.com with this remix of the senator’s remarks. This is citizen-media commentary at its most original, and […]

Reuters reports that Wu Hao, a Chinese film maker and blogger and now a U.S resident, has been freed after a months-long imprisonment in China. This case has been one of the clearest examples of the Chinese regime’s loathing of truly free speech, and his release is good news. Kudos to all those who raised […]

Wall Street Journal: Free, Legal and Ignored. As a student at Cornell University, Angelo Petrigh had access to free online music via a legal music-downloading service his school provided. Yet the 21-year-old still turned to illegal file-sharing programs. The reason: While Cornell’s online music program, through Napster, gave him and other students free, legal downloads, […]

The postings in TPMmuckraker’s Ann Coulter Archives lead to various articles and other evidence that her rancid writings aren’t always her own words, and the site is looking for more examples that it plans to publish soon. I have many objections to her work — such as her too-frequently lack of accuracy and fairness — […]

Reuters: Google says bill could spark antitrust fight. Google warned on Tuesday it will not hesitate to file antitrust complaints in the United States if high-speed Internet providers abuse the market power they could receive from U.S. legislators. Good for Google. As Congress prepares to give the big telecom players — the phone and cable […]

Letter From Bill Keller on The Times’s Banking Records Report : The press and the government generally start out from opposite corners in such cases. The government would like us to publish only the official line, and some of our elected leaders tend to view anything else as harmful to the national interest.

Wall Street Journal: Flag-Burning Debate Reclaims Spotlight. Polls tend to show that the flag issue is relatively low among voter priorities. Some voters who favor the amendment feel strongly about it, and the issue could make a difference in tight races, particularly in conservative-leaning states. This exercise is a direct attack on free speech. Many […]

The phone companies are behind a slew of anti-network neutrality TV ads I saw in Washington the other evening. It was unfortunate that their commercials, aimed at Congress and staffs on Capitol Hill, are designed not to enlighten but rather to obfuscate. An honest debate is not what we’re getting, sorry to say. And with […]

Jon Udell at Infoworld hates the expression “user-generated content,” with excellent reason. In “User-generated content vs. reader-created context,” he writes: Now that the original vision of a two-way web is finally made real, we can distinguish between amateur storytellers (in the best and highest sense of amateur) and professional storytellers. Thanks to the contributions of […]