Summary:In the fall of 2019, talk show host Ellen Degeneres was criticized after being seen attending a professional football game with former President George W. Bush. Degeneres addressed the controversy on her show, saying she was invited by the Dallas Cowboys’ owner, and also suggesting that she was friends with the former President Bush and that people should “be kind” to people they disagree with politically.Rafael Shimunov took the video of Degeneres giving her side of the controversy and transformed it so that the background showed disturbing images from the Iraq War which was started by President Bush. The clip used approximately half of the video that Ellen herself had posted to YouTube, with the only change being the replacement of the blue background. Soon after that video began to go viral on Twitter, Shimunov and others who had reposted it received notices saying that the video was taken down due to a copyright claim under the DMCA made by someone working for Degeneres’ TV show.Recipients of the takedown notice said that it appeared to be the work of a social media manager for the show and not an automated takedown.As the EFF noted in discussing the takedown, the DMCA requires that anyone filing a DMCA takedown notice take into account whether or not the content in question is covered by fair use, and there is little evidence the social media manager filing these notices did so.Decisions to be made by Twitter:
Well, the government is closing out the year with quite a mess. As threatened, President Trump today vetoed the massive National Defense Authorization Act, living up to his promise to veto it if it didn't include the complete revocation of Section 230 of the Communications Act, which has nothing to do with funding our military. Trump, for no reason at all, says that repealing Section 230 is important for "national security", which makes no sense at all (nor does he provide any rationale for this statement). Senate Armed Service chair and Trump buddy Senator Jim Inhofe had already threatened to override the veto should Trump go this route -- and has (correctly!) said that 230 has nothing at all to do with the NDAA. Inhofe has already responded to Trump's veto by asking Congress to "join me in making sure our troops have the resources and equipment they need to defend this nation." In other words, he's asking Congress to override the veto.As for 230, Inhofe (ridiculously) claims that he does support a repeal of the law, but it should be in a separate legislative vehicle, and not the NDAA:
Hi, kids! Do you like state-ordained violence? Want to see me [redacted] in each one of my [redacted]? Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did? [Bond theme intensifies.]The Snowden leaks gave us some of the first looks behind the Vantablack curtain surrounding intelligence efforts engaged in by US allies in the UK. The Snowden sneak peek enabled legal challenges that routinely found UK intelligence agencies were violating the rights of UK citizens, as well as those the UK government has unilaterally declared rightsless.More rights violations and general wrongfulness has been uncovered. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal doesn't like what it's been seeing from MI6, which has apparently let its sources and informants run wild. The Tribunal doesn't say what criminal violations have been committed in the name of national security, but its limited ruling expresses its displeasure with attempted MI6 interference and its apparent blessing of criminal actions.
Hi, kids! Do you like state-ordained violence? Want to see me [redacted] in each one of my [redacted]? Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did? [Bond theme intensifies.]The Snowden leaks gave us some of the first looks behind the Vantablack curtain surrounding intelligence efforts engaged in by US allies in the UK. The Snowden sneak peek enabled legal challenges that routinely found UK intelligence agencies were violating the rights of UK citizens, as well as those the UK government has unilaterally declared rightsless.More rights violations and general wrongfulness has been uncovered. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal doesn't like what it's been seeing from MI6, which has apparently let its sources and informants run wild. The Tribunal doesn't say what criminal violations have been committed in the name of national security, but its limited ruling expresses its displeasure with attempted MI6 interference and its apparent blessing of criminal actions.
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For not the first time this year, Section 230's authors -- Ron Wyden and Chris Cox -- have felt the need to speak up and debunk some of the many, many myths around Section 230. Their team-up in a filing to the FCC remains one of the most thorough and comprehensive debunkings of 230 myths out there that it should be required reading for anyone criticizing the law. But apparently no one actually reads FCC filings, so they've now taken to the pages of USA Today (which recently ran a nearly fact free attack on 230) to explain once again why Section 230 is so important to the open internet.The op-ed starts by talking about the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, about the sketchy fraudulent practices of Jordan Belfort and his company Stratton Oakmont. As 230 fanatics know, that company, Stratton Oakmont, is a huge part of the reason why Section 230 exists. People on stock discussion forums on early internet service Prodigy had criticized the Belfort's company, and rather than go after whoever posted the criticism, Stratton Oakmont sued Prodigy itself. And, incredibly, a judge had initially sided with Stratton Oakmont because Prodigy moderated its forums and pitched itself as a "family friendly" internet service.
U.S. Telecom providers, as companies that have spent the better part of the last century as government-pampered monopolies, are adorable when they try to innovate or seriously compete in more normal, competitive markets. Verizon's attempt to pivot from curmudgeonly old phone company to sexy new ad media darling, for example, has been a cavalcade of clumsy errors, missteps, and wasted money.AT&T has seen similar issues. Under CEO Randall Stephenson, AT&T spent roughly $200 billion on mergers with DirecTV and Time Warner, hoping this would secure its ability to dominate the pay TV space through brute force. But the exact opposite happened. Saddled with so much debt from the deal, AT&T passed on annoying price hikes to its consumers. It also embraced a branding strategy so damn confusing -- with so many different product names -- it even confused its own employees.As a result, AT&T lost 3,190,000 pay TV subscribers last year alone and roughly 7 million since 2017. Not exactly the kind of "domination" the company envisioned. Despite a $42 billion tax break from the Trump administration for literally doing less than nothing (42,000 layoffs, in fact), AT&T's now being forced to consider low ball offers for DirecTV after investors finally got tired of the company's merger-mania. It's not going particularly well:
U.S. Telecom providers, as companies that have spent the better part of the last century as government-pampered monopolies, are adorable when they try to innovate or seriously compete in more normal, competitive markets. Verizon's attempt to pivot from curmudgeonly old phone company to sexy new ad media darling, for example, has been a cavalcade of clumsy errors, missteps, and wasted money.AT&T has seen similar issues. Under CEO Randall Stephenson, AT&T spent roughly $200 billion on mergers with DirecTV and Time Warner, hoping this would secure its ability to dominate the pay TV space through brute force. But the exact opposite happened. Saddled with so much debt from the deal, AT&T passed on annoying price hikes to its consumers. It also embraced a branding strategy so damn confusing -- with so many different product names -- it even confused its own employees.As a result, AT&T lost 3,190,000 pay TV subscribers last year alone and roughly 7 million since 2017. Not exactly the kind of "domination" the company envisioned. Despite a $42 billion tax break from the Trump administration for literally doing less than nothing (42,000 layoffs, in fact), AT&T's now being forced to consider low ball offers for DirecTV after investors finally got tired of the company's merger-mania. It's not going particularly well:
Oh my. Be mindful about the suddenly sensitive Chinese government. Let's not accuse them of things they want to do when those things haven't been done yet.Maybe it's just a Winnie the Pooh meme. Maybe it's the inability of professional athletes to keep their opinions to themselves. Maybe it's an entire landmass who doesn't want to see its independence crushed by a government that agreed to not crush its independence for the next several years.Never mind the narratives. Here's what the Chinese government has been doing. It wants certain citizens prosecuted, persecuted, and ejected. The Uighur population of China has been a target for years. Nothing will change that. But it can be made worse.Huawei -- currently the target of misguided or, at least, hypocritical US government activity -- has been whipping up some AI that goes beyond facial recognition. The AI being built by Huawei will identify people based on the their race, sex, and religious proclivities. Never mind the fact that facial recognition still can't reliably recognize faces. The tech being built by Huawei promises to subject millions of Chinese residents to algorithms at least as untrustworthy as those not being asked to suss out people's race or religious leanings.The Chinese government isn't worried about backlash. But those still doing business in other parts of the world (like Huawei and others) are. You can't increase market share when the rest of the world considers you an extension of an oppressive government.Alibaba -- the Amazon of the unregulated -- doesn't want to alienate a user base it's attempting to cultivate. It has issued a statement that serves as a somewhat reluctant middle finger to the Chinese government. There's a whole world of marks out there. Why should Alibaba restrict its hunt for rubes to whatever the Chinese government allows?
Since this past summer we have been writing about a bonkers lawsuit brought against the makers of a Netflix movie, Enola Holmes, by the Conan Doyle Estate. The stories of Sherlock Holmes are, of course, largely in the public domain now, although roughly 10 tales still haven't reached the expiration date of their copyright protection. The film does not tell any of those protected stories. Instead, it tells an original story, focused on Holmes' sister, Enola. To make its copyright claim, the Estate instead suggests that Enola Holmes shows a Sherlock who has feelings and empathy, among other details, and therefore runs afoul of the character copyright as Sherlock didn't show such features until those still-protected stories were written. Also, something about Sherlock developing a liking towards dogs. Yes, seriously.Well, Netflix moved to have the case dismissed, going in quite hard on the details of the Estate's claims. For starters, in Enola Holmes, um, no dogs. Added to that, the motion provides ample evidence of Sherlock having feelings and empathy prior to the protected works and that such ideas are not protectable anyway. The rest of us, meanwhile, waited patiently to see if the mystery of whether or not you could break copyright in this way could actually succeed in court.Sadly, we'll never know, as reportedly Netflix and the Estate have reached a settlement.
Summary:Formed in 2007 and operated out of Limassol, Cyprus, xHamster has worked its way up to become the 20th most-visited site on the internet. The site boasts 10 million members and hundreds of millions of daily visitors despite being blocked by a number of governments around the world.Being in the pornography business poses unique moderation challenges. Not only do moderators deal with a flood of both amateur and professional submissions, they must take care to prevent the uploading of illegal content. This goes further than policing uploads for unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material. Moderators must also make decisions -- with facts not in their possession -- about the ages of performers in amateur videos to prevent being prosecuted for the distribution of child pornography.Given the stakes, users would expect a well-staffed moderation team trained in the difficult art of discerning performers' ages… or at least given the authority to block uploads until information about performers is obtained from uploaders.Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case. An undercover investigation by Vice shows one of the biggest sites on the internet has chosen to lower its costs by relying on an all-volunteer moderation team.
It seems that people have decided that now is a good time to attack Google in various ways. In October, the US Justice Department sued Google for allegedly violating antitrust laws. This month, ten US states sued Google, alleging anticompetitive behavior, followed by another 38 states, alleging that the company has created an illegal monopoly in online search and advertising. In November, 165 companies and industry bodies sent a letter to the EU complaining about Google and asking for tougher antitrust action. The EU has also released first drafts of its new Digital Services Act, and Digital Markets Act. One of the key elements of the new laws is tackling the power of leading online platforms like Google.The EU has already taken steps towards that end. Back in 2018, the EU fined Google €4.34 billion for breaching antitrust rules. As part of its compliance with the EU's demands, Google introduced a process whereby other search engines can bid to appear on a "choice screen", which lets Android users pick the default search engine when they set up their smartphone. However, some rival search engines, like DuckDuckGo, were unhappy with the approach. At the end of October, DuckDuckGo, along with Ecosia, Lilo, Qwant and Seznam -- search engines from Germany, France, France and the Czech Republic, respectively -- sent an open letter to the European Commission on the subject:
Movements to "defund" law enforcement agencies have sprung up around the nation, trailing the protests against police violence that spread across the country following the killing of an unarmed black man by Minneapolis police officers in May.In most cases, no one's looking to completely dismantle the local police force. Instead, legislators and activists are seeking to move some of their funding to other areas -- like social services, mental health care, and other crime reduction efforts that shouldn't involve armed officers. This hasn't stopped police departments -- which often command outsized percentages of city budgets -- from complaining they're being dismantled and that these efforts will lead to outbreaks of violent crime.One of the agencies complaining about defunding and violent crime is the Austin Police Department. And a federal official is pitching in with the complaining. A recent press conference held by the US Attorney's Office claims Austin's defunding effort has led to more crime.
Yesterday, Senator Thom Tillis helped ram through a gift for Hollywood: getting the felony streaming copyright bill that he'd only released a week earlier included in the must-pass omnibus funding bill despite literally no discussion or debate about the problems with the bill.This morning, he really doubled down. As announced last month, Tillis has now released a draft of his DMCA overhaul, which appears to be exactly what he had hinted at last month -- meaning he appears to have ignored the advice and suggestions of many of us who warned Tillis of the dangers of simply buying into Hollywood's vision of copyright reform. I wonder why he would do such a thing?Of course, it also makes you wonder why he had to hide the felony streaming bill in yesterday's must pass omnibus. Since he was going to be working on a big copyright reform bill, why not put it in there in order to have an actual debate and discussion about it?Anyway, Tillis notes that this current version is just a discussion draft and he'll release the actual bill next year once the new term begins. He's asking people for their edits. In fact, he (somewhat hilariously) asks YouTubers to send in their own redlines and, well, careful what you ask for:
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It was only mid-day yesterday that it was confirmed that Congress has slipped in two controversial copyright provisions into the must-pass government funding bill. Last night, as everyone expected, that must-pass bill did indeed pass, and it will soon be law.There are many, many reasons to be frustrated about this. First, just the way this was done is incredibly stupid. The government waited until the very last minute (with a couple of "extensions") to work out this agreement on a combination of the COVID relief bill (which is way too small and way too late for many, many people) and a bill to actually fund the government and avoid a shutdown. It's already ridiculous that we have to do this government funding bill each year, especially considering that Congress already approves a budget earlier in the year, and the appropriations bill is really just a fight over how to apportion what Congress has already agreed to spend. And then, because the appropriations bill is considered a "must pass" to keep large parts of the government funded, Congress lights it up like a Christmas tree with totally unrelated bills they couldn't get passed through normal process.Incredibly, some politicians, like Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, seem proud of this practice:
For much of the last few years, broadband customers have been complaining that Frontier Communications, the nation's third-biggest telco, had been charging its customers a rental fee for modems they already owned. Normally, you're supposed to be able to buy your own modem instead of paying your ISP a rental fee upwards of $10 per month. To nab some extra dough from captive customers, Frontier basically decided to charge its customers a rental fee anyway, giving them a polite, though giant, middle finger when they complained.This façade persisted until customers had a problem with their hardware, at which point the ISP would just shrug and claim there was nothing they could do. When consumers complained to the Trump FCC about this, the agency did... absolutely nothing. As with most complaints to the Trump FCC, the agency just forwards your complaint to the ISP in question then does... nothing whatsoever.This kind of behavior is the norm for the broadband industry, given it faces minimal pressure to try harder due to limited competition and captured regulators. So consumer advocates last year successfully pushed for the passage of the Television Viewer Protection Act (TVPA). The law, which likely would have never made it past a broken and corrupt Congress in standalone form, had to be shoveled into a budget bill in order to be passed by Congress and signed by President Trump in December 2019. It's not likely that many, including Trump, even noticed that the provision existed in the broader bill.The bill prohibits charging consumers a rental fee for hardware they already own. It also requires that ISPs be a bit more transparent about all the bullshit fees broadband providers use to pad their advertised rates. And it gives you a 24 hours to cancel cable TV for any reason. It's not perfect; the bill doesn't prohibit ISPs from using bogus fees to raise your rate while under contract. It's also loosely worded enough that ISPs could likely find some new ways to tap dance around it. But it's still a step in the right direction:
A historic hack of unprecedented scale has set off alarms in the US government -- itself a target of suspected Russian hackers who leveraged IT infrastructure company SolarWinds' massive customer base to compromise an unknown number of victims. Among those victims were several US government agencies, including the DHS's cybersecurity wing, which announced its own breach hours after issuing a dire warning to potentially affected government agencies.Is it time to panic? No, says the lame duck president, who claims this is already "under control" -- something that very definitely isn't true. SolarWinds says it has 18,000 customers using the affected Orion software. And many of those customers (which include Fortune 500 companies and major telcos/service providers) have thousands of customers of their own -- all of which may be operating compromised systems. The DHS said the only way to ensure systems are clear of this threat was to airgap them and uninstall the infected software.Others who have been briefed on the hack are far less cheery about its ongoing impact. Trump tweeted there was nothing to worry about. Republican allies seem more concerned than the man who won't have to worry about this for much longer.
We've been talking about the growth of esports for some time here, in particular the way it has exploded in use since the pandemic first began. Still, for those of us watching the progress of esports, there are certain milestone markers you look for. Major sporting brands like Nike jumping into it is one, as is seeing the first esports company looking to be listed on a major stock exchange. But the real indicator that esports is now fully a thing is when major IRL sports leagues like the NHL, NASCAR, and MLB jump onto the bandwagon.Still, in some of those cases, this action was taken specifically to tide the public over during the severe lockdowns in the pandemic, which by-and-large shut down IRL sports. But with the Philadelphia Eagles deciding to be the NFL's first franchise to get into esports, it appears to be for the long haul.
A controversial shooting that resulted in another controversial shooting is generating even more controversy.Earlier this year, self-proclaimed antifa supporter Michael Reinoehl allegedly shot and killed far right counter-protester Aaron Danielson during a protest in Portland, Oregon. Reinoehl claimed the shooting was self-defense. Other witnesses claimed the shooting was unjustified. Neither assertion ever had a chance to be proven. Reinoehl was killed by US Marshals four days later -- an extrajudicial killing praised by President Trump as good and lawful.
You'd think the government of a land surrounded by enemies would do more to regulate malware distribution by local companies. It's one thing to hold your enemies close. It's quite another to provide them with the tools to ensure your own downfall.One would think malware purveyors like the Israel's NSO Group would post photos of countries like Saudi Arabia on its "DO NOT ACCEPT CHECKS FROM THESE GOVERNMENTS" wall at its HQ. But it doesn't care. It sells to whoever will buy, even if that means subjecting Israeli citizens to surveillance programs run by Israel's enemies.This has been part of NSO's far from illustrious history for years. When not being sued by American companies for leveraging their messaging services to deliver malware, NSO Group has allowed a variety of authoritarian governments to spy on activists, journalists, and dissidents with its toolkit of exploits and scalable attacks.The latest expose on NSO's unsavory tactics comes from Citizen Lab, which has been exposing the nastiness of malware purveyors for years. Citizen Lab says NSO is still allowing Israel's enemies to target critics, making it far more dangerous for them to engage in activities that expose heinous government actions. Unsurprisingly, it's longtime human rights violators making the most of whatever NSO Group will sell them.
It's generally understood that the latest Congressional COVID relief package is the policy equivalent of a band-aid on a lost limb, and the $600 being doled out to struggling American families is a joke (especially compared with international public aid efforts). We're also only just starting to take inventory of how much padding and nonsense is buried in the bill that couldn't be shoveled through standalone bills due to its innate terribleness and grift.But the bill did include a few helpful measures, including $7 billion to help shore up America's affordable broadband problem. $3.2 billion of that money will be aimed at keeping working families connected to the internet in a country where toddlers have had to huddle in the dirt outside of fast food restaurants just so they can attend class.The bill provides a $50 a month emergency broadband benefit for anyone laid off or furloughed during the pandemic. Details are still forthcoming, but I'm assuming the effort will be built on the back of Lifeline, a low-income program begun by Reagan and expanded to cover wireless by Bush Junior. The program currently provides a measly $9.25 monthly subsidy low-income families have to spend on broadband, phone, or wireless service. In the last few years, Trump FCC boss Ajit Pai has repeatedly tried to kneecap the program despite it having broad, bipartisan support for decades.Early reports indicate the bill also includes $1 billion in grants for Tribal broadband programs, $300 million for rural broadband deployment, $285 million to fund a pilot program to shore up broadband issues for communities near Black colleges and universities, and $65 million to help improve the FCC's notoriously shaky broadband availability maps.These are all indisputably good things. Especially during a public health and economic crisis that has highlighted why broadband is essential for survival and opportunity. Something reflected in a statement by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden:
As we warned about earlier this month, it appears that Congress has in fact put two very controversial copyright provisions into the government funding "omnibus" bill that will be voted on later today. As you may have heard, last night Congress worked out a "deal" on both a $900 billion Covid relief/stimulus package and the giant $1.4 trillion omnibus government funding bill, which is being voted on today. There had been concerns raised all month about how -- under pressure from Hollywood -- Congress might try to sneak two dangerous copyright provisions and one trademark provision into the omnibus.Since the "deal" was announced last night, people have been scrambling to find out what's actually in the fucking bill which is being voted on shortly. It's just come out that, indeed, all three controversial copyright and trademark provisions are in the bill. The CASE Act will supercharge copyright trolling exactly at a time when we need to fix the law to have less trolling. And the felony streaming bill (which was only just revealed last week with no debate or discussion, includes provisions that are so confusing and vague no one is sure if it makes sites like Twitch into felons.The fact that these are getting added to the must pass government funding bill is just bad government. And Congressional leadership should hear about this.The full omnibus bill is over 3,000 pages long, so you can search through it for your favorite bit of nonsense. Felony streaming is on page 72. The CASE Act starts on page 77.There's a reason that copyright is generally controversial. Small changes can not only have a massive impact, that impact can be on the public's ability to express themselves. The idea that two such bills should be jammed through in this manner is a total and complete travesty. People should be mad about this and should hold the Congressional leadership of both parties responsible. This is not good governance. This is sucking up to Hollywood at the expense of the public.
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Great news, everyone! The outgoing president -- the one who refuses to accept the results of the popular vote or the electoral college vote -- has been horny on main for weeks. The only thing that could keep Trump in office is some sort of civil war, something he appears to be actively encouraging.A bunch of politicians who've sold their souls for hospitality discounts at Trump properties are claiming the election is illegitimate. Multiple lawsuits have been filed. Most of them have failed. Those on the side of Trump seem to believe they can contest the legitimacy of the election without having any Trump votes nullified. Wild ass claims about voter fraud have yet to be proven.None of this has worked. There's a new person headed to the Oval Office. But that doesn't mean Trump and his obsequious shitheels can't throw a wrench into the works. The Executive Branch has a bunch of uncontested powers and it appears this Executive Branch is willing to test the extent of those powers rather than hand over the office to its challenger and be forced to clean up the hundreds of fast food wrappers littering the White House floor.Let's just check in with the "law and order" president -- the one who's respecting both aspects so much he's willing to put boots on the ground… in the US of A.
At the start of this year, AT&T's creatively named streaming app, AT&T TV Now (since renamed HBO Max), was unceremoniously pulled from all Roku streaming hardware after a contract between the two companies expired and they couldn't agree on a new one.It took more than a year of folks not being able to watch AT&T streaming services for this standoff to finally break, and it required leveraging the strength of Wonder Woman to do so. After being unable to come to an agreement for much of the year, AT&T used its ownership of Time Warner to gain a little leverage on Roku. First, it announced that the anticipated Wonder Woman sequel would be released on Christmas day, but only on HBO Max. Then, it announced a major plan to release most major 2021 theater releases simultaneously on both streaming and in theaters.As the Wonder Woman 1984 release date approaches, Roku appears to have buckled. The sides this week announced a new deal that will finally bring AT&T's HBO Max to Roku:
Five Years AgoThis week in 2015, the clueless press was still letting itself get played and suggesting that encryption played a role in the San Bernardino attacks, while congress was dropping all pretense and turning CISA into a full-on surveillance bill, which they then crammed into the must-pass government funding bill (which also included some other nonsense). It got support of confused congressmen and a promise-breaking White House then — despite being terrible for privacy — it predictably passed.Ten Years AgoThis week in 2010, the clueless press was playing the mark for a different scam and continuing to rely on bogus research about file sharing, but the main source of panic and confusion on the scene was still Wikileaks, and we argued America's reaction was doing far more harm than the leaks themselves and was probably just about overhyping online threats to pass new laws. The Congressional Research Service was pointing out the obstacles to criminally charging Assange and complaining about being blocked from accessing Wikileaks itself by the panicked government (and the Air Force went further the same week, blocking access to news sites reporting on Wikileaks as well), and the staff of Columbia Jounralism School was warning the president that prosecuting Wikileaks would set a dangerous precedent. But the government decided to look into the possibility of CFAA charges anyway. There was a slight bit of uplifting and surprising news though, when congressional hearings on Wikileaks turned out to be not entirely stupid.Fifteen Years AgoThis week in 2005, an emerging conversation about traffic shaping was paving the way for a net neutrality fight, with the most worrying aspect being that FCC chairman Kevin Martin was apparently prepared to give the telcos everything they wanted. Congress was doing its own kowtowing, this time to Hollywood, and serving up exactly the legislation the entertainment industry wanted, while the music business was getting mad at Apple for the DRM it had a huge hand in pushing for — and we talked about how copy protection stalls innovation. HarperCollins was spending a lot of money to scan its own books for no obvious reason beyond spiting Google, the MPAA was suing someone for sharing movies it couldn't actually find on his computer, and one band was dealing with Sony's DRM failure by sending their fans burned replacement CDs with no copy protection.
Last year we wrote about a New York insurance company called Lemonade being forced by a German court to cease using the color pink/magenta in its branding in Germany after a dispute with Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile. See, DT has a long, long history of using insane trademarks its been granted for the color magenta to go after all kinds of other companies, whether they're actually using that same color or not, and regardless of whether they compete in the same marketplace or not. While Lemonade complied with the court, it then took two further steps. First, it released a Chrome browser extension that strips the color pink out of, well, everything in the user's browser. This was coupled with a #FreeThePink PR campaign. And the, for added measure, Lemonade set out in various European courts to invalidate any claim DT might have to the trademark for the color in the field of financial services.Well, the first resolution of one of those cases is out and it's a full win for Lemonade. Note that much of the text in the quotes below is from a press release, but the factual aspects of it still stand.
Summary:Every platform hosting user generated content these days is pretty much required (usually by law) to have policies in place to deal with copyright-infringing material. However, not all content on these platforms is covered by copyright, and that can potentially lead to complications, since policies are often built off of the assumption that everything must be covered by some form of copyright.Australia-based music technologist Sebastian Tomczak, who has a PhD in computer generated music, created from scratch a 10 hour “low level white noise” recording, which he placed on YouTube. He created the file himself, then made a video version of it, and posted it to YouTube. In early 2018, he discovered that there had been five separate copyright claims on the video from four separate copyright holders.Each of the claims argued that other videos of white noise held the copyright on white noise, and that Tomczak’s video infringed on their own. Amusingly, each claim designates which short segment of the 10 hour video infringes on their own work -- even though the entire 10 hours is literally the same white noise.None of the claims demanded that Tomczak’s video be taken down, but rather sought to “monetize” it under YouTube’s ContentID offering, which allows copyright holders to leave up videos they claim are infringing but divert any advertising revenue to the copyright holder.Somewhat incredibly, one copyright holder claims that Tomczak’s video infringes on two separate videos of their own, both of which also offer white noise.
This is kind of fascinating. The group Americans for Prosperity have announced they've filed FOIA litigation against the Commerce Department after it has refused to respond to a FOIA request seeking communications between two former top NTIA officials that we've discussed here recently, regarding Section 230.As background, you'll recall that after Twitter added two fact checks on Donald Trump's misleading tweets about mail-in ballots, Trump issued a bizarre executive order, demanding that (among other things) NTIA ask the FCC to reinterpret Section 230. Trump needed to order NTIA to do this because the FCC is supposed to be an independent agency and the President isn't supposed to order it to do anything. Indeed, as you'll recall, when Barrack Obama merely made a public statement about net neutrality, without directing the FCC to do anything, basically every Republican, including Donald Trump, whined that he was illegally trying to "bully' the FCC to do his bidding.It quickly came out that two NTIA staffers were responsible for crafting the Executive Order: Adam Candeub, a long term critic of Section 230 who had just been hired to NTIA, and Nathan Simington. Candeub was later promoted to run NTIA and just this week was given a top job in the Justice Department. Simington, despite little qualifying experience, has been made an FCC Commissioner.This was despite a separate FOIA request that revealed that Candeub and Simington, together, had emailed with a Fox News producer, asking to get Fox News host Laura Ingraham to attack Section 230 to help move the NTIA petition forward, and noting that it was important to do so to help re-elect Trump and help with down-ballot Republicans. This, of course, should be disqualifying for either of them to hold government jobs. When you get a job in the government you represent everyone and not just your own political party. You are not supposed to be using your government job to bully the media to do things for purely political reasons.Given that, there should be tremendous interest in just who Candeub and Simington were talking to about Section 230. And Americans for Prosperity sent a FOIA request seeking exactly that information, asking for any emails between the two of them about Section 230 with a short list of known anti-Section 230 folks, including former Fox lobbyist (and the person responsible for getting FOSTA passed), Rick Lane, anti-230 FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, AT&T (a company protected by 230, but which has decided to attack the law because it hates Google), DCI Group (a famously sketchy lobbying organization) and a bunch of others.The full complaint details what happened:
As a director of a state broadband program, one of my biggest challenges is data. I know lots of areas in my state have inadequate or no service. I get those emails every day. We have a public facing broadband map which is based on the data that the internet service providers (ISPs) provide to the FCC on what is known as the Form 477. The notorious problem with the 477 data is that gross inaccuracies are built into the reporting. ISPs report advertised speeds based on census blocks, where if one home in a census block is served, or could reasonably be served, the entire census block is considered served.What this means, besides extreme frustration on the part of state broadband authorities and communities, is that we do not have the information needed to make decisions on where resources (money and time) should be spent. States have tried for years to get their ISPs to provide better information. I even changed the statute this year to require it. To no avail. So what should states like Maine do?I firmly believe that it is time to pull the power from the ISPs and give it to the community. ISPs are businesses, and we have great partnerships with many of them in our state. But our interest as a State is to get people broadband. All people. And high-quality broadband that meet the use requirements that have only grown under COVID. Our mission and an ISP's mission are sometimes at odds. And that is ok. But we must take the power of information on who is served and who is not (and at what quality service) back and put it in the hands of consumers. Or, in state government speak, taxpayers.Luckily, others across the country have the same goal. This past year a number of states have contracted with GeoPartners to undertake a comprehensive speed testing strategy. The platform is easy for the end user to navigate and use. There are other companies doing similar work, and M-labs, a consortium of research, industry, and public-interest partners, also provides the largest collection of open Internet performance data on the planet.In Maine, the state broadband office, ConnectMaine, is working closely with the Maine Broadband Coalition with a variety of community partners including Island Institute, Greater Portland Council of Governments, Maine Community Foundation, Maine West and others to roll out this strategy. A strong marketing strategy, and outreach to get as many people as possible to take the test is a critical factor in the success of this initiative. Maine launched the project through a community building project called the Maine West Boot Camp in mid October, and plans to expand it statewide by the end of the year.So why are states doing this? Maine has had a community planning process in place for about four years. While we have seen some successes in expanding service to those areas, we have also discovered roadblocks. One of them is who in a community has service at what level. Prior to this citizen lead speed test initiative, that knowledge was all in the hands of the incumbent ISP.Engaging communities in this process does a couple of really important things: it puts an important piece of the puzzle squarely in the hands of the consumer, removing a road block that can hang a community up for months waiting for answers from the ISP. It puts the power of determining the scope of the project firmly in the hands of the community. It can motivate other communities who are not connected to jump into and begin the process of improving their service.Crowdsourced speed tests also provide state broadband offices with the information they need to justify funding, direct resources, and lay out a strategy to address the real problem in there state, not the problem defined by inaccurate FCC data.Also, not to be understated: it gives states, in my case Maine, the power and the data to challenge the FCC data. Right now, the FCC is preparing to give out $16.4B based on data that everyone acknowledge (even the FCC) is accurate.Yet they persist. And not for the first time. CAFII provided billions of dollars to rate of return carriers to bring 10/1 Mbps (a substandard speed when the started the program seven year ago) to more people. They just extended that program another year. Despite the evidence that some providers have not built out as required.Many of Maine's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) areas are in what we call "unorganized territories", which are exactly what the name implies: not towns and not that populated. In other words not one that is targeted. Areas like the RDOF-eligible area northeast of Baxter State Park with its 825 possible locations probably will likely not get served any other way (if in fact they even get served with this program.) But RDOF proposes to spend $10 million in subsidies to bring service to 825 possible locations while many, many unserved rural communities that the FCC deems as "served" with their mapping are not eligible for a dime. That is a waste of resources. And without good data, states are powerless to protest.In response, we are going to go out and get our own data, and empower those communities to take up this gauntlet and take charge of their own future.As executive director of ConnextMaine, Peggy Schaffer manages the Authority's rulemaking efforts, investment decisions and policy recommendations. Peggy was the Small Business Advocate for the Secretary of State's office, and served as the Co-chair of the Maine Broadband Coalition, a statewide group advocating for high speed broadband.
This sort of thing will never stop amazing me. For any American President, one would assume they would have all kinds of advisers on all matters regarding security and best practices when it comes to the systems and technology they use. I'm old enough to remember when everyone freaked out over Barack Obama using a Blackberry, but at the time I hand-waived any such concerns under the assumption that there were checks in place to make such technology secure.So how in the world did Donald Trump, often called America's first Twitter President, manage to have his Twitter account accessed using a laughably predictable password and 2-factor authentication?
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So, just as I was finishing off the post on Wednesday's antitrust lawsuit against Google brought by 10 states, news broke that the other big state antitrust case against Google had been filed as well. This one involves 38 states, led by Colorado and Nebraska. I'm assuming that this is the main state antitrust lawsuit that states had been talking about, as compared to the first lawsuit with fewer states. Whereas the first state lawsuit focused on display ads, this one focuses on the market for search.You can read the full filing, which I'd recommend. I think this one is the most interesting of the three antitrust lawsuits that have been filed against the company. Part of the argument more or less rehashes the DOJ's weak case that because Google pays Apple an astounding amount of money to be the default search on iPhones, that's proof of anti-competitive behavior. That's an argument that still just doesn't make any sense to me at all. If the accusation is that Google is abusing its position, you'd think it wouldn't be paying $8 to $12 billion dollars to Apple. If anything, that suggests that it's Apple who has the market power, rather than Google.Where the case gets potentially more interesting is in the part where it argues that Google is abusing its search advertising tool, called SA360, in anticompetitive ways:
To be clear, AT&T has no shortage of nasty habits, whether we're talking about how the company routinely does too little to thwart criminals eager to rip off AT&T customers, or the way it can routinely be found hoovering up taxpayer money in exchange for, well, less than nothing. But one thing the company did get correct (or at least more correct, more quickly than other counterparts in cable and TV) was that streaming was the future.Most cable TV companies refused to fully embrace streaming, worried they'd cannibalize existing traditional cable revenue and thinking they could milk a dying cash cow forever. AT&T jumped in with both feet early on, launching a dizzying array of different streaming services. Sure, AT&T then proceeded to lose seven million pay TV and streaming customers in just three years thanks to a series of bone-headed mergers, rate hikes, and idiotic branding choices, but its original instinct to get out ahead of the problem was the right one all the same.Earlier this month, AT&T announced that Covid had forced it to effectively put a bullet in traditional movie release windows, resulting in the company releasing new Warner Brothers films on streaming the same day they're released in theaters. It's obviously a necessary response to an unprecedented threat, and it comes with some caveats. One, it's only a one-year trial. Two, movies will still hit theaters. Three, you'll probably pay more for home viewing than is sensible. It's likely a temporary shift in tactics that's geared as much toward goosing lagging HBO Max subscriptions as it is public safety.Still, the decision resulted in no limit of consternation in Hollywood, which was already sore about AT&T's steady parade of layoffs at Time Warner properties (HBO, DC) it acquired in 2018 (promising no limit of amazing synergies), and the general annoyance of having bumbling telecom executives stumbling around a more creative, competitive sector than AT&T's used to. Director Christopher Nolan was particularly pissed off:
The Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement agencies needed a warrant to obtain cell site location info. The ability to turn third parties (like telcos) into proxy long-term tracking devices concerned the court, which decided this wasn't permissible under the Fourth Amendment. Every American carries a cellphone. But just because they do doesn't mean they agree the government should be able to track their movements with them.No problem, said federal law enforcement agencies. We'll just get the same data from new sources -- ones not specifically mentioned in the Carpenter decision. Data brokers harvesting location data from phone apps sell access to government agencies, allowing them to bypass the warrant requirement.This new source of data location has become a concern for some legislators, which have demanded answers from agencies like the IRS and CBP about their acquisition and use of this data. One company -- Venntel -- is currently facing a Congressional investigation of its data selling practices. This hasn't stopped CBP from buying data to track immigrants. But it has perhaps led to one agency -- one with a long history of bulk collection violations -- to ditch its contract with Venntell. Joseph Cox fills in the details at Motherboard.
One of the more delightful oddities of 2018, a year that was at least a zillion times better than this one, was the emergence of Chinese President Xi's razor-thin skin when it comes to being compared to Winnie the Pooh. This all got spotlighted here in America when John Oliver dove into Chinese political leadership, mentioning the Winnie the Pooh thing, and got his name and HBO's site effectively banned from the Chinese internet. It's all rather funny until you realize both that this is a symptom of the horrifying restrictions on freedom the Chinese government has put in place and when you consider that the subsequent two-plus years has seen China supercharge its own thin-skin and exert pressure on spineless Western companies to do its censoring for it. All of the sudden, the laughter falls away.Which brings us to GOG, the video game online store run by CD Projekt Red. At 4am on December 16th, Red Candle Games, makers of the well reviewed horror video game Devotion announced on Twitter that the game would be published to GOG on December 18th. By 9:14am the same day, GOG announced that the game in fact would not be released on GOG, citing "messages from gamers."
Look, I get the fact that people are concerned about big technology companies. I'm very concerned about big technology companies too, and think it's important that we figure out ways to build more competition, and to get away from reliance on many of these companies. But the way in which so many assume that antitrust is the only way to get there is problematic. And it's even more problematic when the antitrust lawsuits they file seem to be mostly based on misunderstanding or misrepresenting certain things with totally innocuous explanations. That keeps happening.The DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against Google is embarrassingly weak, and seems to confuse who has market power (e.g., claiming that Google paying billions to Apple is some sort of proof of its own dominance). The FTC and nearly all states' antitrust suits against Facebook are fundamentally stronger than the DOJ's case against Google, but still, astoundingly weak in terms of actual evidence of antitrust violations.This week, there are two new entrants. One lawsuit was just announced today, and we'll explore that one later, but yesterday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was one of the earliest Attorney Generals who spoke out in favor of going after Google, has now done so, with a an interesting antitrust lawsuit against the company, done with the support of 9 other states, all with Republican Attorneys General. Notably, some of the states (though not all) also signed onto the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit.This lawsuit takes a different approach from the DOJ's lawsuit, which focused on the market for general search services and search advertising. This one focuses on general display advertising. And maybe there's an argument that Google is doing something bad in how it handles the display advertising market. Indeed, some of the complaint (though heavily redacted), suggests some potentially sketchy behavior on the part of Google, to block competition in the ads space. If that's proven, that would be bad, and it would be good if the lawsuit forced Google to change those practices and enable more competition.There's also a heavily redacted section, that hints strongly that Google and Facebook worked out some sort of agreement to keep Facebook from competing as directly with (and undercutting the pricing of) Google's display ads business. And that does sound like a potentially huge deal -- one that very well might truly be anticompetitive. But the details and what's redacted are important.It would be great if the lawsuit focused on things like those two points. But it also includes other things that seem to suggest a near total and fundamental misunderstanding of how technology works, which does not provide much confidence that the Attorneys General know what they're talking about in the other parts. Notably, there's this scary bit that started making the rounds on Twitter, with people asking what the fuck was going on:
Back in August, the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned on a flight to Moscow. Despite initial doubts -- and the usual denials by the Russian government that Vladimir Putin was involved -- everyone assumed it had been carried out by the country's FSB, successor to the KGB. Remarkable work by the open source intelligence site Bellingcat, which Techdirt first wrote about in 2014, has now established beyond reasonable doubt that FSB agents were involved:
According to the Department of Justice (and countless other law enforcement agencies), civil asset forfeiture is a valuable tool that harms criminal organizations and lowers crime rates. It's a deterrent they assert actually exists, despite there being no accompanying arrests of these supposed criminals.I don't know what criminal organizations are being dismantled at less than $1,000/seizure, but that's the reality of asset forfeiture. A large majority of forfeitures involve amounts too small to be disputed in court, where legal fees quickly outpace any expected recovery.That's how the system "works." Cops grab what they can and hope the system tilted in their favor pays off. Any incidental effects on crime rates are a bonus. But lowering crime isn't the focus, no matter what's asserted by defenders of legalized theft.And the facts say otherwise. A study released last year showed asset forfeiture has zero effect on crime rates or drug sales. All it does is take cash from people who need it the most, as is borne out by low dollar amounts most frequently seen in forfeiture cases.Now, another study is confirming the obvious: asset forfeiture enriches police departments… but not the lives of the people they serve. The study had a great data set to work with. Back in 2015, New Mexico outlawed civil asset forfeiture. If cops wanted to take stuff, they had to secure a conviction. If asset forfeiture was the valuable crime-fighting tool New Mexico law enforcement agencies claimed it was, crime rates would be expected to increase. But that's not what happened, according to the Institute of Justice's study.
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Late on Tuesday evening, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr suddenly issued a weird and misleading anti-230 Twitter thread, claiming (falsely) that supporters of Section 230 (who he incorrectly calls "Big Tech's lobbyists") "routinely conflate statutory protections with First Amendment rights." Here's the thread in plain text, with my responses and corrections interjected.
In West Virginia, incumbent telco Frontier has repeatedly been busted in a series of scandals involving substandard service and the misuse of taxpayer money. State leaders have buried reports detailing the depth of the grift and dysfunction, and, until a few years back, a Frontier executive did double duty as a state representative without anybody in the state thinking that was a conflict of interest. The result has been about what you'd expect: West Virginia routinely shows up as one of the least connected states in the nation.Frontier has spent years taking taxpayer money then failing to adequately upgrade its network. So when the FCC recently threw another $9 billion in subsidies at the broken U.S. telecom sector, lawmakers like Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, were kind of annoyed to find Frontier again slated to get $371 million to "expand broadband" across eight states. $250 million was doled out to Frontier in West Virginia despite its shaky history in the state, something that alarmed Capito in a letter to the FCC last week (pdf):
To the detriment of our nation's future, the future of our nation is increasingly being subjected to law enforcement's presents (and presence). On the plus side, it will help students grow up with a healthy distrust of their government.We've put cops in schools so kids can be subjected to the same brutality adults receive. Disciplinary problems long-handled by schools and parents are now handled with handcuffs and criminal charges. The same questionable science that leads cops to believe future criminal acts can be predicted by algorithms and checklists is being wielded against children, turning their bad grades and spotty attendance records into criminal predicates.Now, there's this: the use of high-tech hacking tools to forensically scrape kids' phones for evidence of alleged criminal acts.
Let's be clear: that fact that there are people all over America that for any reason would want to display the Confederate battle flag is monumentally stupid. For starters, the flag is the symbol of a rebellion launched over southern states' desire to own other people. Don't give me the "states rights" argument; it's entirely invalid, unless the states right you're talking about is slavery. On top of that, the Confederacy, you know... lost. Proudly displaying the symbol of loserdom is both hilarious and befuddling.Now that that's out of the way, entirely too often the folks who abhor the Confederate flag participate in a massive over-reaction to it. We saw this after Dylann Roof proved just how evil humanity can be in shooting up a historical African American church, with far too many people and companies focusing on displays of the flag, as though that were the real issue.And now, in a move far more disappointing, Andrew Cuomo has signed into law a ban in New York State on the sale of the Confederate flag and other "symbols of hate" on public property.
Summary:Vimeo, the video-hosting website created by CollegeHumor's parent company in 2004, has always presented itself as a destination for creators who wished to free themselves from YouTube's limitations and aggressive monetization. Vimeo remains ad-free, supporting itself with subscription fees.Other efforts were made to distance Vimeo from YouTube. Its fairly aggressive content policy forbade plenty of things that were acceptable on Google's platform, including videos promoting commercial services.The terms of service didn't explicitly forbid content that related to commercial services but were not attempts to sell services directly to other Vimeo users, but user experience consultant Paul Boag found his videos targeted by Vimeo and given a week to move them to another hosting service. While some videos of Boag's rode the edge of the terms of service ban on commercial videos, others provided nothing more than marketing advice or reviews of browser plugins.At that point, Vimeo also banned the embedding of hosted content on sites that also served up ads. Unfortunately for Boag, his own site contained ads, making it a violation of the terms of service to embed his own videos on his own site. And this rule wasn't set in stone: Vimeo rather unhelpfully clarified it did allow embedding on some sites with ads, but it was a decision only Vimeo could make.
Although the digital divide didn’t start with COVID-19, the pandemic has put into stark relief the need to bridge this divide once and for all. The solution—providing tens of millions of Americans with high-speed, reliable broadband—might seem like a daunting task. But our research has found that Colorado and other states are leading the way in connecting communities to high-speed, reliable internet.The digital divide is a costly challenge to solve: A 2017 report from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found that 14% of residential and small and medium-sized businesses lacked access to broadband and that it would cost $40 billion to get fiber optic cable—which carries broadband signals—to 98% of those premises. It would cost another $40 billion to serve the last 2 percent.When it comes to closing gaps in broadband connectivity, “the easy stuff … has been done,”and the hard work remains. In addition to cost, the challenge of solving the digital divide is compounded by geography, demographics, and the types of entities that provide service, which can leave one rural community unserved while a local telephone company or electric cooperative is available to provide a neighboring community “fiber to the home and to the farm and to the cabin.”States will be key to completing the job of expanding access to broadband; they play a critical and often overlooked role in shaping the way broadband reaches our doorsteps and enables stakeholders from the public and private sectors to participate in connectivity efforts.State governments recognize that a single policy or a one-time funding initiative is not enough to get their citizens online. So, they are creating policies and programs that reinforce each other and will help reach the goals that are necessary to fully deploy broadband. For example, state legislatures have passed complementary policies that set service speed targets, set up funding and financing mechanisms, designate who can provide service, and regulate access to the infrastructure that providers need to build and operate networks. These policies create and support the work of state broadband programs.States also have the tools and expertise already in place—including dedicated staff—to help local stakeholders overcome the barriers to internet access. These staff members on state broadband programs serve as a point of contact for addressing broadband challenges, providing information on state programs, and responding to questions from grantees and others. They also work to build strong relationships with local groups, and often play a central role in facilitating coordination among communities and providers to advance broadband projects and policy.Colorado illustrates this multifaceted approach to closing gaps in broadband access by funding both middle and last mile projects, providing support for planning, evaluating and improving existing deployments, and collaborating closely among agencies engaged in broadband efforts.The state’s broadband programs are led by the Colorado Broadband Office (CBO), which is housed in the Governor’s Office of Information Technology. The CBO focuses on federal funding, public-private partnerships, and broadband data. It also coordinates with the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) and the Department of Regulatory Affairs (DORA), which house the state’s broadband grant programs, as well as with other state agencies engaged in broadband deployment, including the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). Pew’s report on How States Are Expanding Broadband Access provides a more detailed explanation of Colorado’s program.Several key elements have contributed to the progress being made by Colorado’s broadband initiatives. First, the state’s broadband grant programs provide funding for both middle and last mile infrastructure. According to the CBO’s executive director, the middle mile projects bring fiber as close as possible to communities, which are then able to form public-private partnerships to leverage this middle mile infrastructure for last mile projects—some of which are funded through a last mile grant program. Together, this work helps extend broadband service to rural and unserved communities.Like several other states highlighted in our report, Colorado has invested in planning to build the local capacity needed to then be able to apply for support for broadband infrastructure projects. These grants, funded through DOLA, provide support for the development of regional broadband strategies. The planning process has helped educate community leaders about the importance of broadband and develop local broadband champions capable of moving projects forward; combined with the infrastructure funding, the investment in planning has led to the development of multiple networks that meet local and regional needs, including the Region 10 middle mile network and Project THOR.Further, the state has continued to evaluate the impact of its broadband efforts and make recommendations for next steps. The CBO manages data and mapping, which helps the state assess its progress and—because DOLA and DORA grant recipients are required to provide geographic information system data on network operations for five years—helps ensure the accountability of public funds.Colorado also focuses on how future broadband needs should inform its policies and programs. In October 2020, an interagency working group published a report that found that “policies must be updated to support the actual bandwidth needs of Coloradans” and made recommendations to concentrate on technology solutions and policies to meet those needs.And, finally, although Colorado’s broadband initiatives are run through different agencies, the departments collaborate closely. The CBO leads a biweekly interagency meeting that helps ensure that DOLA, DORA, the Department of Transportation and other state agencies are aware of each other’s activities—creating opportunities for efficiencies and for troubleshooting any issues that arise.A suite of policies creates the framework that supports Colorado’s broadband program and goals, including the executive order that created the CBO and enabling legislation for the DORA grant program—as well as policies focused on expanding broadband access and ensuring the quality of those services, such as addressing barriers to broadband deployment by electric cooperatives and requiring DORA grantees to adhere to the principles of net neutrality.Other states are taking a similarly comprehensive approach, including steps to ensure that grants and loans support projects that meet connectivity needs over the long term. For example, states have set speed goals that exceed the FCC’s 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload standard for deployment, such as Minnesota’s goal of border-to-border residential access of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload by 2026, Washington’s goal of 150 Mbps symmetrical service by 2028, and Vermont’s goal of 100 Mbps symmetrical service by 2024.Like Colorado,Maine and North Carolina provide planning and technical assistance to aid communities in identifying local solutions. California and Virginia have provided grants for middle mile infrastructure to help decrease the cost of deploying last mile service to homes and businesses, in addition to grants targeted toward building last mile infrastructure. And Tennessee and Minnesota have technology neutral grant programs that can provide funding to any technology that delivers internet service at broadband speeds, and either encourage or require that grant-funded networks are built in such a way that they can be upgraded to significantly higher speeds.As all levels of government work to address gaps in broadband access, policymakers can learn from states about effective strategies to expand high-speed internet. These efforts are built on multiple, mutually reinforcing activities that address components of what makes broadband deployment so difficult—from setting goals that look to future needs, to building expertise at the local level, to funding support to reduce the cost of infrastructure deployment. Through these efforts, states are making meaningful progress in ensuring that their citizens have access to reliable, high-speed internet access.Anna Read is an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ broadband research initiative.
I still am perplexed at why so many politicians hate Section 230. They've yet to provide any compelling reason at all. But, hate it, they do. Lindsey Graham, who has been at the forefront of senators wrongly attacking Section 230, has now decided to introduce yet another bill to attack Section 230. This comes just days after Graham tried to move forward on one of his many anti-230 bills, the Frankenstein's monster bill called the Online Content Policy Modernization Act, that simply grafted together two bad bills: the dangerous and unconstitutional copyright CASE Act with the Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, that would basically force websites to host any hate speech.The hearing was yet another of Lindsey Graham's flying circuses, with lots of grandstanding and misleading nonsense about 230, but after (as everyone knew going in) there wasn't enough agreement on just how to destroy Section 230, Graham withdrew the bill entirely:This was all for show. He knew he was going to withdraw it, but wanted to get some extra attention and air time before he did.And, apparently, he's decided that attacking Section 230 is good for business, so now he's back yet again with a new bill, which is basically a ticking time bomb for Section 230. If it became law, the bill would create a sunset for 230, saying that it goes away if there's no reform of the law by January 1, 2023.Almost everything Graham says in his announcement about the bill is wrong or misleading. It's pretty stunning in just how wrong it is.
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