Polish government officials have denounced the deactivation of Donald Trump’s social media accounts, and said a draft law being readied in Poland will make it illegal for tech companies to take similar actions there. From a report: “Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not,” wrote the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki,…
Tag: freedom of speech
Trump’s Twitter Ban Prompts Outcry From Germany and France
Donald Trump received unexpected backing from Germany and France after the U.S. president was shut off social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook, extending Europe’s battle with big tech. From a report: German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private tech companies. “The chancellor sees the…
Pirate Bay Founder Warns US Govt Against Mafia-Esque Copyright Lobby
One of the original founders of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, is warning against the power American corporations have on the internet. After several copyright industry groups reported Sunde’s domain registration service Njalla to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), branding it a “notorious market,” Sunde wrote a letter to the USTR, not to defend Njalla but to warn against the threat…
Former Mentor Says Mark Zuckerberg Intoxicated by Power, Calls Disinformation ‘A National Security Issue’
MSNBC’s Ali Velshi interviewed Mark Zuckerberg mentor (and early investor) Roger McNamee for a special report on “the disinformation epidemic.” McNamee — also the author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe — says Zuckerberg is too focused on “imposing his vision” to acknowledge the website’s threat to national security, adding “It’s about power.” Ali Velshi: The fact that rumor,…
Apple Commits To Freedom of Speech After Criticism of China Censorship
Apple has for the first time published a human rights policy that commits to respecting “freedom of information and expression,” following years of criticism that it bows to demands from Beijing and carries out censorship in mainland China, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. From a report: Apple’s board of directors approved the policy and quietly published it ahead of a deadline…
While Some Top Creators Abandon TikTok, the ACLU Opposes a Ban
Late Friday night, the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted its objections to banning TikTok in the United States. “Banning an app like TikTok, which millions of Americans use to communicate with each other, is a danger to free expression and technologically impractical.” More details from TechCrunch: “With any Internet platform, we should be concerned about the risk that sensitive private data…
US Senate Amends EARN IT Act — To Let States Restrict Encryption
Long-time Slashdot reader stikves reminded us that a committee in the U.S. Senate passed an amended version of the “EARN IT” act on Thursday. And this new version could do more than just end personal end-to-end encryption, warns Engadget: The other major concern opponents of the EARN IT Act raise has to do with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act,…
Disney Almost Bought Twitter in 2016
This fall saw the release of an autobiography by former Disney CEO Bob Iger (2005 to 2020) titled The Ride of a Lifetime. And Friday Bloomberg reporter Kurt Wagner shared an interesting excerpt (spotted by blogger John Gruber) in which Iger reveals he saw Twitter as “a potentially powerful platform for us, but I couldn’t get past the challenges that would…
‘King of Donkey Kong’ Billy Mitchell Continues Defamation Suit Over Cheating Accusations
destinyland shares an update about Billy Mitchell, the intense dark-haired videogame champion in the 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Last year the videogame record-keepers at Twin Galaxies revoked Billy Mitchell’s entire lifetime’s worth of videogame high scores after an online discussion argued videotapes of three of Mitchell’s performances suggested they’d been achieved using a MAME emulator….
Petition Calls On Pornhub To Prevent Non-Consensual Videos From Being Posted
A petition with over 350,000 signatures is calling on Pornhub to stop posting non-consensual videos and marketing them as “pornography.” Kate Isaacs writes via The Guardian: Pornhub’s argument that “extremists” are lobbying to shut them down is ridiculous. I’m non-religious, liberal and sex positive and in no way “anti-porn.” I started the #NotYourPorn campaign after a friend had her iCloud account…