shouting loudly

We’re in trouble. The future of the internet is in danger, and if that danger comes to pass, it’s both unhealthy for and a very bad indicator of the health of our democracy. Congress is already very close to passing companion bills to censor the internet, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R. 3261) and [...]

In a suit filed yesterday, Washington Redskins owner Dan “Chainsaw” Snyder has accused the Washington City Paper of libel and defamation and asked for $2 million. This is the worst move he could have made. Relatively few people had read the article, “The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder,” written by Dave McKenna and [...]

In attempting to build a vibrant community-of-interest, every political blog faces a policy choice of sorts: what kind of commentary will we allow.  Some of the basics are easy to sketch out and universally applicable.  Disagreement is good, but flame wars are bad.  Don’t engage in ad hominem attacks. The site owner/moderators reserve the right [...]

In a blog post over at The Publius Project, Judith Donath asks “Is Reputation Obsolete.”  It’s a provocative piece and well worth a read.  Honestly, I’ve spent the past week trying to dip into the literature on reputation systems and to call it the shallow end of the pool would be an insult to pools.  [...]

Here’s a minilink from Lokman: Media Bloggers Association launches blogging insurance program This is actually a reasonable next step for blogging as it becomes a major media outlet and big business. It’s little different than Errors & Omissions insurance for other professionals, including media producers such as filmmakers.

In Comcast’s new Terms of Service, the company explicitly admits that it degrades peer-to-peer traffic as a means of reducing their network load. The company also admits that they will kick off end users who use (what they determine to be) too much bandwidth: The Service is for personal and non-commercial residential use only. Therefore, [...]

Robert Reich’s latest book, Supercapitalism, is a fantastic analysis of the current relationship between corporations, citizens, and politics. I put Supercapitalism on my wish list after Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s glowing recommendation. While I make no pretense of being such a gifted writer as either of these scholars, here I attempt to summarize the book and [...]

Comedian Stephen Colbert may soon need to get even less serious in his campaign for president. As ABC reports, Colbert’s ironic presidential bid may run afoul of campaign finance laws. He has already curtailed some activities–for instance, removing Doritos as a campaign sponsor–and the threat of enforcement may preclude him from attempting to get on [...]

Tim O’Reilly proposes a Bloggers Code of Conduct The code of conduct comes in the wake of death threats sent to Kate Sierra, who as a result cancelled a public appearance and suspended her blog. Sending death threats to someone is obviously unacceptable behavior and measures should be taken against it. Having said that, I [...]