Archives for the 'First Amendment / free speech' Category
book review: Palfrey & Gasser’s “Born Digital”
Earlier this year, I mentioned an outstanding book that John Palfrey of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School co-edited entitled Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering. It’s an excellent resource for anyone studying the methods governments are (unfortunately) using to stifle online expression across the globe. It’s one of the most important technology policy books of the year.
Well, it looks like John Palfrey will have a second title on this year’s “Best Tech Books” list. I’ve just finished his new book with his Berkman Center colleague Urs Gasser, Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, and it is definitely worthy of your attention. In my book review posted today on the City Journal’s website, I argue that “Palfrey and Gasser’s fine early history of this generation serves as a starting point for any conversation about how to mentor the children of the Web.” It’s a comprehensive and very even-handed discussion about a variety of concerns or Internet pathologies, including: online safety, personal privacy, copyright piracy, offensive content, classroom learning, and much more.
My City Journal review is down below, but in coming weeks I will be posting some additional thoughts about some specific things in the book worthy of more attention (including a few things I disagreed with). Overall, I’d say Born Digital is a close runner-up in the race for “Tech Book of the Year,” closely trailing Jonathan Zittrain’s Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (which I have reviewed multiple times) and Nick Carr’s The Big Switch. But I found far more to agree with in Born Digital than I did in those two books. Highly recommended.
10 Years Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Success or Failure?
It’s nearing Halloween, so it must mean the anniversary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is just around the corner. In fact, it was 10 years ago, on Sunday, that Congress passed the DMCA, on October 12, 1998. The law was signed by President Clinton on October 28, 1998.
The information and news service that I have launched, BroadbandCensus.com, is “celebrating” the passage of the law with the inaugural event of the Broadband Breakfast Club. The breakfast event will take place on Tuesday, October 14, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., at the Old Ebbitt Grill at 675 15th Street NW, Washington, DC.
This event will bring together several key stakeholders together to share perspectives on this topic:
- Drew Clark, Executive Director, BroadbandCensus.com (Moderator)
- Mitch Glazier, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, Recording Industry Association of America
- Michael Petricone, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Consumer Electronics Association
- Wendy Seltzer, Practitioner in Residence, Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, American University Washington College of Law
- Emery Simon, Counselor, Business Software Alliance
Breakfast for registrants will be available beginning at 8:00 a.m., and the forum itself will begin at around 8:30 a.m., and conclude promptly at 10 a.m. The event is open to the public. The charge for the breakfast is $45.00, plus an Eventbrite registration fee. Seated attendance is limited to the first 45 individuals to register for the event.
Future events in the Broadband Breakfast Club monthly series will feature other key topics involved in broadband technology and internet policy. In fact, you can mark your calendar for the next event on Tuesday, November 18, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., also at the Old Ebbitt Grill.
For more information about BroadbandCensus.com, or about the Broadband Breakfast Club at Old Ebbitt Grill - on the second Tuesday of each month - please visit http://broadbandcensus.com, or call me at 202-580-8196.
Jenkins on new Pew report about “Teens, Video Games, and Civics”
So I was just finishing up this excellent new Pew report on “Teens, Video Games and Civics,” and was about to post some thoughts about it when I saw in my RSS feed that the brilliant Henry Jenkins had beat me to it in an essay entitled “Video Game Myths Revisited.” Prof. Jenkins summarizes the major findings of the Pew report as follows (note: He elaborates on each finding in his essay):
- At the most basic level, game playing has become more or less universal.
- The Pew research may also force us to rethink once again the assumption that there is a gender gap in terms of who plays games.
- The Pew Data complicates easy generalizations about the place of violent entertainment in the lives of American teens.
- The Pew Data further challenges the idea that game playing is a socially isolating activity.
- The Pew Research does indicate some areas where parents should be concerned about the gaming lives of their sons and daughters.
- The Pew Research also challenges the prevailing myth that most parents are worried or alarmed about their young people’s relations to games.
Anyway, make sure to read Henry’s write-up and the entire Pew report. Good stuff. [And here's the point where I once again shamelessly plug my old paper on video game myths and some of my other essays like "Dear Gov. Patterson… Regarding that Video Game Bill You Are About to Sign," "Understanding The True Cost of Video Game Censorship Efforts," "Do video games create cop killers?" and "Why hasn’t violent media turned us into a nation of killers?"]
two CDT essays about child safety & free speech
Over at CDT’s “Policy Beta” blog, my friends John Morris and Sophia Cope have penned two important essays about online free speech issues that are worthy of your attention. In the first, Sophia argues that the “Next President Must Preserve Free Speech on the Internet.” She argues:
It will be critical for the next President to do his part to uphold the Internet’s robust culture of free speech and innovation as we march further into the 21st Century. In stark contrast to the mass media of the last century, the Internet has provided, at very low cost, virtually unlimited forums for both creators and consumers of new content and technologies. This in turn has created a huge boost for participatory democracy and our economy. The next Administration must reject Congressional or agency efforts to censor content or stifle the fire of innovation on the Internet and other communications media.
Amen! Importantly, Sophia points to the essential role of Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which protects online service providers from crushing legal liability in a variety of circumstances. Sec. 230 is probably the most important — and most often forgotten — law dealing with online freedom. Unfortunately, however, it’s increasingly under attack and we need to be vigilant in defending it. (I’m working on a big paper about that right now with my PFF colleagues Berin Szoka and Adam Marcus).
Liberals Abandoning the First Amendment, Part 4: Banning Books in Virginia
When I open the Washington Post in the morning and find a headline like, “Banned Books, Chapter 2,” I assume that I will be reading about yet another attempt by certain conservative or religious groups to ban books from local libraries that they find objectionable, unethical, or sacrilegious. How ironic then that the debate over banning books that is currently unfolding in my home county of Fairfax County, Virginia, is being led by liberals. My ongoing series about “Liberals Abandoning the First Amendment” has been focusing on Lefties getting weak-kneed about free speech principles that they have traditionally supported, but this one takes the cake.
Here’s what is going on here in Fairfax according to Michael Alison Chandler of the Post:
During a week that librarians nationwide are highlighting banned books, conservative Christian students and parents showcased their own collection outside a Fairfax County high school yesterday — a collection they say was banned by the librarians themselves.
More than 40 students, many wearing black T-shirts stamped with the words “Closing Books Shuts Out Ideas,” said they tried to donate more than 100 books about homosexuality to more than a dozen high school libraries in the past year. The initiative, organized by Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, was intended to add a conservative Christian perspective to shelves that the students said are stocked with “pro-gay” books.
Most of the books were turned down after school librarians said they did not meet school system standards. Titles include “Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting” and “Someone I Love Is Gay,” which argues that homosexuality is not “a hopeless condition.” “We put ourselves out there . . . and got rejected,” said Elizabeth Bognanno, 17, a senior at West Springfield High School, standing before a semicircle of television cameras outside her school. “Censoring books is not a good thing. . . . We believe our personal rights have been violated.”
What Was the Gore Commission on Digital Television Broadcasting All About?
Note: Here’s a second post I just put live at DrewClark.com. It refers to an upcoming conference, on Friday, October 3, sponsored by the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law. It will be held at 8:30 a.m. at the National Press Club. Registration details are below.
In the United States, the regulation of broadcast radio and television has always been done under a different standard than the regulation of the print medium.
As Secretary of Commerce in the administration of President Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover declared: “The ether is a public medium, and its use must be for a public benefit,” he said at the Fourth National Radio Conference, in 1925. “The dominant element for consideration in the radio field is, and always will be, the great body of the listening public, millions in number, country-wide in distribution.”
When Congress created the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, it decreed that broadcasting was to serve the “public interest, convenience and necessity,” and this standard was re-affirmed in the Communications Act of 1934. Several Supreme Court decisions — albeit decisions that have been much criticized — affirmed that broadcasting could and should be treated differently than the traditional “press.”
This differential treatment for broadcasting — versus the print medium, and also cable television — was underscored by the decisions in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969), which upheld the “Fairness Doctrine,” and also FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978), which upheld indecency rules for over-the-air broadcast television. The Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to grant reply time to those who said their views were criticized.
Senate passes “Child Safe Viewing Act” (S. 602)
Yesterday, the Senate passed S. 602, “The Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007,” which was introduced by Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) in February 2007. The bill requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to study the market for “advance blocking technologies” (i.e., parental controls and rating systems) that parents can use to protect their kids from inappropriate content from various sources and platforms. On the surface, the measure seems harmless enough, but in practice, it could have some troubling long-term free speech implications if it leads to more government meddling with parental controls and ratings systems.
The measure requires the FCC to initiate a notice of inquiry to consider measures to examine:
- the existence and availability of advanced blocking technologies that are compatible with various communications devices or platforms;
- methods of encouraging the development, deployment, and use of such technology by parents that do not affect the packaging or pricing of a content provider’s offering; and
- the existence, availability, and use of parental empowerment tools and initiatives already in the market.
That all sounds harmless enough. Indeed, such a study could produce some useful information about the state of the parental controls marketplace. (Of course, I could save them some taxpayer dollars and just send copies of my big Parental Controls & Online Child Safety report to all FCC officials!)
But it’s what comes next in the bill that causes me some heartburn. As part of the review mandated by the bill, S. 602 commands the FCC to “consider advanced blocking technologies that”:
Do TV Broadcasters Have Obligations to the Public? Forum TOMORROW, 10/3
Note: Here’s a post I just put live at DrewClark.com. It refers to an upcoming conference that might be of interest to Tech Liberation readers. Make sure to follow the link to the bottom of the post for registration information for this FREE conference, to be held tomorrow, Friday, October 3, at 8:30 a.m.
If all goes according to plan, on February 17, 2009, television broadcasters will power down their analog transmitters. They will be broadcasting their signal only digitally.
After more than 20 years in the long transition to digital television, this might be considered progress. Now, millions of Americans are collecting vouchers from the Commerce Department to subsidize their purchase of converter boxes. These are the electronic devices that take the digital signals — and convert them back to analog — so that viewers without high-definition televisions can watch broadcast TV on their old sets.
What about the bigger questions? Is there any benefit to the public, or to consumers, from the transition to digital television? What about the vaunted visions of hundreds of broadcast channels, through multi-casting? What would be the new public-interest obligations, if any, of broadcasters? This question has definitely not been resolved.
“A Manifesto for Media Freedom” — my new book with Brian Anderson
I’m pleased to announce the publication of A Manifesto for Media Freedom, which I co-authored with Brian C. Anderson of the Manhattan Institute. Brian serves as editor of Manhattan Institute’s excellent City Journal and he is the author of best-selling books like South Park Conservatives and Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents.
In this little manifesto, we highlight one of the central ironies of the Information Age. Namely, that despite “the breathtaking abundance of new and old media outlets for obtaining news, information, and entertainment…”
many people hate this profusion, and never more than when it involves political speech. The current media market, they charge, doesn’t represent true diversity, or isn’t fair, or is subject to manipulation by a small and shrinking group of media barons. They want the government to regulate it into better shape, which just happens to be a shape that benefits them. Doing so… would be a disaster, a kind of soft or not-so-soft tyranny that would wipe out whole sectors of media, curtailing free speech and impoverishing our democracy.
In other words, instead of celebrating the unprecedented cornucopia of media choices at our collective disposal, many policymakers and media critics are calling for just as much media regulation as ever. We itemize these threats in our chapters and they include: efforts to revive the “Fairness Doctrine”, media ownership regulations, “localism” requirements, Net neutrality mandates, a la carte regulations, cable and satellite censorship, video game censorship, regulation of social networking sites, campaign finance-related speech restrictions, and so on.
In each case, we advance a pro-freedom paradigm to counter the advocates of media control. What do we mean by the “media freedom” that we advocate as the alternative to these new regulatory crusades? Here’s how we put it in the book:
Age Verification Debate Continues; Schools Now at Center of Discussion
This week, I have been up at Harvard University participating in another meeting of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF), of which I am a member. The ISTTF was organized earlier this year pursuant to an agreement between 49 state attorneys general (AGs) and social networking giant MySpace.com. A group of experts from academia, non-profit organizations, and industry were appointed to the Task Force, which is charged with evaluating the market for online child safety tools and methods and issuing a report on the matter to the AGs at the end of this year. ISTTF members have been meeting privately and publicly in both Cambridge, MA and Washington, D.C. The Task Force has been very ably chaired by John Palfrey, co-director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
Although the ISTTF is looking at a wide variety of tools and methods associated with online child protection (ex: filters, monitoring tools, educational campaigns, etc.), many of the AGs who crafted the agreement with MySpace that led to the Task Force’s formation have made it clear that they are most interested in having the ISTTF evaluate age verification / online verification technologies. In fact, at the start of this week’s session at Harvard Law School, AGs Martha Coakely of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut both spoke and made it abundantly clear they expect the Task Force to develop age and identify-verification tools for social networking sites (SNS). AG Blumenthal said we need to deal with “the dangers of anonymity” and repeated his standard line about online age verification: “If we can put a man on the moon, we can make the Internet safe.” [Of course, putting a man on the moon took hundreds of billions of dollars and a decade to accomplish, but never mind that fact! Moreover, one could also argue that if we can put a man on the moon we can cure hunger, AIDS, and the common cold, but some things are obviously easier said than done. Finally, putting a man on the moon didn't require all Americans or their kids to give up their anonymity or privacy rights in order to accomplish the feat!]
On many occasions here before, I have outlined various questions and reservations about proposals to mandate online age verification. Last year, I also published a lengthy white paper on the issue and hosted a lively debate on Capitol Hill [transcript here] about this. I also have discussed age verification in my book on parental controls and online child safety. [Braden Cox also talked about his experiences up at Harvard this week here, and CNet's Chris Soghoian had a brutal assessment of this week's proposals on his "Surveillance State" blog.]
In this essay, I will discuss the new fault lines in the debate over online age verification and outline where I think we are heading next on this front. I will argue:
- There is now widespread understanding that it is extraordinarily difficult to verify the ages and identities of minors online using the methods we typically use to verify adults. Because of this, age verification proponents are increasingly proposing two alternative models of verifying kids before they go online or visit SNS…
- First, for those who continue to believe that we must do whatever we can to verify kids themselves, schools and school records are increasingly being viewed as the primary mechanism to facilitate that. This raises two serious questions: Do we want schools to serve as DMVs for our children? And, do we want more school records or information about our kids being accessed or put online?
- Second, for those who are uncomfortable with the idea of verifying kids or using schools, or school records, to accomplish that task, parental permission-based forms of authentication are becoming the preferred regulatory approach. Under this scheme, which might build upon the regulatory model found in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), parents or guardians would be verified somehow and then would vouch for their children before they were allowed on a SNS, however defined. But how do we establish a clear link between parents and kids? And will parents be willing to surrender a great deal more information (about themselves and their kids) before their kids can go online? And, is it sensible to use a law that was meant to protect the privacy and personal information of children to potentially gather a great deal more information about them, and their parents?
- It remains very unclear how either of those two verification methods would make children safer online. Indeed, that could actually make kids less safe by compromising their personal information and creating a false sense of security online for them and their parents.
- It is highly unlikely the Internet Safety Technical Task Force will be able to reach consensus on this complicated, controversial issue. A small camp will likely flock to the sort of proposals mentioned above. Another, larger camp (including me) will flock to education-based approaches to child safety as well increased reliance on other parental empowerment tools and strategies, industry self-regulatory efforts, social norms, and better intervention strategies for troubled youth. But the age verification debate will go on and, as was the case over the past two years, the legal battleground will be state capitals across America, with AGs likely pushing for age verification mandates regardless of what the Task Force concludes.
Continue reading if you are interested in the details.
Online Advertising & User Privacy: Principles to Guide the Debate
By Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer
Progress Snapshot 4.19 (PDF)
Over the last year, a debate has raged in Washington over “targeted online advertising,” an ominous-sounding shorthand for the customization of Internet ads to match the interests of users. Not only are these ads more relevant and therefore less annoying to Internet users, they are more cost-effective to advertisers and more profitable to websites that sell ad space. While such “smarter” online advertising scares some—prompting comparisons to a corporate “Big Brother” spying on Internet users—it is also expected to fuel the rapid growth of Internet advertising revenues from $21.7 billion last year to $50.3 billion in 2011—an annual growth rate of more than 24%. Since this growing revenue stream ultimately funds the free content and services that Internet users increasingly take for granted, policymakers should think very carefully about what’s really best for consumers before rushing to regulate an industry that has thrived for over a decade under a layered approach that combines technological “self-help” by privacy-wary consumers, consumer education, industry self-regulation, existing state privacy tort laws, and FTC enforcement of corporate privacy policies.
In an upcoming PFF Special Report, we will address the many technical, economic, and legal aspects of this complicated policy issue–especially the possibility that regulation may unintentionally thwart market responses to the growing phenomenon of users blocking online ads. We will also issue a three-part challenge to those who call for regulation of online advertising practices:
- 1. What is the harm or market failure that requires government intervention?
2. Prove that there is no less restrictive alternative to regulation.
3. Explain how the benefits of regulation outweigh its costs.
Go to Jail for Online Anonymity: The End of Internet Freedom?
Forget net neutrality and the growing Googleplex. The real threat to Internet freedom comes from plain old criminal law.
In three weeks time, Missouri housewife Lori Drew will face trial for entering false personal details when she signed up for a MySpace account. Her indictment alone, whether or not she is convicted, should frighten anyone who’s ever filled out a form online.
The case, which captured the tabloid media when it broke last year, turns on unusual facts. Drew, posting as a teenage boy, created the MySpace account to probe why a neighbor’s daughter, Megan Meier, had broken off a friendship with her own daughter. She gave a few others access to the account, and things quickly spiraled out of control. Before long, “Josh Evans” (the fictional teen) and Meier were an online couple, and soon after that, they were hurling insults at one another on public message boards.
Meier, already suffering from depression, was devastated by Josh’s turnabout. A final private message from the Evans account–”The world would be a better place without you”–pushed her over the edge. Twenty minutes after receiving it, Meier hung herself in her closet.
Even though she was not responsible for the worst of the messages (according to a prosecutor who investigated the case but declined to file charged), Lori Drew mislead an emotionally troubled youth, and that was surely wrong.
But it’s more problematic to say that it’s a crime.
The theory of the prosecutor behind this case would make all Internet users criminals. Continue reading this post »
PFF filing in FCC product placement / embedded advertising inquiry
In late June, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened a Notice of Inquiry and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding “Sponsorship Identification Rules and Embedded Advertising” (MB Docket No. 08-90). Basically, it’s an inquiry into the product placement and embedded advertising practices on television. Some at the FCC want such practices regulated.
PFF filed comments in the matter today. Ken Ferree and I argue that that FCC regulation of such advertising practices would be unnecessary and unwise. “If the Notice demonstrates anything,” we argue, “it is that a majority of the current Commissioners live in a world wholly alien and unfamiliar to most Americans; indeed, a world long forgotten if it ever existed.” We continue:
The Notice alludes menacingly to new, “subtle and sophisticated means” of commercial messaging, to “sneaky commercials” (quoting a senescent order topped with nearly fifty-years of dust) and to “vindicat[ing]” the policy goals of the Communications Act – as if the FCC must exact vengeance on those who would try – horror of horrors – to sell goods and services to the American public. The melodramatic tone of the Notice is intended, of course, to set the stage for the Commission’s latest effort to micromanage the free marketplace of ideas, i.e., the media. Only by portraying “embedded” advertising as something new and nefarious can the Commission hope to justify a new portfolio of intrusive and burdensome speech regulations in the name of preserving the “public’s right to know who is paying to air commercials or other program matter on broadcast television and radio and cable.”
And, as we make clear in the filing, we don’t buy the argument that the public are nothing more than mindless sheep:
Palin Hackers Face Jail Time
From triumph to terror—that’s the likely emotional rollercoaster of the denizens of the “/b” message board on the 4chan website who hacked into Gov. Sarah Palin’s email account earlier this week. The toasts of the left-learning Internet on Tuesday, by this morning they knew themselves to be in the crosshairs of the FBI and Secret Service.
Next stop: jail. That’s the law, and it’s a fair punishment for digital breaking and entering.
According to British tech tabloid The Register, the hackers accessed Palin’s Yahoo account by way of a proxy, relaying all traffic through it to cloak their identities. The proxy’s owner promises to make his log data available to authorities, and it’s probably only a matter of time before that leads to living, breathing (nervous, sweating?) people.
The most likely charge is hacking. Federal law prohibits virtual trespassing for the purposes of stealing information. So cracking the password to a governor’s email account and perusing her messages is a clear violation. The punishment: criminal fines and imprisonment of up to 5 years.
Throw in a few conspiracy offenses—according to reports, a slew of “/b-tards” were in on the act—and the prison term could double.
No, going after a major party’s vice presidential candidate was not smart: Police and prosecutors put extra effort into famous crimes.
As for the media publishing Palin’s emails and family photos, shame on them, but it’s not against the law. In Bartnicki v. Vopper, the Supreme Court held that they have a First Amendment right to publish materials of public importance, even if illegally obtained, so long as the media doing the publishing committed no wrong itself.
But just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right. No one deserves to have their private correspondence stolen (not, as per the AP, “leaked”) and posted online for the world to see. It speaks to Palin’s classiness that nothing objectionable—not even a cuss—has come to light. Too bad that the press and online gossip-mongers don’t share that trait and take the material down.
Version 3.1 release: “Parental Controls & Online Child Protection”
Just FYI, the latest update of my booklet on “Parental Controls and Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools & Methods” is now live. The new version, Version 3.1, provides minor updates to all sections of the book and a new appendix of relevant research in the field. I issue major updates early each year and 1 or 2 tweaks during the course of the year to reflect the evolution of the parental control and online child safety market and debate. 
For those not familiar with the report, it explores the market for parental control tools, rating schemes, education efforts, and initiatives aimed at promoting online child safety. I believe that the parental controls and content management tools cataloged in the report represent a better, less restrictive alternative to government regulation. As I conclude after evaluating that state of the market: “There has never been a time in our nation’s history when parents have had more tools and methods at their disposal to help them decide what constitutes acceptable media content in their homes and in the lives of their children.”
The report is available free-of-charge on the PFF website, and the previous editions of the report are housed there too in case you want to see how it has evolved over the past two years. For those interested in taking a quick look at the report, I have embedded it down below the fold as a Scribd file. Finally, as is always the case, I encourage readers to send me updates and suggestions for how to improve the report and I will incorporate them into future versions.
Continue reading this post »
-
Welcome.
Search
Categories
- Biotech
- Broadband and Neutrality Regulation
- Competition Policy
- Copyright
- DMCA, DRM, and Piracy
- E-commerce taxation & regulation
- E-Government & Transparency
- First Amendment / free speech
- Inside the Beltway (Politics)
- Internet Governance
- Media Regulation
- Miscellaneous
- Open Source, Open Standards, and Peer Production
- Patents
- Podcast
- Privacy and Government Surveillance
- Sin on the 'Net
- Space
- Tech Pork
- Technology, Business, and Cool Toys
- Telecom and Cable Regulation
- Things that go 'Bump' in the 'Net
- Uncategorized
- What We're Reading
- Wireless and Spectrum Policy
Contributors
Tech Policy
Tech News
Bloggers We Like
Our Sites
Where We Work
-
Sponsors
