As reported yesterday on NPR, current efforts by telecom providers threaten access to information and applications on the Internet. Possible changes by the Federal Communications Commission highlight these efforts, which pertain to what power Internet service providers have in restricting access that conflicts with their own interest. What is at stake are the values of opportunity, something that should be examined as the FCC released the proposed regulatory changes for public discussion.
Restricting the use of Internet based alternatives to telephones, such as Skype and other voice over Internet applications, is just one example of what changes could take place. As telephone and cable providers aggressively market often monopolized products, bundling Internet and telephone packages into one service plan, services that are free over the Internet jeopardize telecom companies own share in person to person communications.
Access to voter registration continues to be an issue in the U.S. where only 71 percent of the voting eligible population is registered to vote. With young, low income, and minority citizens lagging behind in voter registration and participation, this fraction of registered voters only represents a skewed picture of the American people.
It has been an amazing week in Iran, and you are no doubt seeing images that would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago.
For most of us, Iran has been a country about which we know very little...which, obviously, makes it tough to put the limited news we're getting into a proper context.
The goal of today's conversation is to give you a bit more of an "insider look" at today's news; and to do that we'll describe some of the risks Iranian bloggers face as they go about their business, we'll meet a blogging Iranian cleric, we'll address the issue of what tools the Iranians use for Internet censorship and the companies that could potentially be helping it along, and then we'll examine Internet traffic patterns into and out of Iran.
Finally, a few words about, of all things, how certain computer games might be useful as tools of revolution.
Anyone who followed the Barack Obama presidential campaign, whether a supporter or not, had to be impressed by the sheer reach of his online presence. Not to state the obvious; President Obama's online infrastructure has been discussed and dissected to the core. But as satisfying as Obama's victory was, it would be great to maximize its effect by parlaying it into a greater proportion of progressive officeholders at a local level.
These local offices -- mayor, city councilman, county executive, state delegate, etc. -- are the farm system of the Democratic Party. They provide the pool from which future Presidents, Governors, Senators, and Representatives emerge. And it should be our goal, as progressive activists, that this farm system produce more Russ Feingolds and Barbara Boxers and fewer Joe Liebermans and Ben Nelsons. We really haven't yet organized effectively to ensure that we push quality Democrats through the system. We've done well with the "more", but not necessarily as well with the "better".
Andrew Sullivan recently linked to some bloggers who don't like Twitter. Now, Twitter is a social networking platform, but, unlike Google and Facebook, I have no problem with Twitter, so I am going to defend it here.
I've been thinking about the comments I received to my Google and Facebook posts, as well as some related posts and articles (the article's worth reading, btw) by other people from the last few days. I want to make one more point about this privacy stuff, and then move on for a while
The first round of questions for the transition team's change.gov website came to a close at midnight. The question
""Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?"
is in the lead with 7,947 people liking this question, and 634 people not liking this question.
Overall the first round of questions generated a turnout of 978,947 votes on 10,303 questions from 20,462 people.
Now, I don't mean to mock the question, or the public in general, when I say "this is the sort of thing that can happen." Quite to the contrary, as I explain in the extended entry, half the country has used marijuana, more people are arrested each year for marijuana than for violent crime, the nation overwhelmingly favors reduction in marijuana penalties, it is very relevant to our economic downturn, and it is a question that simply has not been asked of the incoming administration in other forums. It should be asked, and I am glad it is on track to winning.
Back in the late nineties, I was one of those odd souls who took what most would consider to be an inordinate amount of interest in Microsoft's antitrust troubles.
From the period 1997-2000 I can't say I cared more deeply about any other issue.
Of course, that issue faded from view as much more important things came to the fore, but it did lay in the back of my mind.
Now, this week, that part of my life has come back together full circle.
Let's start with a frightening New York Times article about the geometric growth of viruses, malware, and general criminal activity on the internet.
Election experts have already worried that the surge of newly registered voters may cause unintentional chaos through long lines and ballot shortages on Election Day. Now there is increased concern that intentional chaos may be caused by partisan forces using something that millions of Americans access every day - the Internet. Although deceiving and disenfranchising voters through political dirty tricks is a staple partisan strategy to influence election results, the Internet may be making it easier and more effective than ever to spread misinformation, according to CNN reporter, Stephanie Busari.
Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies.
Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures.
As for Pandora, its royalty fees this year will amount to 70 percent of its projected revenue of $25 million, Westergren said, a level that could doom it and other Web radio outfits.
This week, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) is trying to broker a last-minute deal between webcasters and SoundExchange, the organization that represents artists and record companies. The negotiations could reduce the per-song rate set by the federal panel last year.
The two sides appear to be far apart, however, with Berman frustrated.
"Most of the rate issues have not been resolved," Berman said. "If it doesn't get much more dramatic quickly, I will extricate myself from the process."
[emphasis added]
If anyone can explain that comment of Berman's I'd be interested to hear it. Does he want them to show up in costume? A musical score, perhaps? No, too many licensing issues.
I do love this as an example of DC in action. First, I pass a law saying that Joe can claim your head. Then you complain that you don't want to cut off your head. Joe insists. I "facilitate" negotiations between you and Joe. Joe says, "Give me your head." You say, "No!" I throw my hands up and say, "If you two can't manage to reach some kind of Reasonable Compromise here, well I wash my hands of it." Brilliant.
Look men, enough pussy-footing around (more pussy than footing for some of you!) The biggest problem I face is my age. And there are 2 areas where my age is clear to the public-
1) My lack of knowledge about the internets.
2) Little pieces of food stuck to my face.
Problem #2 is easy - we hire someone to make sure my face is free of schumutz or chutzpah or whatever the Jews call it. But Problem #1 is harder. We have to prove I know my way around the intertrode. Here are some ways we can do that:
It is by now an accepted fact of life that the Internet is having some sort of impact upon the political process...after all, if it wasn't, would we even be here?
But we've all wondered exactly how much impact; and now the good folks at the Pew Research Center have taken the time and trouble to do some survey work that seeks to answer that very question
The logical approach would be to "walk through" the data (which is, frankly, good news for Obama) and see what they have to say about it...but let's take a different approach today.
Let's instead look at the data and ask ourselves: who aren't we reaching, why, and what implications might those answers have going forward-and downticket?
The country has come online, though the narratives are still coming from TV.
Pew has a new survey out on Americans using the political internet.. 6% have given online versus 2% in 2004, 35% have watched a political video online, and 10% have used Facebook or MySpace to get involved. Still, the Broder-esque argument about the internet has taken hold.
60% agree that the internet is full of misinformation and propaganda that too many voters believe is accurate
Republicans tend to believe this more than Democrats do.
John Wonderlich discusses Congressional member use of Twitter. Here's a debate between two members of Congress over the service.
@timryan I am glad we are having this high tech debate Tim - what is your source for this factoid? It is far too small to be believable 09:17 PM June 12, 2008 from web
Former Obama advisor Samantha Power and former Clinton cabinet member Richard Holbrooke debated neoconservatives Charles Krauthammer and Niall Ferguson on the question of whether a Republican in the White House makes the world safer. Somehow, the liberals lost. Jonathan Schwartz has more.
Stephen Mansfield, who wrote the bestseller the Faith of George W. Bush in 2004, is coming out with the Faith of Barack Obama due out this summer. According to Ben Smith, the tone ranges from 'gently critical to gushing.'
Jon Isaacs, the campaign manager for Oregon candidate Jeff Merkley, did a long and fascinating interview. I'm particularly intrigued by this piece.
Q: Did the Novick campaign reach a level of support you hadn't expected in this race?
Isaacs: Here's how I would put it. I think one of the things we saw in this campaign, particularly in the Portland area, was that the Internet has real reach...Novick had built his name recognition, he had built his favorable ratings with very little television, particularly with his first two ads [which poked fund at his disabilities and went viral on the internet].
Obama has somewhat disempowered the black preacher class by appealing directly to those in the pews, and unified white liberals with the black vote. It's actually the 2006 Ned Lamont strategy writ large, and it hasn't been tried until now because establishment black leaders tend to work with establishment white conservative leaders to beat back liberal primary challenges. Obama was able to tap into the white liberal activist class to generate momentum and money and a win in Iowa, and then move to build on that by taking the black vote with a reformer oriented pitch that has not traditionally worked with black audiences.
It seems that the internet's reach into urban white liberal activist circles is having a profound effect, particularly in primaries. If this group is united with black reformers, as seems to be happening, the party is going to go through serious ferment, and progressives are going to be really powerful very soon.
Wow--Romney's collapse is severe. People just aren't looking for him online. The total lack of buzz if a great sign for both Huckabee and McCain. Nationally, the situation is different:
Among all US Internet users, the picture is very different. Ron Paul is way out in the lead, followed by Mike Huckabee. The following chart shows the market share of all US Internet visits to websites for presidential hopefuls.
A Huckabee nomination might be very strong online. I wonder if Republicans will ever be able to translate the Ron Paul excitement into activism and support for their party as a whole.
I just conducted a quick caucus among my nuclear family and closest non-political professional friends (they are all Dems). I count three for Obama, two for Edwards (including me), two for Clinton, one for Richardson, one for Kucinich, and two are undecided. I guess that makes Obama, Edwards and Clinton viable, while the other three have to choose a second-place choice.
So a long-standing irritant has been the reluctance of Democrats to take up the issue of net neutrality in Congress. It was left off of Nancy Pelosi's Innovation Agenda, and there have been no hearings despite the Pearl Jam incident and the NARAL/Verizon censorship.
That is about to end. Ed Markey is putting forward a bill on the future of the internet. It's not clear exactly what is in it, and it is being framed as a 'net neutrality' bill by reporters, but it is unlikely this legislation is going to mandate net neutrality.
In a previous comment from another post I mentioned this organization without explaining what it was. When I mentioned it I wondered if maybe some people here had maybe not heard of or didnt know much about this organization. I guess I kinda assumed most readers with an interest in net neutrality knew about this org.
After poking around a bit with this site's search feature I'm starting to think my initial assumption was incorrect because I couldn't find a one single mention of the EFF.org in any comment or diaries on this blog. I'm sure that Matt and many of yall are familiar or at least had heard of this organization.
Quick introduction about The Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF is an incredible and brilliant non-profit organization that is committed to helping fight for internet freedom. It is a favorite of nerdy techies everywhere, especially over at Slashdot, the hugely popular news for nerds weblog. The posters and commentators over there, from my observations, tend to lean to the left. More accurately they lean toward the liberal side of the spectrum, the blog has its fair number of Republican or conservative (the real kind) posters but they seem to be far outnumbered by the Democrats and even possibly even by libertarians. The one thing everyone there has in common is they are all, without exception, diehard net neutrality supporters reguardless of party affilation. Most of them are against the patriot act and pretty much anything thats been done which could even be perceived as damaging civil liberties. Stem cell research and global warming are big issues over there and believe me its incredibly refreshing to see intelligent global warming discussion coming from a completely non-partisan blog where absolutely nobody is a "denier." The global warming "deniers" are about as nutty as the 911 "truthers" IMO.
Back to the EFF, the EFF is somewhat similar to SaveTheInternet , another organization probably more familiar to yall because its been discussed here and promoted by Matt and others. The EFF is a very strong advocate for net neutrality but the main difference between the two organizations is that the EFF has a more broad mission ranging from advocacy for many aspects of internet and technology freedom, in addition to their advocacy for net neutrality. The EFF is a much larger organization than STI and have lots of lawyers and PR type guys on staff. Not to mention a nice bit of money to throw around which always helps.
They're one of my very favorite organizations and they are fighting the good fight and deserve our support. If I had a lot of cash lying around, I would click here to donate to them (I don't work for them or anything I just really support what they stand for and they have been consistently right about technology issues).
They have a lot of very smart lawyers and advocates who specialize in technology and the internet, which is an area of expertise that's fairly difficult to find lawyers who are tech savvy enough to represent such cases and come up with good arguments. They file lawsuits when people try to censor the internet and also on behalf of protecting consumers. Here is a list of their press releases (click here) so take a look at all the great things they have done for us recently.
Besides the obvious net neutrality advocacy other reasons they're so important and neccessary is because they are one of the few (and probably the best/most effective) organizations which are promoting internet freedom and opposing legislation which poses a threat to it. One of the prime functions they serve which I believe to be so invaluable and needed is they help to stop poorly-written legislation from unfairly, un-rightfully, or even unintentionally being passed by congress or enforced by the administration. They do this either by going through the courts or through lobbying and or raising public awareness. They are one of the only 'firewalls' (excuse the pun) protecting us from stupid politicians messing up our internet freedom (the most democratic forum on earth!) and from messing up other technology related things of which they know absolutely nothing (Ted Steven's tubes anyone?) by drafting laws which are either completely ignorant or overly authoritarian and big-brotherish.
They've opposed many laws that restricted freedom and won court victories getting many of these laws struck down including some controversial ones probably written with the best of intentions (think anti-child porn laws). Due to poorly worded language by a lawmaker who didn't know what they were writing about, the bill's had the undesired side effects of damaging privacy or internet freedom. The EFF is sorta like an ACLU, but just for the internet and other tech issues.
Any way I'm glad to introduce this great organization to any of you who were unfamiliar with it. There are lots of great ways to support them with their endeavors even without donating any money. They have Acton Alerts (click here) and many other things; such as petitions and recommendations for how people can help get involved.
I hope everyone will help support this organization because this fight for freedom of the internet is a very important one. It doesn't stop at supporting net neutrality and stopping those who would like to tier the internet (although thats not a bad place to start). I encourage everyone to poke around their site take a look at the wide range of issues they cover.
You guys at OpenLeft should try to team up with them somehow, if only just posting a link somewhere. I know that technically (no pun intended) the EFF is a non-partisan group, and I know how much you guys love partisanship. Everybody knows the Democrats and progressives are much better on this issue the EFF just has to remain non-partisan for tax purposes and because it doesn't hurt to encourage Republicans to act sane. The guys at the EFF are the big dogs on this issue in this fight and are considered credible and well respected by "techies" the legal community alike. I think it be great if you guys teamed up with them somehow or worked together with them you are both on the same side of this issue fighting the same fight against the same people.
UPDATE: sorry about originally horrible grammer I tried to clean it up a bit. I deeply apologize to any poor soul who suffered through trying read and make sense of my original pre-update post.
Patrick Ruffini has a fascinating piece on the politics of the internet. He says that while the internet has drowned us in data, not much of it has been useful for understanding political demographics, but that Facebook's new advertising service changes this dynamic and lets s finally begin tracking some real political data.
Out of idle curiosity, I started running an ideological breakdown of Facebook users by age, starting at Facebook's minimum age of 14 and working my way up. The spreadsheet is here so you can follow along.
It was after I started reached the mid-20s that I stumbled upon something that may help quantify the early adopter bias. High school and college users were pretty consistently about 4-8 points more liberal than conservative. That's sort of where you'd expect them to be given the 18-29 year old vote. And Facebook's market penetration with this cohort is such that this is likely to be a highly representative sample of Americans that age.
But the older you got, through users in their 20s, the more liberal the user base became. It was inexorable. Each year, liberals picked up a couple of points on conservatives. My fellow 29-year olds on Facebook are +25.3% liberal. The 20-year old bracket is +4.5% liberal.
Given how stable the numbers were for college/high school users, with much higher numbers, this seemed unlikely to suggest an actual demographic shift in Generation Y.
But something else was going on. As liberals were picking up steam, the number of Facebook users were getting progressively smaller with each age cohort.
It makes perfect sense when you think about it. These users represent early adopters who never used Facebook in college. The people who joined Facebook since it opened up, or finagled a way into it before then using a stray alumni .edu address like I did.
This is pretty strong evidence of a liberal/early adopter correlation. Non-college Facebook users in their late twenties are two to one liberal where their college age counterparts are pretty closely matched.
That two-to-one ratio probably correlates with usage of other high-end web services and even traffic to the candidate sites themselves. It also gives quantifiable backing to the idea that Republicans stand to gain as the universe is widened entering the general election, as I've long suspected...
For Republicans, this gives us quantifiable data for the first time showing where to concentrate our online efforts. Our comparative advantage is not in dominating the existing social networks, but to do things that expand the universe, and to get people on the edges of the process to engage (it's not all that different than what Hillary has done to transcend the netroots). This sounds like liberal election strategy, but for our purposes, it forms the outlines of a conservative insurgent strategy to retake the Web.
That makes sense. The creative class is pretty liberal, and it uses the tools of the creative class more intensively and proactively than those who get their social intermediation from church networks. As the political web broadens, the Republican Party will find more of its people online, and the political web itself will become the place where most politics happens.
The Facebook tool Ruffini points to is really neat. You can instantly find out that there are five times as many self-identified liberal New Yorkers as self-identified conservative New Yorkers on Facebook, and do that for every city in the country, segmented by age, relationship status, and gender.
I don't know if I buy his strategic argument, though. There is circumstantial evidence that liberals have hit our ceiling with early adopters, while Republicans have not. In the blogs, for instance, Redstate's traffic is increasing while there's a slight downdraft of liberal blog traffic. You could chalk this up to an investment gap, as I'll explain below. Now, the future of the Republican Party is obviously online, and the Republican race in 2008 is broadening the party's appetite for information best delivered by the web. The question, though, is not whether there's a good amount of upside online for the right, the question is whether there's a good amount of net upside online for the right. Everything liberal that's happened on the internet for the last ten years is net upside for us. The right, however, has had Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Weekly Standard, and a variety of think tanks and corporate trade associations for a long time. There's a very real possibility that as the right-wing web takes off, these instruments are losing power. It's not a coincidence that Fox News's ratings are stagnant or decreasing, since the web is just a much more efficient vehicle for getting certain types of news that cable delivers. And since liberals basically had no partisan news outlets, the internet is opening up new spaces for us that conservatives have had access to for a long time.
Ruffini also makes the argument that there's a latent pool of conservatives coming online, and that's true. But that doesn't mean this Republican Party will succeed. Redstate has already banned Ron Paul supporters because his supporters are bathed in white supremacist leanings. I've tracked this since February, 2006, when I pointed out that GOP.com couldn't let supporters openly advocate for their values for fear that racism would tinge the RNC. The liberal internet has changed the Democratic party by threatening entrenched interests. It makes sense the Republicans would undergo a similar process as the party adjusts to an entirely different medium that empowers different types of organizers.
Finally, it's important to realize that there's been almost no investment in the liberal blogs, which is dramatically different than what has gone on with the right side of the web, where Regnery Publishing literally bought Redstate, Republicans have been feeding Drudge tidbits since 1997, fellowships for people like the Powerline guys are the norm, and even the military is intensely cooperative. While peripheral groups like the Center for American Progress, Media Matters, and Moveon do deploy capital, actual activists have almost zero support either institutionally or financially. We see this in our Presidentials, where only Dodd is seriously taking advantage of the institutional strengths of the blogs, and in Congress, where the loathing, contempt, and even official condemnations of activists is on display on a fair regular basis.
All of this is to say that Ruffini's essay is really interesting, and I find it hopeful that these kinds of intelligent conversations are going on within the new generation of Republican operatives. I think we're trying to discover a new way of doing politics, and that's a much tougher nut to crack than building on an already successful model. They do not, for instance, get condemned by their leaders. Ultimately, all of us will have to figure out how to work web politics, and that's going to require a lot of learning from each other, since we're both working to get the public more involved in decision-making.
The situation in Burma is tragic and the result of decades of horrific military rule that has reduced one of the most beautiful places on earth to a tragic ruin where monks in robes flee from soldiers with Chinese-made automatic weapons.
One of the tragedies of the situation is despite the efforts of groups who have been trying to expose the situation on the ground in Burma. Groups like WITNESS and US Campaign For Burma have been fighting against the apathy that is our current corporate media culture.
