(FFTF) June 5: "Reset the Net" campaign from the group Fight for the Future calls for increased Website encryption and privacy tools for users. Today marks the one-year anniversary of the publication of the first Guardian story based on the leaks of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Activist Evangeline Lilly
(FFTF) Narrated and executive-produced by Evangeline Lilly. Produced by Mata Wata. Don't just watch, DO something: The U.S. government has turned the Internet into a systematic way of spying on us in our most private moments. Out of control government surveillance is a dangerous form of censorship. We are emboldened as we Fight for the Future and Demand Progress. Share this video. More
Net Neutrality? Gone. NDAA indefinite detention? Passed. NSA spying? (demanprogress.org)
Net: it's a utility, the "People's Platform," not a portable TV for corporate media (occupy)
Not until a fair accounting of votes does anything happen in a democracy. (It sure would be nice to live in a democracy). All those who say otherwise are stirring up anarchy. Destroy the deviants, troublemakers, and perverts! Corporate profits depend on it. That should keep the police state busy. In the meantime, what about our Internet?
The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is voting today on new rules that may effectively abandon "Net neutrality," the concept of a free and open Internet. (Watch this).
(CGP Grey/cgpgrey.com) Let's tell the FCC to reclassify broadband Internet as a public utility, a Title II common carrier telecommunications service. (Discuss). Music: Broke for Free.
The FCC proposal would let Internet providers charge corporate media companies extra fees to receive preferential treatment, such as faster speeds for their products and content.
The encampment begins with activists from popularresistance.org and Fight for the Future
Just steps from the vote, demonstrators have set up an "Occupy the FCC" (occupythefcc.com) encampment calling for federal regulators to reclassify broadband service as a public utility.
"Trust me; I'm a banker!"
This will allow for the requirement of "Net neutrality" rules.
The CEOs of 28 U.S. broadband providers and trade groups told their FCCnot to classify broadband as a utility, explaining that regulating broadband would "impose great costs [to our private corporations], allowing unprecedented government micromanagement of all aspects of the Internet economy."
This debate on Net neutrality features guests Timothy Karr of the media reform group Free Press, who want corporations to be regulated for the good of everyone who uses the Net, and Joshua Steimle, a tech entrepreneur who argues that the government should not be entrusted with regulating the Internet.More
CBS's announcement this morning (Thursday, April 10, 2014) that Stephen Colbert is taking over from David Letterman as the host of "The Late Show" in 2015 trumps all rivals -- including Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy O'Brien, and all the Jameses, like the head of the now shuttered and very controversial CCDD Foundation.
But now it seems the likelihood the show will move to Los Angeles is dim, despite lobbying from L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti. Reasons likely include everything from trying to retain "The Colbert Report" staff on his new show, family, and more.
I won't stand for that white hipster ironical racism; people might misunderstand it.
.
Stephen Colbert responded to criticism about a tweet about his show from his TV network last week, saying he would dismantle the imaginary foundation that created the stir.
It surely says something about our culture that a single tweet (when the twit hit the fan) can turn into a major racial incident: Colbert's send-up of Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder's new foundation to help Native Americans.
The controversy erupted when a Twitter account associated with Colbert's Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report, took the joke too far -- away from its original context.
"I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever," read the tweet from @ColbertReport.
Hipster (ironic) racism? It's not Colbert's Twitter handle, and Colbert himself had nothing to do with the tweet, but a lot of people -- specifically Asian-Americans -- didn't think it was funny. They thought it was racist.
But not everyone thinks so, not, for example, Jay Caspian Kang, an Asian-American who wrote a piece about the controversy for newyorker.com. Where some saw racism, he tells NPR's Rachel Martin, he saw a big misunderstanding.
"When the tweet came out, without the sort of context of the first part of the joke, then it does seem a little bit shocking," he says.
One of those offended was activist Suey Park, 23. Park re-tweeted in outrage, and the #CancelColbert social media campaign began. Kang understands where the anger comes from.
Seeing Red
Colbert responded on his show by saying he would "shut down" the imaginary foundation that sparked fury among select critics. The most vocal has been Suey Park (Twitter nicknameAngry Asian Woman). She began the #CancelColbertcampaign.
In an article for Time, Park wrote last week: "The problem isn't that we can't take a joke. The problem is that white comedians and their fans believe they are above reproach." She also discussed her motivations in a video interview with Huff Po. In another tweet she stated: "White people -- please keep #CancelColbert trending until there's an apology."
Rachel Stark has the right idea: "Calm, reasoned debate among comics about which jokes should be off limits doesn’t exist"!
We love you, Suey Park, but be an activist about something more serious than satire. For if we lose our hero and white-ally Colbert because of your humorless campaign, we will not be amused, not amused in the slightest, and we'll start our own offensive imaginary foundation to continue the mission of calling attention to a racist #Redskins owner Dan Snyder by mocking Asians in the blogosphere. (Please send all complaint letters in response to our rant to "Attention: I. Rony, Features Editor, Wisdom Quarterly" via EFF.org).
"Some of what Suey Park was saying [was about] Asian-Americans who are second-generation: It's sort of ingrained in our heads to always protect that idea of assimilation and upward mobility," Kang says.
"One of the things that upsets us," he says, "is when somebody comes and agitates in a way that would reflect badly upon us."
But Kang defends Colbert. It's also upsetting to "reflect badly upon the people who[m] we would consider our allies, who are trying to help us have this sort of assimilation, post-racial dream," he says.
In his article, Kang writes, "There's a long tradition in American comedy of dumping tasteless jokes at the feet of Asians and Asian-Americans -- [which] follows the perception that we will silently weather the ridicule."
"I think the writers in Hollywood know that it's just not going to be an issue the way that it would be if the joke was on another minority group," he says. LISTEN
All jokes and satire aside, there are discomfit ting conversations to be had.
PARKCITY, Utah - A year after Internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz’s suicide at the age of 26, a film about this remarkable young man has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film, titled “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz,” directed by Brian Knappenberger, follows the sadly short arc of Swartz’s life. A coalition of Internet activists, technologists, and policy experts are joining together on Feb. 11, 2014 for “The Day We Fight Back.”
As they say on their Website, reflecting on the victory against SOPA, “Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet and the notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass surveillance. If Aaron were alive, he’d be on the front lines." Listen
(EK)Harvard student downloads academic JSTOR articles and bam!
"The Rocket" (Laos) directed by Kim Mordaunt and starring Sitthiphon
THE ROCKET: A boy who is believed to bring bad luck to everyone around him leads his family and two new friends through Buddhist Laos to find a new home. After a calamity-filled journey through a land scarred by the legacy of American war, to prove he's not bad luck, he builds a rocket to enter the most exciting and dangerous competition of the year: the Rocket Festival.
(FFTF) June 5: "Reset the Net" campaign from the group Fight for the Future calls for increased Website encryption and privacy tools for users. Today marks the one-year anniversary of the publication of the first Guardian story based on the leaks of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
