News of the Week; April 19, 2017

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. Bill O’Reilly out at Fox after harassment allegations
  2. Fox News Found the Perfect Woman-Hater to Replace Bill O’Reilly 
  3. Alex Jones’ Defense in Upcoming Custody Battle Is That He’s a Fake
  4. When Is An Insane Conspiracy Theorist A Bad Parent?: Bizarre strategy in Alex Jones case.
  5. FTC Commissioner: If The FCC Kills Net Neutrality, Don’t Expect Our Help
  6. Web Firms Urge FCC to Preserve Open Internet Order
  7. Don’t Wait For Google, Netflix Or Facebook’s Help If You Want To Save Net Neutrality
  8. Roku Hires DC Lobbyists For First Time To Fight For Net Neutrality
  9. Verizon CEO: We’d consider merger with almost anyone, including Comcast: No deal is imminent as Verizon CEO claims no one has the fiber to match Verizon.
  10. FCC helps AT&T and Time Warner avoid lengthy merger review: Time Warner sells a TV station to avoid public interest review of AT&T deal.
  11. One broadband choice counts as “competition” in new FCC proposal: Price caps would be eliminated when there’s one more ISP within half a mile.
  12. Future of FCC Privacy Rules Unclear
  13. NBC Reaches Deal With TV Affiliates for Opting in to Internet Video Distribution Agreements
  14. T-Mobile dominates spectrum auction, will boost LTE network across US: Dish, Comcast, and US Cellular also bought plenty of 600MHz spectrum.
  15. Ofcom fine BT a record breaking £42 million: A move to a more punitive approach?
  16. The Internet as Cable: The Risk of Treating Telecommunications as Cultural Policy (Michael Geist)
  17. Canada’s analog broadcasting policy makes no sense in a digital world (Michael Geist)

DIGITAL

  1. Facebook video of elderly man being murdered gets over 1.6 million views: Grandson urges the public to stop sharing footage of his grandfather being killed.
  2. Moral Panics: Don’t Blame Facebook Because Some Guy Posted His Murder Video There
  3. The man behind the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website is being sued by one of his ‘troll storm’ targets
  4. Lawsuit: Neo-Nazi website owner is liable for harassing Montana real estate agent: “It’s that time, fam… ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm?”
  5. China’s Precision Censorship Machine Allows Some Controversial Keywords, But Blocks Combinations Of Them
  6. Facebook highlights its fight against “Fake News” in print: The 10 tips are basic news literacy, but Facebook wants the world to know.
  7. Facebook Launches New Camera Tools as a Foundation for Advanced Augmented Reality
  8. Video Calling, 3D Drawing, and Shared Experiences Inside Facebook’s Social VR App
  9. Facebook’s first VR app surprises, lets us collaborate and be juvenile: Has serious issues, but hand tracking, doodling, media sharing work great in VR “Spaces.”
  10. Facebook Finally Released Details on Their Top Secret Brain-Computer Interface
  11. Facebook is Researching Brain-Computer Interfaces, “Just the Kind of Interface AR Needs”
  12. Tumblr Is The Latest Platform To Launch A Co-Viewing App
  13. ‘Alien’, ‘Blade Runner’ Director Ridley Scott Launches VR Film Division
  14. Social Media Is Not Contributing Significantly to Political Polarization, Paper Says
  15. Secret Sorority Handshakes, Questionable Lawsuits, Free Speech, The Right To Be Forgotten And Section 230
  16. IoT garage door opener maker bricks customer’s product after bad review: Startup tells customer “Your unit will be denied server connection.”
  17. The Strange Story Of Why Millions Of Indians Are Furious At Snapchat: The social media company’s CEO allegedly said India and Spain were too poor to care about expanding there.
  18. How Opioid Addicts Are Using Social Media To Get Clean: Facebook groups and other online forums offer many addicts a digital path to recovery
  19. Everything on the Dark Web is not illegal, only half!
  20. FTC Staff Reminds Brands and Influencers About Disclosure Requirements
  21. Kim Kardashian West promotes morning sickness drug on Instagram despite previous FDA warning
  22. Top 100 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • March 2017
  23. Music industry goes to war with YouTube: Record labels are angry about the relatively small fees the platform pays for music videos compared with streaming services
  24. Patent troll with an “Internet Drink Mixer” and a nonexistent office could be in trouble
  25. EFF Goes To Court To Stop Australian Patent Troll From Stifling Free Speech
  26. How a Law School Is Preparing Its Students to Compete Against AI
  27. Machines Learn To Stereotype Humans Just Like Humans: Researchers find AI systems are ready and willing to adopt racial and gender biases
  28. Princeton researchers discover why AI become racist and sexist: Study of language bias has implications for AI as well as human cognition.
  29. Report: Google will add an ad blocker to all versions of Chrome Web browser – The owner of the Web’s biggest advertising platform is building an ad blocker?
  30. FTC Explains Why It Thinks 1-800 Contacts’ Keyword Ad Settlements Were Anti-Competitive–FTC v. 1-800 Contacts (Eric Goldman)
  31. The Future of Ad Blocking: An Analytical Framework and New Techniques (Grant Storey, Dillon Reisman, Jonathan Mayer & Arvind Narayanan Princeton University)
  32. How Copyright Law Creates Biased Artificial Intelligence (Amanda Levendowski)

CREATIVITY

  1. Legal Threat From Creator Of Wall St. Bull Statue Even More Full Of Bull Than Expected
  2. No, The ‘Charging Bull’ Artist Can’t Force Anyone To Take Down ‘Fearless Girl’
  3. ‘Fearless Girl’ and ‘Charging Bull’ lurch towards courtroom showdown
  4. Public Art Installations: Is Fearless Girl ’s girl power trampling moral rights in Charging Bull ? We say no.
  5. On Fearless Girl, women & public art; or, no, seriously, the guy does not have a point.
  6. Separating Art from Function: Supreme Court Creates Copyright Test for Designs
  7. Asos Accused Of Ripping Off Indie Brand After Visiting Its Showroom
  8. My Other Bag Seeks Nearly $1 Million in Legal Fees in Louis Vuitton Case
  9. Bushwick Street Artists Threaten Legal Action Against McDonald’s for Using Their Work: The work appeared in a Dutch ad titled “McDonald’s Presents the Vibe of Bushwick NY.”
  10. Copyright Society’s ‘World IP Day’ Lesson: Give Us Your Copyrights For Nothing
  11. An interview with Michael Geist: copyright reform in Canada and beyond
  12. Fair Dealing in Canada: Dry Erase Boards and Overhead Projectors – Believe It Or Not?
  13. European Court Of Human Rights Revisits Once More Intermediary Liability
  14. Cara Delevingne Rimmel mascara ad banned for airbrushing: Watchdog pulls TV campaign promising ‘dangerously bold lashes’ for using inserts and redrawing to exaggerate effects
  15. How Artists Push Social Change
  16. Copyright in the Public Interest: How Canada Can Establish a Pro-Innovation Reform Agenda
  17. Someone tried to own ‘take off, eh’: Secrets from the Canadian trademarks database
  18. Copyright’s missing voices
  19. Copyright Reform in Canada and Beyond (Michael Geist)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Plaintiff Can’t Erase Court Order From the Internet–Nelson v. Social Security Commissioner (Eric Goldman)
  2. Lawyers, malware, and money: The antivirus market’s nasty fight over Cylance – On the front lines of the antivirus industry’s “testing wars.”
  3. Massachusetts AG Settles Geofencing Case 
  4. Geotargeting Medical Facilities? Massachusetts Says ‘No Snoop For You!’ 
  5. These Popular Headphones Spy on Users, Lawsuit Says
  6. Bose headphones spy on listeners: lawsuit
  7. German Consumers Face $26,500 Fine If They Don’t Destroy Poorly-Secured ‘Smart’ Doll
  8. Microsoft Latest Service Provider To Pry A National Security Letter Free From Its Gag Order
  9. Apple Takes Heat For Software Lock That Prevents iPhone 7 Home Button Replacement By Third-Party Vendors
  10. The Teddy Bear And Toaster Act Is Device Regulation Done Wrong
  11. The Illicit Aura of Information
  12. NSA-leaking Shadow Brokers just dumped its most damaging release yet: Windows zero-days, SWIFT bank hacks, slick exploit loader among the contents.
  13. Liberal inaction frustrates Canada’s exiting information watchdog: Stepping down, but not quietly, Suzanne Legault urges reforms to open up Ottawa
  14. Hypocritical CIA Director Goes On Rant About Wikileaks, Free Speech
  15. Vigilante botnet infects IoT devices before blackhats can hijack them: Hajime battles with Mirai for control over the Internet of poorly secured things.
  16. Legislation allowing warrantless student phone searches dies for now – Proponent: California law aimed to bolster student safety, help investigate cyberbullying.
  17. Why one Republican voted to kill privacy rules: “Nobody has to use the Internet”: Republicans encounter angry citizens after killing online privacy rules.
  18. Trump Privacy Rollback Continues, States Step Up 
  19. Claims under the Data Protection Act can be linked with defamation claims (U.K.)

Jon