Aaron Kliegman – Former President Barack Obama spoke in a video about the importance of journalism against threats towards democracy in celebration of World Press Freedom Day.
Former President Barack Obama suggested in a new interview the development of “digital fingerprints” to combat misinformation and distinguish between true and misleading news for consumers. Continue reading
Sean Adl-Tabatabai – All of the major ISP companies think poor people deserve slower Internet speeds than the rest of the population.
In an extraordinary meeting between an ISP industry group and the Federal Communications Commission (FSS) in the US, ISP representatives argued that they should be paid by the government to slow down the Internet speeds of people living in poor neighborhoods. And we already know how difficult it is to get internet, especially when there’s so few choices of internet providers.
Theregister.co.uk reports: In a letter recording a meeting between the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) and the legal advisors to two FCC commissioners, the industry group “emphasized that the Commission’s goals would be better served by directing support to areas that lack any service at all and those that have access only below 10/1 Mbps.”
The current definition of broadband is 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up. That was introduced in 2015 and replaced an older, outdated definition of 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up. Continue reading
En route to the Land of the Free ~ Two years ago, Mr. Chan saw an opportunity. Thanks to tight government control of the Internet, launching a website in China is an intensely bureaucratic affair.
It takes much more than just buying a domain and hosting it.
In China, you first have to register your domain with your ID at the Ministry of Internet Communication.
Then you wait.
Afterwards, IF you get approved, there are all sorts of protocols and censors who demand your compliance.
And of course, the moment you say something the state doesn’t like, they can take your site down instantly.
Whenever government bureaucracy gets as out of control as this, there is always an opportunity to provide faster, simpler, better alternatives.
And that’s exactly what Mr. Chan did. Continue reading
““We would never have found a company willing to supply the necessary fiber-optics,” said the mayor of Löwenstedt Holger Jensen, as quoted by the Local. So the villagers set up their own company, set up their own broadband network and even laid their own fiber optic cable.” ~RT
Inhabitants of a small village in Germany have taken the digital law into their own hands. They laid their own fiber optic cables setting up their own broadband network after being told their village was too small and remote by telephone companies.
When Internet Service Providers and telephone companies told residents of Löwenstedt in northern Germany that they were too small and irrelevant to warrant a decent internet service they decided they would do it themselves.
But the unique geography of Löwenstedt and many other villages in the northern Friesland region means that just 640 people were spread out over 200 hectares and 22 km of cable would need to be laid to connect everyone to broadband.
“We would never have found a company willing to supply the necessary fiber-optics,” said the mayor of Löwenstedt Holger Jensen, as quoted by the Local.
So the villagers set up their own company, set up their own broadband network and even laid their own fiber optic cable. Continue reading
For years revenue-hungry states and local municipalities have salivated over the prospect of taxing the life out of the internet. Now a move by a small but dedicated minority in Congress may result in the scraping of the Internet Tax Freedom Act and usher in a new era of exorbitant taxation, according to The Wall Street Journal.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/pBqqEnA4eQk&w=500]
Senator Ron Wyden’s (D-Oregon) call to action to stop
Online Sales Tax and protect Internet freedom.
In a few months, the newspaper reports, “customers may begin receiving notices from their Internet providers that new taxes are on the way. Even though nearly everyone in Congress opposes slapping all of America’s heavy traditional telephone taxes on Internet access, a renewal of this successful policy is being held hostage by lobbyists for giant retailers.” Continue reading