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Old 26-01-22, 07:15 AM   #1
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - January 29th, 22

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January 29th, 2022




Some Starlink Customers Say SpaceX's Customer Service is 'Non-Existent' Nearly 1 Year after Paying a $100 Deposit and Receiving no Updates
Kate Duffy

• Elon Musk's SpaceX has left some Starlink customers waiting nearly a year for internet, they said.
• Some customers said they're hanging on for Starlink. Others said they've requested a deposit refund.
• One customer who asked for a refund said he can't contact SpaceX to say he hasn't got his money back.

Morgan Pace was trying to set up broadband for his 70-year-old father, who lives on a cattle ranch in Northern California.

In February, Pace signed up to Starlink — SpaceX's rapidly expanding satellite internet network — and paid a $100 deposit to secure the service two months later.

"Months went by and not a peep," he told Insider.

Pace said he checked his account and saw that he could lose his place in line if he took back his deposit. There was no contact number for Starlink customer service on SpaceX's website, he said.

After 10 months of waiting for the internet, he requested a refund for his deposit.

"I think Elon is a very smart man and wish him the best, but I think his customer service for Starlink was non-existent," Pace said.

Insider spoke to more than ten people who have waited nearly 12 months for Starlink's internet service. However, they have received no updates from Elon Musk's company on when Starlink will be available in their area and if the kit is on its way.

They sent Insider email confirmations of their Starlink purchases and refund requests, made from February onwards.

SpaceX didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made a few days before publication.

Jason Kirkpatrick, who is based in Michigan, told Insider that he paid $100 to secure Starlink in March but decided to request a refund in December because of the lack of contact from SpaceX.

Kirkpatrick said that when he logs onto his Starlink account, it says his deposit was refunded. However, he said he never got the money back, adding that he can't get through to SpaceX to alert them of the issue.

He said he felt "cheated" out of his deposit. "Not sure how a company just can walk away with customers money without providing the service," he said.

Another Starlink customer, Scott Alexander, told Insider that he's been waiting nearly a year for his Starlink kit to arrive.

"Since then I have heard nothing but the generic excuse email that, we have all heard, noting pandemic and supply chain issues," he said.

SpaceX sent emails to Starlink preorder customers last year, apologizing for shipping delays and saying silicon shortages have slowed down the production rate.

Alexander said his neighbor, who ordered Starlink three weeks before him, has already received his kit.

Starlink said in August that the global chip shortage was delaying the production of user terminals.

Keith Bosse, who paid a deposit for Starlink on February 25, told Insider that his order was pushed back from mid to late 2021 to the first quarter of 2022.

"Seems like if they can go to space they could at least send me an update via email?" Bosse said.

Meanwhile, in Canada, Troy Dubé paid 129 Canadian dollars for a Starlink deposit in late February but still hasn't had any contact from SpaceX. He told Insider that Bell Canada is now available in his area so "it'll be a matter of who gets me the faster service first."

Dubé said it would be useful to contact SpaceX, especially after other people on the same latitudinal line near to him have received their Starlink kits eight months after he first ordered his kit.

"I currently have little choice but to wait it out," Dubé said.

More than five other customers got in touch with Insider to say they had experienced the same silence after preordering Starlink. Insider first reported in September that customers were frustrated at not being able to find out when they'll receive their kits.

Starlink has more than 1,400 active satellites in orbit, Musk tweeted recently.
https://www.businessinsider.com/spac...contact-2022-1





SpaceX Planning to Launch up to 52 Missions in 2022

Will they make it?
Loren Grush

Commercial space company SpaceX plans to launch a whopping 52 flights in 2022, a NASA safety panel revealed today during a meeting. If successful, it would be the most launches the company has ever conducted in a single year, with its previous record last year at 31 launches.

The impressive figure was given during a virtual meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, which gives guidance to the space agency on how to maintain safety within its biggest programs. “NASA and SpaceX will have to be watchful during 2022 that they’re not victims of their success,” Sandy Magnus, a former NASA astronaut and member of the panel, said during the meeting. “There’s an ambitious 52-launch manifest for SpaceX over the course of the year. And that’s an incredible pace.”

SpaceX is a major partner for NASA on human spaceflight. The company is responsible for ferrying NASA’s astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station with its Crew Dragon spacecraft, and SpaceX is currently developing a next-generation rocket system, called Starship, to land people on the surface of the Moon for NASA’s Artemis program.

However, SpaceX has plenty of customers outside of NASA, as well. It periodically launches satellites for other companies, international customers, and the Department of Defense. But a good chunk of SpaceX’s launches for the year will be for SpaceX itself. The company is currently in the midst of building out a massive satellite constellation called Starlink, which entails launching thousands of spacecraft into low- to medium-Earth orbit to provide broadband Internet access to the entire globe. Every couple of weeks, SpaceX has been launching these satellites in batches of roughly 50 to 60 vehicles.

Spaceflight schedules are always subject to change, so there’s no guarantee that SpaceX will meet the 52-launch figure. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the company was striving to hit 48 launches in 2021 but only made it to 31. So far this year, SpaceX has already launched three missions, and it has another one scheduled for this afternoon. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While meeting the number would certainly be admirable, NASA’s ASAP panel also warned about the downsides of having such a packed manifest. “Both NASA and SpaceX will have to ensure the appropriate attention and priority are focused on NASA missions,” Magnus said, “and that the right resources are brought to bear to maintain that pace at a safe measure.”
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/27/2...es-record-2022





FCC Chair Plans to Block Exclusive Deals that Limit ISP Choice in Apartments

Plan would block sale-and-leaseback wiring deals and exclusive revenue sharing.
Jon Brodkin

The Federal Communications Commission is on course to block some types of exclusive deals that ISPs and landlords use to prevent broadband competition in apartment buildings and other multiple-tenant environments.

A plan announced Friday by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel would "prohibit providers from entering into graduated revenue sharing agreements or exclusive revenue sharing agreements with a building owner; require providers to disclose to tenants in plain language the existence of exclusive marketing arrangements that they have with building owners; [and] end a practice that circumvents the FCC's cable inside wiring rules by clarifying that existing Commission rules prohibit sale-and-leaseback arrangements that effectively block access to alternative providers," the FCC said.

Rosenworcel circulated the proposal to other commissioners, meaning they can vote on it at any time. The updated rules would apply to residential buildings that contain apartments or condo units and to office buildings.
Cable companies fought to preserve exclusive wiring deals

The FCC did not release the full proposal but summarized it in a press release. The proposal to "end a practice that circumvents the FCC's cable inside wiring rules" appears to reject the cable industry's argument that exclusive wiring deals between ISPs and landlords should be allowed. In the sale-and-leaseback arrangements that Rosenworcel wants to stop, an ISP sells its wiring to a building owner and then leases back the wiring on an exclusive basis.

"With more than one-third of the US population living in apartments, mobile home parks, condominiums, and public housing, it's time to crack down on practices that lock out broadband competition and consumer choice," Rosenworcel said. "Consumers deserve access to a choice of providers in their buildings. I look forward to having my colleagues join me in lifting the obstacles to competitive choice for broadband for the millions of tenants across the nation."

The FCC noted that it already prohibits exclusive deals but that ISPs and landlords use "practices that evade long-existing FCC rules intended to allow tenants to choose their own provider." The FCC invited public comment on the problem in September 2021, and the responses "revealed a pattern of new practices that inhibit competition, contrary to the commission's goals, and limit opportunities for competitive providers to offer service for apartment, condo, and office building unit tenants," the FCC said.

"These practices could throttle consumer access to providers participating in the commission's affordable broadband programs such as the Emergency Broadband Benefit and its successor, the Affordable Connectivity Program," the FCC also said, referring to the commission's newest subsidy programs.

Rosenworcel does what she can with 2-2 deadlock

Rosenworcel's proposal may have been more ambitious if the FCC wasn't still operating with a 2-2 deadlock between Democrats and Republicans. The Senate has not yet voted on Biden nominee Gigi Sohn, who would give Democrats a 3-2 majority.

"We welcome this action as an interim step to advancing consumer choice," Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at consumer-advocacy group Public Knowledge, said today. Leventoff said landlords and ISPs have "exploited loopholes to limit consumer choice" and that Rosenworcel's plan "would curtail the worst of these loopholes—including graduated revenue sharing agreements (which encourage landlords to limit which broadband providers can serve a building in order to maximize their own profit) and sale-leaseback agreements (which exist solely to evade current rules)."

Public Knowledge said Rosenworcel should do more for apartment dwellers once the FCC has a 3-2 Democratic majority.

"[W]ith landlords and ISPs constantly creating new loopholes, consumers in multi-tenant environments won't have full choice until the commission takes action to ban all arrangements that limit consumer choice in multi-tenant environments," Leventoff said. "Additionally, the commission's efforts to promote broadband competition more broadly will ultimately require the direct authority found in Title II of the Communications Act." The Title II regulations that also underpinned net neutrality rules were eliminated under former chairman Ajit Pai, but Rosenworcel is likely to revive them after she gets a Democratic majority.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...t-competition/





Faster Internet Speeds Linked to Lower Civic Engagement in UK

Study finds involvement in political parties, trade unions and volunteering falls as web speeds rise
Robert Booth

Faster internet access has significantly weakened civic participation in Britain, according to a study that found involvement in political parties, trade unions and volunteering fell as web speeds rose.

Volunteering in social care fell by more than 10% when people lived closer to local telecoms exchange hubs and so enjoyed faster web access. Involvement in political parties fell by 19% with every 1.8km increase in proximity to a hub. By contrast, the arrival of fast internet had no significant impact on interactions with family and friends.

The analysis of behaviour among hundreds of thousands of people led by academics from Cardiff University and Sapienza University of Rome found faster connection speeds may have reduced the likelihood of civic engagement among close to 450,000 people – more than double the estimated membership of the Conservative party. They found that as internet speeds rose between 2005 and 2018, time online “crowded out” other forms of civic engagement.

The study’s authors have also speculated that the phenomenon may have helped fuel populism as people’s involvement with initiatives for “the common good”, which they say are effectively “schools of democracy” where people learn the benefit of cooperation, has declined.

Other studies have shown that social media engagement has strengthened other kinds of civic engagement, for example by helping to organise protests and fuelling an interest in politics, even if it does not manifest in traditional forms of participation.

However, politics conducted online has been found to be more susceptible to “filter bubbles”, which limit participants’ exposure to opposing views and so foster polarisation.

“We observed that civic participation and the form of engagement in the activities of voluntary organisations and political participation declined with proximity to the network,” said Fabio Sabatini, a co-author of the study. “Fast internet seems to crowd out this kind of social engagement.”

Face-to-face volunteering in the UK has been in decline for substantial periods in recent history. It fell from 2005 to 2011 and again in 2020 as Covid-19 hit, according to separate analysis by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

The new study, published in the Journal of Public Economics, gathered information from the communications regulator Ofcom about the location of local internet cabling exchanges, which during the period studied were a key determinant of data speeds. It then cross-referenced this with residents’ survey responses from the British Household Panel Survey and the UK Household Longitudinal Study about their engagement with social organisations.

The combined effect on engagement with organisations such as political parties, unions and professional associations was a 6% reduction in participation from 2010 to 2017 for each 1.8km closer to the local exchange someone lived.

The biggest impact was on political party involvement, while the impact on trade unions was far smaller – a 3.6% reduction. That chimes with estimates of declining membership of the main UK parties over the period studied, with the exception of a spike caused by a surge in Labour membership before Jeremy Corbyn’s election as party leader in 2015.

The decline in political parties’ appeal when internet speeds rise compared with unions may be because “political parties only indirectly safeguard their supporters’ particular interests [while] trade unions have a stronger and more explicit commitment to advocate for … their members,” the study suggested.

The effect on volunteering with organisations that deliver social care and environmental improvements as well as the Scouts, which have been defined by sociologists as instilling “habits of cooperation, solidarity, and public-spiritedness”, was measured at a 7.8% reduction.

“These kinds of organisations have been defined as ‘schools of democracy’ where people learn the benefit of cooperation” Sabatini said, adding that involvement with such organisations also helped people to trust strangers.

“The rise of populism has been linked to a decline in interest in public affairs and we thought that, being less politically and socially active, people may be less capable of interpreting political phenomena and understanding the complexity of the management of public affairs,” Sabatini said.

“While bonding social capital [family and friends] seems resilient to technological change, bridging social capital [politics, volunteering, unions] proves fragile and vulnerable to the pressure of technology,” the study concluded.

“This result is disturbing as it suggests that progress in information and communications technology can undermine an essential factor of economic activity and the functioning of democratic institutions.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-engagement-uk





MEPs Adopt Digital Services Act with Significant Last-Minute Changes
Luca Bertuzzi

A large majority of MEPs voted in favour of the Digital Services Act on Thursday (20 January), after plenary amendments introduced important changes to the text.

The DSA is horizontal legislation for the digital single market, with transparency requirements and due diligence obligations proportionate to the size of the service provider.

“We have an opportunity to create a new global golden standard for tech-regulation that will inspire other countries and regions,” said Christel Schaldemose, the leading MEP on the file.

While the compromise text brokered in the leading parliamentary committee introduced some significant new elements to the original proposal, further modifications were introduced via last-minute amendments in the plenary vote.

DSA cramped with amendments ahead of key vote in the European Parliament

Over a hundred alternative amendments were tabled on the DSA ahead of the plenary vote, with some critical comebacks and reformulations of existing proposals.

The amendments are a mixed bag of new bids, bring-backs of measures discarded in the consumer protection …

Targeted advertising

The most significant amendment was tabled by the Tracking-free Ads Coalition, a cross-party group of MEPs that pushes for a ban on targeted ads. As the bid for a total ban was not successful, a compromise was reached only to prohibit the targeting of minors.

The Coalition successfully passed amendments extending the limitation to sensitive personal data such as political and religious beliefs and sexual orientation at the plenary vote.

Moreover, online platforms should not make denying consent for processing personal data more complex than giving it, and refusing consent should not be penalised by disabling functionalities.

The major political groups of the European Parliament reached common ground on the Digital Services Act (DSA), which is set to be largely confirmed in a key committee vote as alternative amendments have so far gathered only limited support.

Media exemption

A lengthy discussion in the parliament concerned editorial content, which publishers considered platforms should not take it down arbitrarily. The initial proposal for a so-called media exemption was resisted because rogue media outlets might become disinformation vehicles.

The plenary amendments led to mixed results. A provision that allowed publishers to contest platforms’ content moderation decisions was rejected. By contrast, MEPs endorsed a change to the requirements on the terms and conditions, requiring platforms to consider the Charter of Fundamental Rights, including media freedom.

Another amendment tabled by the civil liberties committee (LIBE) specifies that whether terms and conditions violate fundamental rights, they should not be binding for the users.

An attempt to exempt the media from new content moderation rules has been ruled out following opposition from all major political groups, but the battle is not over.

Traceability of business users

Another important point for discussion throughout the DSA negotiations was to what extent online marketplaces should be responsible for illegal products distributed on their platforms.

The approach is based on the ‘know your business customer’ principle. Namely, platforms are not directly responsible for illegal products, but they have to make ‘best efforts’ to verify the identity of the service providers to ensure they can be legally held accountable.

These information obligations were initially limited to online marketplaces. Still, a plenary amendment changed the text’s preamble extending it to every intermediary service, including several layers of the internet such as domain name registers and content distribution networks.

“It was inserted so rightsholders can sue people easier,” said a parliamentary official that opposed the text, noting that “all information provided by businesses will have to be verified before they can open any website. It will be a bureaucracy nightmare for every business in Europe, big or small.”

Another amendment introducing a new article with a similar provision failed to reach a majority by one vote.

Dark patterns

Conservative MEPs managed to get a separate vote on measures against dark patterns (Art. 13a) but were unsuccessful in their attempt to kill the article.

Dark patterns are techniques designed “to distort or impair recipients of services’ ability to make a free, autonomous and informed decision or choice.”

The article explicitly forbids the use of specific techniques to extort consent to collect personal data, for instance, via repeatedly showing pop-ups. It also prevents platforms from requesting such consent if users already choose via ‘automated means’, which might be a setting in the web browser or operating system.

“This would strengthen the gatekeeper role of dominant players and have a disproportionate effect on small publishers,” said Greg Mroczkowski, public policy director at IAB Europe.

The main political groups of the European Parliament could soon agree on key points of the proposal to regulate online services, according to the latest compromise amendments seen by EURACTIV. Still, discussions may not meet the December deadline.

Collective representation

The DSA follows an asymmetrical approach, putting in place stricter obligations according to the company’s size. However, to what extent SMEs should be exempted was a hot topic of discussion, as business-minded lawmakers clashed with MEPs more concerned with consumer protection.

In this regard, the industry committee (ITRE) managed to get an amendment that would enable SMEs to join a collective representation after making a ‘reasonable effort’ to obtain a legal representative of their own.

Anonymity online

The LIBE committee also managed to get several amendments adopted regarding anonymity online. The provisions require platforms to enable users to use and pay for services anonymously “wherever reasonable efforts can make this possible.”

Interinstitutional negotiations

The European Parliament is the last co-legislator to adopt the DSA, as the EU Council reached its position in November. There are currently five political trilogues scheduled, on 31 January, 22 February, 15 March, 24-25 March and 6-8 April.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/dig...inute-changes/





Twitch Streamers’ ‘TV Meta’ Draws Television Industry’s Eye of Sauron
Nathan Grayson

One of the most pressing questions surrounding Internet creator culture converged on three of the world’s most prominent live-streaming stars in early January when Imane “Pokimane” Anys, Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker and Jeremy “DisguisedToast” Wang all received notifications of copyright infringement after broadcasting television shows to their millions-strong fanbases on Twitch. The days that followed produced copious amounts of Twitch’s most common byproduct, online drama, but also focused attention on the murky and legally complicated question of what constitutes fair use of copyright materials such as TV shows and movies.

“React content is fun and easy. It’s like watching TV with your friends, and clearly viewers really enjoy it,” longtime Twitch star Ben “CohhCarnage” Cassell told The Washington Post. Cassell has been openly critical of the “react meta,” as it’s called, in which creators broadcast themselves reacting in real time while watching another broadcast or recording. (Twitch is owned by Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)

“The issue is what could happen if the industry decides they’ve had enough of [streamers] doing it,” Cassell said. “Like with what happened with music, we could all wake up one day with many of our favorite streamers suspended — or even banned — because a major company decided to pile on the DMCA strikes. On top of that, if one of these media giants decided to take it further by going after the platform instead of the streamers, it could lead to major changes that could affect us all.”

There is precedent for this concern. In 2007 Viacom sued YouTube for copyright infringement. Though the court ultimately ruled in favor of YouTube, the suit paved the way for the “Content ID” system, which automatically identifies copyright content and aggressively polices the platform. While software that can scan Twitch already exists, Twitch has yet to create its own automated system, and it does not appear to be in the process of doing so, according to industry figures with knowledge of Twitch’s operations who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Such an outcome becomes more likely, however, if advertisers start withdrawing from the platform for fear of being associated with risky content, something that’s already beginning to happen on Twitch according to Devin Nash, chief marketing officer of content creator-focused talent agency Novo. On YouTube, a similar trend presaged a series of so-called “Adpocalypses” beginning in 2017.

“Ask any YouTuber about how [multiple Adpocalypses] have forever changed what’s viable content,” longtime speedrunner and Twitch partner Mychal “Trihex” Jefferson said on Twitter. “Smaller channels were arguably the most impacted, and many categories of content are now economically unviable.”

On Twitch, the live-streaming platform typically known for airing broadcasts of video game play, trends come and go in waves. Past trends have included a focus on big-budget video games like “Fortnite,” as well as boundary pushing antics like streamers broadcasting from hot tubs. The “react content” trend often hinges on broadcasting copyright material, like popular movies or TV shows, a practice which skirts the outer edges of platform rules.

Earlier this month, Viacom and the History Channel/A&E (which is owned by Hearst and Disney) issued copyright claims — also known as Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests — to specific streamers. On Jan. 7, Anys was hit with a claim for broadcasting episodes of the classic 2005 Nickelodeon (owned by Viacom) animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” As a result, Twitch suspended her for two days. One other relatively prominent streamer, Danyell “TheDanDangler” Lanza, received a copyright claim for watching the History Channel’s “Forged In Fire.” She, too, served a two-day suspension and then returned to streaming, at which point she apologized for her actions, saying she had put on the show in lieu of doing a more involved stream herself while sick with covid.

On Jan. 8, Piker received a copyright claim — but not a suspension — seemingly for his streams of “MasterChef,” the reality show starring Gordon Ramsay. However, Piker and his viewership were later able to deduce the DMCA notice was a fake. Another Twitch user had seemingly fabricated the DMCA strike by digging up a Fox executive’s email address and using it to fill out Twitch’s DMCA form. On Jan. 10, Twitch revoked the strike against Piker. He has since resumed watching “MasterChef” on stream.

Wang said he received a similar DMCA claim and a suspension on Jan. 10 after watching beloved 2007 anime series “Death Note” on his stream. However, Wang went on to make false claims about his suspension’s length and origin, leaving unclear exactly who issued the copyright claim.

The DMCA-centric discourse left streamers and viewers on Twitch with ample drama but no clear answer as to whether one of the platform’s go-to trends merely faces a few bumps in the road or an asteroid-sized extinction event.

“Nothing could happen, or everything could happen,” Cassell added. “And it rests on the decisions of a handful of media rights holders.”

Why stream copyright content?

The DMCA was first signed into law in 1998 and was meant to ensure intellectual property creators could capitalize on their work. Over the years, those laws, which decide what falls into the public domain and what remains copyright property, have been the target of lobbying efforts from immensely powerful media conglomerates like Disney, which initially argued to retain control of the character Mickey Mouse.

DMCA notices are filed to the platform — in this case, Twitch — citing the infringing streamer. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, companies are granted immunity to claims of copyright infringement — or “safe harbor” — as long as they agree to remove or disable access to infringing works expeditiously. To maintain this, Twitch often responds to DMCA claims by quickly suspending streamers. Three such strikes and streamers risk a permanent ban from the platform.

Still, some streamers have flirted with this danger in search of viewers. Wang especially has lent credence to this idea, claiming he courted disaster on purpose to somehow dissuade other streamers from participating in the react meta, but then also milking the moment for memes, viewership and merch advertising.

Another justification for the react meta, cited by some members of the Twitch community, is the labor involved in constantly creating new material to stream.

“Almost every single one of [the top 50 broadcasters] needs to be at 240-250 hours per month,” said Nash, who has viewed a number of major contracts in his role, some of which pay out millions of dollars to streamers over multiple years. Nash rejected the idea that streamers are embracing reaction streams because they are “lazy.”

“They’re like, ‘What do I do live all this time?’ And they’re seeing that react content is not only relatively low effort, but it’s also pushing views,” he said. “So the next logical step is, ‘Okay, how far can I get away with this?’ ”

Even streamers’ concerns about losing this source of content have been transformed into a wellspring of content. Late last week, a streamer named Demarcus “Jidion” Cousins sent his audience into Anys’s Twitch chat with harassing messages in the aftermath of her return from DMCA limbo. This caused other content creators to rally around either Anys or Cousins, leading to heated arguments, an indefinite Twitch ban for Cousins, and, eventually, legal threats from Twitch superstar Tyler “Ninja” Blevins to Anys for perceived onstream “lies” about his perspective on the situation and efforts to get Cousins un-banned. It’s easily Twitch’s biggest drama-of-the-week of the year so far. And while it’s rooted in real issues — sexism, a streamer’s career — it’s also got viewers glued to their screens.

Some streamers, such as Piker and Felix “xQc” Lengyel, both of whom started reacting to clips from sites like YouTube long before the current react meta began, argue reaction content should be permitted since Twitch is essentially built on copyright infringement. Streaming a video game is technically a DMCA-able offense. The video game industry, however, has decided to allow the practice because the free publicity and resulting sales tend to outweigh any potential downsides.

But television is a different beast, with its economics rooted in broadcast rights rather than individual unit sales. In 2021, Lengyel, Twitch’s most-watched streamer, received a DMCA claim from the International Olympic Committee after streaming himself reacting to the Tokyo Olympics. NBC paid $7.75 billion for the exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2032.

Lengyel and the talent agent who represents him, Ryan Morrison, pushed back against the DMCA claim, saying his reactions made it transformative and therefore allowable under fair use, a defense of derivative content that protects unlicensed use of copyright works in case-by-case instances. In that case, too, critics worried that blowback would impact not just Lengyel, but the entirety of Twitch and laws surrounding fair use. Ultimately, that moment passed without the rules or habits of streamers materially changing.

Ignoring the infractions

This awkward and unceasing dance around the topic has been fueled in part by the fact that Twitch is incentivized to maintain its ignorance of copyright infractions taking place on their platform.

“If Twitch knows of active infringement or is aware of facts from which knowledge of infringement is apparent, and does not act to remove or disable the material, then it could lose its safe harbor under the DMCA,” said Brandon Huffman, a founding attorney at video game- and entertainment-focused firm Odin Law and Media.

According to Ryan Fairchild, also at Odin Law and Media, it thereby behooves Twitch to behave as though it is ignorant of copyright infringement until DMCAs come its way.

“The best way for a platform to protect itself is essentially try to play as neutral as possible,” said Fairchild. “You’re a platform. You’re not the one doing the content. … Does the leadership, does the corporation actually know what’s going on? If the officers and directors know, then yeah, that’s gonna be pretty good evidence that the corporation knows. If it’s some random Twitch staff who does something that’s completely unrelated to that and wouldn’t think to pass that stuff up, maybe it’s easier to claim ignorance.”

But the silence has added stress to streamers whose livelihoods could be impacted by decisions around the current DMCA practices. And it has emphasized divides between Twitch’s stars and smaller streamers seeking to build an audience.

“I really am tired of the Twitch [react] meta,” Twitch partner Preston “AdmiralBahroo” Shimek said on Twitter, echoing a sentiment expressed by many streamers significantly smaller than himself. “Purposely break the rules while acting dumb in the process so you can take a two-day vacation and then be welcomed back with 3x viewership [and] exposure — all the while everyone else now has to deal with stricter rules.”

It’s the latest expression of a class divide that’s come to characterize the platform. Just 0.1 percent of Twitch’s total streaming population pulls in minimum wage or better. Top streamers make millions and are perceived by the community as bulletproof due to Twitch’s inconsistent application of its own rules over the years. After a year in which it took Twitch months to get hate raids — which disproportionately targeted smaller, oftentimes marginalized streamers — under control, it’s clear that resentment continues to simmer.

Smaller streamers, meanwhile, look at lawyers brandishing books of outdated laws and see an existential threat. Some who’ve nearly gotten booted from Twitch due to false copyright claims, like political streamer Michael “Mike from PA” Beyer, advocate for an overhaul to Twitch’s current DMCA system.

“If you don’t dispute a claim, even if its veracity is negligible, you are the one that loses,” said Beyer, who found himself facing three fake strikes after streaming the 2020 Democratic presidential debates. “The liability is on you. The risk is on you. And some people, if they get DMCA-ed, are just scared they’re gonna get sued. They don’t have the money to pursue or defend a federal lawsuit. So when somebody files a troll claim, that can really scare you.”

Ramsay it ain’t so

Both streamers and companies are trying to adapt to a new media landscape resting on the shoulders of a much older one. In the time since the react meta discourse began, numerous smaller channels airing unlicensed 24/7 marathons of shows like “The Simpsons” have sprung up. On the other hand, some bigger streamers, like Lily “LilyPichu” Ki, have managed to get official permission to broadcast more obscure shows. Speaking to The Post, however, Ki explained that her deal only came about because she previously did voice-acting work on “D4DJ,” the anime series she’s been streaming, and while she’d like to broadcast additional shows, “getting permission for this is hard.”

With media conglomerates like Fox and Warner Bros scrutinizing Twitch more closely now (according to live-streaming industry figures who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly), obtaining permission is not likely to get easier. To wit, the official Twitter account of Gordon Ramsay — whose older shows have gained immense popularity on Twitch in the past few months — recently denied a streamer who asked for permission to broadcast his newest show, adding: “Why would I let you do it on Twitch when I could do it myself?” But of course, there’d be significantly less demand for a Ramsay-Twitch crossover if big streamers hadn’t made it cool to watch old episodes of “MasterChef” in the first place.

Some industry figures, like video game, esports and entertainment lawyer David Philip Graham, believe we’re long overdue for an overhaul not just to the DMCA, but copyright law in general.

“Much of our current copyright regime isn’t really about authors’ rights or promoting the progress of science and useful arts, but about big businesses looking for easier routes to profitability,” Graham said, advocating for a shortening of copyright term lengths and expanded permissions for derivative works. “Whether it’s music publishers seeking legislation against player pianos over a century ago … or video game rights holders converting community efforts to develop esports infrastructure into unearned windfalls for their own marketing, the story of copyright law has often been about established interests trying to conquer what they view as threatening upstarts.”

“New works necessarily build on the old, coming out of places and times and groups and events as much as out of individuals’ heads,” he added. “And just as importantly, being limited to passive interactions with our own culture is an impoverishment that the massive infringement on Twitch, YouTube and social media shows few of us are willing to accept.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...ron/ar-AASYc7t





Neil Young Tells Spotify to Remove his Music Over Joe Rogan Vaccine Misinformation

‘They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.’
James Vincent

After the gold rush of signing Joe Rogan, Spotify now has to deal with the harvest.

The latest difficulty in reaction to Spotify’s controversial star turn comes from singer and songwriter Neil Young, who says he’s extremely unhappy to be sharing a platform with Rogan. “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” Young wrote in an open letter to his manager and record label (which has since been deleted from his website). “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”

The reason? Rogan’s hand in spreading vaccine misinformation. As first reported by Rolling Stone, Young writes: “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”

Young’s manager Frank Gironda confirmed to The Daily Beast that the letter was real and that he and the singer were working out what to do next. “It’s something that’s really important to Neil,” said Gironda. “He’s very upset about this disinformation.” Gironda added: “We’re trying to figure this out right now.”

Young isn’t the only one to object to Rogan’s comments in this arena. Recently, an open letter signed by more than 1,000 scientists and medical professionals called on Spotify to implement a “misinformation policy” in response to Rogan’s “propagation of false and societally harmful assertions.” The letter notes that Rogan’s misleading statements including discouraging young people from getting the vaccine and promoting unproven treatments like ivermectin for COVID-19.

It’s not the first time Young has objected to his presence on Spotify. He previously removed his music from the streaming platform because the company’s audio quality was too low. “I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution,” he said in 2015. That year, Young released his own Pono music player, which focused on high quality audio, and later tried to pivot this hardware scheme into his own streaming service (which is currently defunct).

We’ve reached out to Spotify for comment on this latest news and will update the story if we hear back.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/25/2...misinformation





Spotify Pulls Neil Young’s Music after his Ultimatum Regarding Joe Rogan and ‘Fake Information about Vaccines’
Travis M. Andrews

Spotify is in the process of removing Neil Young’s music two days after Young posted a letter on his website demanding that his catalogue be removed in response to “fake information about vaccines” on the platform.

“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators,” a Spotify spokesperson told The Washington Post in a statement. “We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”

Young’s letter, which has since been deleted, was addressed to his manager and an executive at his record label and cited Joe Rogan, who hosts “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, as part of his issue with Spotify.

“I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them,” Young wrote Monday, according to Rolling Stone. “Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”

“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” the letter continued. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

Young, the Canadian rock legend whose best-known hits include “Heart of Gold,” “Harvest Moon” and “Rockin’ in the Free World,” had roughly 6.6 million monthly listeners on the platform. His manager, Frank Gironda, told the Daily Beast that the issue was “something that’s really important to Neil. He’s very upset about this disinformation.”

Representatives for Young did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Doctors call out Spotify for letting Joe Rogan spread ‘false and societally harmful’ covid-19 claims

Rogan, who helms one of the most popular podcasts on Spotify, has repeatedly spread misinformation about the coronavirus vaccines to his estimated 11 million listeners per episode, of which he typically posts four to five a week. In April, for example, he came under fire for suggesting healthy, young people shouldn’t get vaccinated.

“If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated?’ I’ll go no,’” he said on his podcast. “If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.” He added that both of his children got covid-19 and it was “no big deal.”

“He is incorrect when he says that young people don’t need to worry about covid,” Rebecca Wurtz, an infectious-disease physician and population health informaticist who teaches at the University of Minnesota, told The Post at the time. “I’m really glad that his children had minimal symptoms from the virus. I hope that anyone who caught it from them, or caught it from those who caught it from them, are doing as well.”

Last September, Rogan discussed developing covid himself and treating it with a number of therapeutics and treatments, including ivermectin, a medicine used to kill parasites in animals and humans, which is not authorized or approved by either the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration to treat covid.

In December, Rogan invited Robert Malone, a physician who has become a prominent skeptic of the coronavirus vaccines, to appear on his show. “Malone had a following before his ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ interview that was released Dec. 31 — but that show introduced him to an even wider audience,” wrote The Post’s Timothy Bella. “On it, he promoted an unfounded theory called ‘mass-formation psychosis,’ telling Rogan that a ‘third of the population [is] basically being hypnotized’ into believing what the mainstream media and Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert and chief medical adviser to President Biden, report on the vaccines. Malone went on to compare the country’s pandemic policies to Nazi Germany.”

In response to Malone’s appearance on the podcast, more than 270 medical professionals signed an open letter urging Spotify “to immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform.”

“The average age of JRE listeners is 24 years old and according to data from Washington State, unvaccinated 12-34 year olds are 12 times more likely to be hospitalized with covid than those who are fully vaccinated,” the letter stated. “Dr. Malone’s interview has reached many tens of millions of listeners vulnerable to predatory medical misinformation.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-...ify-joe-rogan/





Apple Music Claims it’s ‘Home of Neil Young’ after Spotify Loses Legendary Songwriter

Apple is doing its best to show it has a heart of gold
James Vincent

Earlier this week, Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify after falling out with the platform over its hosting of Joe Rogan and COVID misinformation. So now, of course, rival streamer Apple Music is courting Young and his fans, sending out tweets, playlists, and even push notifications to brand itself as “The home of Neil Young.”

It’s all a bit of theatrical silliness, of course. Neil Young is a legendary songwriter, yes, but his presence or absence won’t decide the fate of this or that streaming platform. He’s no Kanye or Taylor Swift. Instead, Apple is simply indulging in the time-honored corporate tradition of inserting itself into a relevant news cycle while the going is good.

The company’s not been subtle about it either. It even placed a playlist of Young’s music at the front of its “browse” section under the heading “We Love Neil.”

lol @ this Apple Music push notification pic.twitter.com/eOh5Y5YhhU
— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) January 28, 2022

Pettiness aside, the spat does highlight differences between the two streamers. As The Verge’s Ashley Carman pointed out in a piece unpacking the decision to keep Rogan over Young, Spotify has put much more stock in podcasts in recent years as part a wider plan to diversify its content. Apple Music, by comparison, tends to presents itself as more of a pure music sell (not least because Apple has its own separate podcasts platform).

All the while this market triangulation continues, Spotify has actually been losing a little market share against rivals. Recent data from analysis agency Midia Research showed that while Spotify was the most popular music streaming service by a wide margin in 2021, with 31 percent of the market compared to second place Apple Music’s 15 percent, that figure had dipped from a 33 percent market share in 2020.

Spotify still grew in terms of the absolute number of subscribers along with the whole market, but it illustrates that the company’s lead is by no means secured forever.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/28/2...joe-rogan-feud




Spotify Support Buckles Under Complaints from Angry Neil Young Fans

Young: Spotify represents 60 percent of my streams.
Tim De Chant

Neil Young was mad. Now his fans are, too, and they’re telling Spotify about it.

Earlier this week, Young had asked the music-streaming service to remove his music from its library in response to COVID misinformation aired on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which is available only on Spotify. “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” Young wrote on his website. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

Spotify complied with the request, which ultimately came from Warner Brothers, Young’s label. Though the loss of Young’s music likely represents a small percentage of overall streams on Spotify, Young pointed out that “Spotify represents 60% of the streaming of my music to listeners around the world.”

For Young and his fans, the hit was palpable, and his fans are apparently taking their frustrations out on Spotify. The hashtag #SpotifyDeleted trended on Twitter yesterday, and fans seem to have inundated customer support with so many messages that Spotify has had to take it offline at times.

“We’re currently getting a lot of contacts so may be slow to respond,” a large red banner has read on the support page. Options to message the company, which have previously included live chat with a customer support agent or a chat bot, are now limited to an email address link.

Spotify stock tanks. Spotify shuts down their customer service lines. Thousands of listeners complain and cancel subscriptions over Spotify’s decision to support Joe Rogan and the misinformation he broadcasts, over Neil Young’s music. pic.twitter.com/pjvMm7pYVQ
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) January 28, 2022

In the wake of Young’s departure from Spotify, Apple Music trolled its competitor, tweeting that it is “the home of Neil Young” and releasing a playlist titled “We Love Neil."

The brouhaha can be traced back to 2020, when Spotify reportedly paid more than $100 million to obtain an exclusive license to Joe Rogan’s podcast and its archives. Rogan, the podcaster, UFC color commentator, and former actor, is no stranger to controversy. He has repeatedly urged his younger listeners not to get vaccinated and has touted ivermectin as a COVID treatment. (Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat or prevent COVID. Its list of side effects is long.) Rogan has also hosted a variety of conspiracy theorists (including Alex Jones), has given voice to anti-trans views, and has falsely claimed that “left-wing people” started forest fires in the West.

“When I left Spotify, I felt better,” Young wrote on his website today. “I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information. I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others.”

The artist, who has long criticized audio quality on streaming services, and on Spotify in particular, closed with one last dig. “As an unexpected bonus, I sound better everywhere else,” he wrote.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...il-young-fans/





Joni Mitchell Says She’s Removing Her Music From Spotify in Solidarity With Neil Young

“Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives,” she wrote
Allison Hussey

Joni Mitchell has said she’s removing her work from Spotify, in solidarity with Neil Young’s decision to do the same this week. Pitchfork has contacted Spotify for comment.

The singer-songwriter posted a statement to her website Friday night (January 28), which reads in full:

“I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”

Young had requested the removal of his work earlier in the week, citing Spotify’s role in “spreading fake information about vaccines” by hosting Joe Rogan’s podcast. The platform followed through on Young’s request on Wednesday.
https://pitchfork.com/news/joni-mitc...th-neil-young/





China Gives 'Fight Club' New Ending where Authorities Win

The first rule of Fight Club in China? Don't mention the original ending. The second rule of Fight Club in China? Change it so the police win.

China has some of the world's most restrictive censorship rules with authorities only approving a handful of foreign films for release each year -- sometimes with major cuts.

Among the latest movies to undergo such treatment is David Fincher's 1999 cult classic "Fight Club" starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

Film fans in China noticed over the weekend that a version of the movie newly available on streaming platform Tencent Video was given a makeover that transforms the anarchist, anti-capitalist message that made the film a global hit.

In the closing scenes of the original, Norton's character The Narrator, kills off his imaginary alter ego Tyler Durden -- played by Pitt -- and then watches multiple buildings explode, suggesting his character's plan to bring down modern civilisation is underway.

But the new version in China has a very different take.

The Narrator still proceeds with killing off Durden, but the exploding building scene is replaced with a black screen and a coda: "The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding".

It then adds that Tyler -- a figment of The Narrator's imagination -- was sent to a "lunatic asylum" for psychological treatment and was later discharged.

-'Too outrageous' -

The new ending in which the state triumphs sparked head scratching and outrage among many Chinese viewers -- many of whom would likely have seen pirated versions of the unadulterated version film.

"This is too outrageous," one viewer commented on Tencent Video.

"'Fight Club' on Tencent Video tells us that they don't just delete scenes, but add to the plot too," a user wrote on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.

It is not currently clear if government censors ordered the alternative ending or if the original movie's producers made the changes.

Tencent did not comment on the matter.

Hollywood studios often release alternative cuts in the hopes of clearing Beijing's censorship hurdles and getting lucrative access to millions of Chinese consumers.

In 2019, multiple scenes in the film "Bohemian Rhapsody" referencing iconic musician Freddie Mercury's sexuality –- a pivotal part of his biography -– were dropped in its China release.

Under President Xi Jinping, Chinese authorities have pushed to purge society of elements deemed unhealthy, including within movies, television, computer games.

They have also launched sweeping state crackdowns on tax evasion and perceived immoral behaviour in the entertainment industry, a tightening that has already targeted some of the country's biggest celebrities.

On Tuesday, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced it was launching a month-long "clean" web campaign to create a "civilised and healthy" atmosphere online over the Lunar New Year holiday.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/22...uthorities-win





Loki, Godzilla, WandaVision, Justice League Top List of most Pirated Content in 2021

At just over 67 billion total visits, television is the top pirated industry according to data from MUSO.
Jonathan Greig

Films like Godzilla vs. King Kong and TV shows like Loki and WandaVision topped Akamai's list of the most pirated content in 2021.

The company released a detailed report on its efforts to stop people from pirating both live content as well as films, TV, music, and books. The report also includes data from MUSO, which found that television is the most pirated content at just over 67 billion total visits to pirated content sites.

The top 10 most pirated films from January to September 2021 are Godzilla vs. King Kong, Zack Snyder's Justice League, Black Widow, F9, Mortal Kombat, The Suicide Squad, Cruella, Wonder Woman 1984, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Jungle Cruise.

The most pirated TV shows include Loki, WandaVision, Rick and Morty season 5, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Walking Dead season 10, Game of Thrones season 8, The Flash season 7, Vikings season 6, True Beauty, and Superman & Lois.

When it comes to how people are accessing pirated content, MUSO found that more than 61% are doing so "directly" although it is not explained what exactly that means. About 29% of people are searching for pirated content and others are "accessing content via referrals from other websites, social media, display ads, or email ads."

"Considering the television and film industries alone — including both public and private torrent files, as well as web downloads, stream ripping, and direct streaming — there were 82 billion visits to piracy websites between January and September 2021. If you add in music, software, and publishing to these figures, the total jumps to over 132 billion," Akamai explained.

"Globally, during the nine-month reporting window, the United States (13.5 billion), Russia (7.2 billion), India (6.5 billion), China (5.9 billion), and Brazil (4.5 billion) were the top five locations for piracy website visits."

The US, Russia, and India account for more than 27 billion piracy website visits.

MUSO data shows that the average visits per internet user reached 20.01 across the nine-month reporting window, with the United States, followed by Russia, and China ranking as the leading three sources of visitor traffic to sites with pirated TV content.
Akamai noted that the numbers make sense because much of the content being pirated is not available legally in the countries most interested in them. Anime is also pirated profusely and Akamai found that the top domain for pirated content generated 940 million visits from January through September 2021.

Surprisingly, MUSO data showed that publishing was the second more pirated content with more than 30 billion total visits.

"The average visits per internet user reached 9.03 during the reporting window, with the United States, Japan, and Russia ranking as the top three sources of visitor traffic. The top piracy websites focus heavily on manga and other book-based content, with the top website clocking more than 955 million visits during the reporting period," Akamai said.

Film, music, and software rounded out the list of most pirated content. The film industry accounted for 14.5 billion website visits from January to September. Music sites saw 10.8 billion visits even as a number of sites closed down. The top traffic sources include India, followed by Iran and the United States, according to Akamai and MUSO.

"Software piracy is another type of piracy that has existed online for almost as long as the internet has. It's a broad category that includes video games as well as modern PC software. With 9 billion total visits, an average of 2.68 per internet user, a fifth-place showing is still a rather large problem," Akamai explained.

"Combined, the top three piracy websites accounted for more than 16% of the overall visitations in the top 100, with more than 722 million visits during the nine-month recording period. The top traffic sources were China, followed by Russia, and the United States."
https://www.zdnet.com/article/loki-g...ntent-in-2021/





The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back
Cheapskate

Websites that are original and creative expressions of their creators' personalities were the foundation of the early 1990's Internet. In this article, I will use this as the definition of the term "old Internet", not to imply that these websites are passe, but because their purpose and sometimes even their look has not changed since then. Although the old Internet will not replace the Internet we have today, signs point to it growing in size and visiblity as Internet users become increasingly disillusioned with the corporate-run shopping mall that today's Internet has become.

The Internet of the Early 1990's

The public Internet began as a loose collection of network services. Services that had been created for universities and military contractors first became available to the public to fulfill the needs of college students who had recently graduated and wanted to stay in touch with their friends and former professors. Usenet had been around since 1980, local "electronic mail" since the 1960's. In the first couple of years after the Internet went public, much of it consisted of newly-linked BBS's (Bulletin Board Services). Many BBS's also connected to Fidonet, another world-wide network that had been linked via modem over telephone lines since 1984 (and still exists today). The Gopher network also linked the computers of many universities.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, this eclectic collection of networks and services initially seemed rather nebulous and mysterious to me. I remember at first not even being sure what to call it. Whenever I settled on a term, someone would inevitably ask me what I was talking about and then correct me by saying that it was more than just that.

My recollection is that I first stumbled upon electronic mail in 1985 completely by chance while exploring my university's computer network. I rarely had time for exploring, because I was always very busy with school work. How I wished I had had more time to explore back then. For whatever reason, on this particular afternoon I had a free hour or two. As I sat in a wooden chair in front of a black-and-white monochrome VT-100 terminal, around me perhaps 8-10 other students peered intently at other identical terminals. Via a 300-baud modem bolted to the wooden table beside my terminal, I was connected to our shared Cyber mainframe that ran the Taurus operating system. The terminals in that room were often hard to connect to the network, because students used to reset the modem dip switches. I never understood why, but this was a regular source of annoyance for me. By chance, I came across the sendmail command, wondered about its purpose, and began reading its online manual entry. As soon as I understood its significance, I was eager to try electronic mail, but no one I knew had an electronic mail address. Years passed during which I could only read about electronic mail and hope that one day I would find someone with whom to exchange it. In the 1990's, "electronic mail" became "e-mail", and finally "email". I am fairly certain I sent my first email from work, but I cannot recall that particular momentous event in my life. It probably did not occur until around 1996. The passing of perhaps eleven years between the time I first learned about email and my first use of it seems amazing to me now, after having used it daily, or at least weekly, for decades.

Back in the early 1990's, the spirit of the Internet was the pursuit of knowledge, exploration, innovation, fun, and community. Immediately after going public, it began to swell with websites created by tech nerds who enjoyed playing and experimenting with the new technology. Individuals created their own websites mostly for fun and for the learning experiences that they afforded. Most discussed little more than computer gaming, technical interests, and geeky hobbies. Personal websites soon comprised most of the public sites on the early Internet and essentially became the public face of the Internet. Other than a few blank placeholder websites, corporations and governments had not even established their presences on the Internet. Most were not even convinced that they should be there. A significant number of corporate executives and government leaders did not even know what the Internet was.

In those early years, individuals were free to express themselves on the Internet in any way they wished on any topic they wished without the slightest interference from corporations or governments. Mostly, individuals created the content and ran the platforms that hosted it--Internet-connected BBS's and home computers. Internet users could go wherever they wanted and view whatever they wanted without being tracked or spied on. We had no corporate gatekeepers, no search engines, no SEO or click-bait, no obnoxious advertisements. The "social media" back then--IRC, USENET, BBS's--had little in common with today's social media. The NSA was not monitoring email. No laws punished black-hat hackers. Governments were not even aware of the problem. The Internet was not just unworthy of their attention. It was essentially invisible to them.

The early Internet expanded tentatively at first and then picked up momentum like an avalanche that would eventually cover the earth. I say "tentatively", because even at double digit yearly growth rates, several years passed before a significant percentage of the populations of the developed nations were on line. Public dial-up providers that anyone could use to access the Internet appeared in the United States in the late 1980's. In 1990, the command-line Internet gave way to the graphical Internet when Sir Tim Berners-Lee created HTML and the WorldWideWeb Internet browser and put up the first website. In 1993 the Mosaic Internet browser came into existence, and this finally opened the door for the general public to access the Internet in large numbers. Nontechnical people at first trickled slowly onto the Internet. As I recall, most were drawn by curiosity. They wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Soon, dial-up Internet providers had added hundreds, and then thousands of local phone numbers all over the United States that enabled nearly every interested person to have toll-free access to the Internet. However, many developing countries still did not have direct access to the Internet, but they did have email. As a result, even into the late 1990's, many people around the world relied on a system of email servers that sent them web pages upon request. They "surfed" the Internet by email.

As soon as the Internet opened to the public, most new users raced to the first walled gardens created by early online service providers like CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online. Seemingly, wherever an Internet corral was erected, the cattle of the Internet were drawn to it. Even back then, many in the general public did not realize that they did not need one of these companies to get onto the Internet. All they needed to access the larger Internet was a modem, a phone line, an account with one of the dial-up service providers, and a local phone number to dial into. By the late 1990's, every personal computer had a built-in modem for accessing the dial-up Internet.

I remember thinking in the early 1990's that the Internet was a fabulous invention, but websites were hard to find and small with not much content of general interest. My expectation was that corporations moving onto the Internet would improve it by adding much more interesting content. At that point, I was too naive to see the downside of corporate involvement.

The Internet of Today

Today our personal computers no longer have modems, and Compuserve and Prodigy are long gone. AOL has become a media company, although as late as 2015, 2.1 million people were somehow still using its dial-up service. The Internet itself seems to many to have degenerated into a giant advertising tool. And, a high percentage of websites load as slowly as a sick turtle awaking from a long slumber.

Just as radio stations, newspapers, and television networks were the communications gatekeepers of earlier generations, we now have Internet gatekeepers keeping us in line, on line--preventing our voices from being heard too widely, funneling us to their advertisements, online stores, and walled gardens, and monitoring whether we are taking their bait. They have even incorporated scary-sounding warnings into our web browsers telling us that all websites without certificates issued by them are unsafe! And, they are constantly inventing new ways of keeping the Internet cattle in their corals. The problem is now so bad that The New Republic has called Silicon Valley executives "apex predators", named Mark Zuckerberge its scoundrel of the year for 2021, and called FaceBook "the worst website that has ever existed"! And, here I was, fearing that perhaps my hostility toward corporate manipulation of the Internet could be driving the Cheapskate's Guide into tabloid territory. The fact is that many, many people hate with a burning passion much of what corporations have done to the Internet.

Despite the widespread hatred of these corporations, the cattle appear to be staying in their corals. As hard as this may be to believe, as late as 2016, millions may not have known the difference between FaceBook and the Internet. Perhaps this is partly the result of owners of walled Internet gardens telling their cattle for the past three decades that everywhere else is just too dangerous to explore, too wolf-infested to venture into.

Many governments around the world are also interfering with the Internet. Even in so-called "democracies", they seem nearly universally opposed to freedom in any form when it is practiced on the Internet. Many are in the process of fracturing the Internet into single-country "splinternets". For years the governments of Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran have been pushing for changes to the Internet that would make it easier to control. China is developing a new Internet protocol, unimaginatively called the "New Internet Protocol", that will allow it to more effectively spy on its citizens and ban those it decides are engaging in too much online freedom. In 2020, the Russian government passed the latest of a series of measures collectively referred to as the "sovereign Internet law" that, among other things, allows it to disconnect Russia from the rest of the Internet.

In the United States, in fact world-wide, we have had many wide-spread Internet outages that have been blamed on increasing centralization of the Internet but also look suspiciously like governments testing key infrastructure in preparation for placing it more under their control. Of course, I cannot prove this, but the US congress has publicly proposed putting in place laws to make shutting down the Internet easier, should they deem the need to have arisen. Since a case for the Internet being necessary for national security would be widely believed, more than likely, they have already secretly put measures in place and have merely been trying to get them approved publicly.

The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back

Despite the new gatekeepers' best efforts, the old Internet never completely disappeared. Personal websites created by individuals that have always been the meat of the old Internet are still around. They are still about exploration, innovation, fun, and all the rest. Try as the new gatekeepers have, they simply have not had the power to eradicate the old Internet completely. All they can do is pretend it does not exist. And, that is exactly what they do. This means that one does not pursue, peruse, or pour over the old Internet on mainstream search engines like Google or explore it on FaceBook or other mainstream social media platforms. One does not stumble upon the old Internet by chance. If one is to locate it, one must ordinarily go looking for it. Fortunately, the practical difference between the old gatekeepers and the new gatekeepers is that we do not need the new gatekeepers. We can still speak freely and be heard on the old Internet without the permission of any gatekeeper standing guard over the mainstream Internet.

Despite the best efforts of the corporations that control the mainstream Internet, in fact because of them, the old Internet seems to be slowly and quietly coming back, and it is coming back even better than before. Now it has better technology and an additional well-defined purpose that it never had before.

Some people have begun to refer to personal websites as the "indie web", the "small Internet", or the "smol Internet". Some seem to reserve the last two terms exclusively for the Gemini Network, which nearly quadrupled in size last year. But, I think all three terms should also apply to some of the other networks that use alternative networking protocols--the Gopher Network, the Tor network, and the ZeroNet network, to name a few. I choose to think of all of these as being part of the re-emerging old Internet, because they are composed almost exclusively of personal websites run by individuals.

Some people use the term "Web 3.0" to refer only to decentralized blockchain-based networks without considering that all personal websites have essentially the same goals, be they on the regular Internet or on the new blockchain networks. Those who use the term "web 3.0" seem to have forgotten that self-hosted personal websites that run on home servers and are accessible over the regular Internet are inherently decentralized. Unfortunately, despite common goals, some on today's old Internet are hostile to blockchain technology. I am not sure why. Perhaps this is because we seem to be hard-wired to focus on the new and ignore the old, and owners of personal websites on the regular Internet feel ignored. Perhaps they feel the presence of the new blockchain technology only helps to obscure the fact that personal websites on the regular Internet are likely to become a larger more important part of the Internet of the Future--regardless of whether we call it the "old Internet", "Web 3.0", or something else. Perhaps someone should come up with a more descriptive name. Maybe a name like "The Cyberfreedom Network" would attract more attention.

An increasing number of Internet users are revolted by the current corporate-and-government-controlled Internet, and those who create old-Internet websites are doing something about it. They are bypassing the gatekeepers by building their own mini platforms for free speech, where they have a voice that cannot be silenced. I have with some difficulty assembled some of their own explanations of what they hope to accomplish. The difficulty came in culling their words without dulling the spirit of their messages. Hopefully, the remainder, though somewhat lengthy, is an adequate representation of the full spectrum of their thoughts and feelings:

Quote:
"The internet has become:

• a marketplace (and we are the product)
• a one-sided social experience
• a capitalist hellscape

We, the people of the internet, have the power to transform the internet. The goal is not to go backwards, but to forge a new path forward." --Sadgrl Online

"Few are the websites that respect the user enough to make it actually intuitive, actually easy–to–use and easy to access, and have that philosophy built into the core of its being. ... I create beautiful, verifiable code, because this webpage is more than just a vehicle to deliver content on as soullessly and dispassionately as it can. It's a living, breathing, constantly–evolving entity, and the code is the sole reason it exists. I pay my respects by giving it the dignity it deserves. I respect my audience enough to give them the way a website should be built." --10kb.neocities.org

"While commercial websites display more and more agressive messages, target and track their users, the indie web respects the individuals, their intelligence and their privacy; it's an open forum for thoughts and debate. While purely commercial websites turn into information and entertainment magazines, while tycoons of media, telecom, computing and military agencies fight for the control of the Internet, the indie web offers a free vision of the world, bypasses the economic censorship of news, its confusion with advertising and infommercial, its reduction to a dazing and manipulating entertainment." --Lulu in Cyberspace

"These days, the Internet is contained, reduced to a smaller number of places that people may visit every day. Boring.

It's time to take it back." --Flamed Fury

"I offer up Hell on the Web not as a tribute to the Internet as it is or as it was, but as it could be. I want to share my ideas online, but I don't want it all to be a vain sacrifice at the altar of The Algorithm. The last haven for genuine online creativity is the personal, hand-crafted artisanal Homepage. I can't promise that my products will always be quality, but I can promise that they were created with love and sincerity. That's the Hell on the Web™ guarantee." --Hell on the Web

"Other than now, as a 31 year old woman, I don’t think I’ve ever had as many friendships with women as I did when I was a teenager spending all my free time on the Internet. Not only were other teen girls super into self-expression via blogging in a pre-WordPress era, they really wanted to help each other out!...

For 2017 I really hope that those of us who are trying to make the web / tech / design a more inclusive place will keep on encouraging those just starting out and those wanting to try something new. Don’t allow egos to crush inspiration!" --Keep the Internet Weird, by Rachel White

"Our creativity is stunted by closed walls, limited tools, and stupid algorithms. My social media account isn't a personal museum - it's just a lifeless husk of a personality who's forced into this structure, like a bird stuck in its cage. We're at the hands of the people who run these platforms. No longer is it about sharing that cool thing one has created to friends and strangers, but trying to beat the system, and trying to beat others.

Social platforms should aspire to be flexible, open, and fun. A place to share our humanity, not merely a place to sell a product or to take people down in an attempt to rise to the top. When social platforms reduce to cold, rigidly structured competitive bloodbaths, that's no longer a social platform - that's a bloody colosseum." –bikobatanari

"The web as we know it today, web 2.0, stifles creativity, exploration, and community. The web of today is a capitalist hell, that is actively hurting everyone on it. It hurts and hinders our ability to discover things via surfing the web, and it constantly harms the art of creation as a whole, regardless of medium or art form...

It is things like this and so much more that lead me to getting off my ass and begin working on my neocities [website] out of spite and frustration of the new web...

Together we can forge our own spaces on the web, and create an environment that fosters creativity, passion, exploration and discovery like the old web." --linkyblog.neocities.org

"I don't know why, but for a while I've held a fascination with the old Internet and its values. And so when I made this Website, I decided that I wanted it to harken back to that earlier time." --Purplehello98

"My work is heavily inspired by the myth of early technology, ‘80s CGI and the ‘90s web, a messy, inexplicable place, full of unknown possibilities and innocent ideals. The folk revival of the web is still out of sight but very much in reach. I see it as an antidote to the miasma the internet has become today, or at least a promise that tomorrow can be better." –Melonking

"I think that social media is the problem, and that we can take the internet back by making it a place for art, inspiration, learning, expression, science, math, basically anything anyone wants to share, at the pace anyone would like to learn it, read about it, hear it, or see it. I think we have to remember, because we now have two generations that grew up on this corporate internet, that you don't need the man to communicate on the internet. You don't need to depend on a corporation like Facebook or Twitter or whatever to get your message out there." --tabi98.neocities.org

"...but first and foremost my grief for the internet is sensory. it's about texture. It's about the emotions it made me feel, vs the emotions I feel now. It's mental images of kinds of people that I idolised and associated with the fabric of the web itself, and the sense that a whole kind of person has now disappeared." --Haptalaon's Journal

"Here, then, are the principles I’d like to see applied to the internet.

• Passion over professionalism.
• DIY over Insert widget A into container B.
• Awkward individuality over faceless consistency.
• Connection over commerce.
• Every link a leap into the unknown." --Carl's Retro Web Corner

"I miss when the internet was a wonderland. I don't mean that it was perfect or utopian, because it wasn't. Of course, neither was wonderland, when the Queen of Hearts got ahold of you; she was a master of concern trolling before it really existed. There's always been someone in a hurry, who's running late, but not too late to tell you tl;dr. There's always been the already-in-progress party that only makes sense if you're already part of it.

What I mean is: I miss rabbit holes.

I miss starting with one site and getting led to more. It used to happen on personal websites, and then it happened on wordpress blogs. Sometimes it still happens on blogs or on tumblr, but mostly services want to keep you in their garden..."

"The truth may or may not be out there, but the web we once knew... some of it is still there. Some of it can be reclaimed. And some of it we can rebuild, block by block and snippet by snippet." --Rubedo

"It’s a sad state of affairs that we’re in - gone are the days of Web 1.0 where the humble personal blog and the likes of GeoCities reigned supreme.

Instead we’ve been left with Web 1.0’s rotten remains where centralisation, monopolies and tracking are the order of the day...

The rise of social media flipped content creation on its head. Instead of deliberately creating and editing content for static sites, people were now empowered to quickly and easily vomit their passing thoughts out to the world...

Firstly, as with social media, it’s all about money. The humble personal blog is often left out of search rankings, and is replaced by corporate entities who have teams of people on-hand that can manipulate the search rankings to their will." --The Web Is Fucked
"What we need is the opposite of Big Tech. We need Small Tech – everyday tools for everyday people designed to increase human welfare, not corporate profits." --Aral Balkan

"the internet once was a place for creative expression, vastly customizable; a space for people, by people! not controlled by big corporations.

this lasted all up until mid-2010s, when they decided to take away any creativity and customizability we once had, they threw it all away, in favor of adverisers and investors. alongside big corporations, clout-chasers and quasi-celebrities, also made everything about the money. its the main reason the internet is so boring nowadays, because if its crazy, weird, and colorful, advertisers won't like it. its time for the individuals like you and me to shine once again, and make internet ours. it's time to make internet enjoyable again! it's time to make internet weird again!...

apparently, nowadays, they're trying to 'fix' the internet by slow introduction of the 'decentralized' internet aka web3.0. which is bunch of bullshit. they want us to belive this will make internet free again, cos we'll be away from corporations. but how can it be free, when blockchain is involved?" --Rina's Fun Place

"As we were exploring the new magic of the internet, we often didn't wonder if our fun side projects would make money. Most of us knew they'd do absolutely nothing. Why make them, then? The act of creation itself is fun!" --Bryan Robinson
After these moving statements, I wish I could call for a standing ovation.

For those who are interested, I found most of the above sites from a list of links to Internet manifestos on yesterweb.org.

Final Words

The battle for the right of individuals to be heard on the Internet is largely a quiet one. Behind the scenes, governments are intimidating social media companies into putting in place ever more onerous moderation. Corporations and large social media platforms are silently fighting to keep users on their sites using whatever means they have at their disposal, including addictive algorithms. They call the contents of personal websites "blog spam" (as if their own advertisements were not spam) and ban personal website owners from posting links to articles on their personal websites. They shut down the accounts of individuals who receive too many followers, unless those individuals are surreptitiously working for them as "influencers". Corporations rig their search engines to largely ignore personal websites, and they de-index sites they especially dislike. They try to prevent users from exploring the larger Internet beyond their walled gardens by telling them that non-corporate websites and alternative networks are filled with hackers, thieves, malware, child pornography, and illegal drugs. All this occurs largely without the general public having much more than an inkling that they are being duped.

All indications are that this battle may well last as long as the Internet. Just like other public movements, the tactics will change over the years. Both sides will likely advance and be pushed back at times. The losing side will scream about it, and the winning side will remain silent. I expect that, as always, many Internet users will never even know or care. The battle will continue until perhaps the powers-that-be finally find a way of killing the old Internet completely and permanently through restrictive website certification or licensing, the creation of more easily controllable Internet communications protocols, improved filtering or blocking technologies, or more effective laws against free speech. Until that time arrives, you will continue to be able to visit the old Internet, assuming you know how to find it.
https://cheapskatesguide.org/article...ming-back.html

















Until next week,

- js.



















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