Posts with the tag Internet

Facebook Employees Doing Exactly What You Fear They're Doing

C_Jefferson — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:24:38 EST

An anonymous Facebook employee speaks frankly to The Rumpus today. I recommend reading the whole, scary interview, but here's the gist:

I will say, when I first started working there, yes. I used it to view other people’s profiles which I didn’t have permission to visit. I never manipulated their data in any way; however, I did abuse the profile viewing permission at several initial points when I started at Facebook.

Also, they track literally everything you do and share on the site, and then they archive that information.

Funny that the biggest stalker on Facebook is Facebook itself.

Who reads the Internet?

Annika — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:39:22 EDT

Check out this chart from Nielsen, a market research company that monitors television viewer and web user habits. They also survey users for demographic info like political ideology—below (click to enlarge), they display the constituency of popular political and news sites by the percentage of readers who identify as liberal or very liberal (in blue) and readers who identify as conservative, moderate or undeclared (in red).

It's hard to draw conclusions from the results, though, with readers divided up so shoddily. Lumping together moderate and undeclared readers with conservatives is decidedly unhelpful, and skews the chart considerably--on first glance, it appears that conservative readers dominate mainstream news sources, while liberals are sequestered on Mother Jones and The Nation.

New Website Launched

Asher — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:05:42 EST

We've launched another new edition of www.ASHERHEIMERMANN.com! We have added more resources and action items on the website. We have also set-up a few groups that you can join to show your support and interest.

We have even added the Asher Speaks Live Schedule so you will know the dates and times of the show! We are still adding a few more pages to the website. We will not have the Issues page up until the third week of January, 2008.

Please feel free to e-mail your comments to asher@asherheimermann.com. These comments will be helpful in making this website better to use and access. Many more cool features will be added in the upcoming months.

Internet Thought Control Bill Under Fire

MichaelCollins — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:51:53 EST

House Committee Dismisses Criticisms of
Internet Thought Control Bill - H.R. 1995

By Michael Collins
Washington, D.C.
Part 2 (Part 1)

On Monday, Dec. 17, the House Committee on Homeland Security posted this document in response to the many criticisms of House Resolution 1955, The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. Part 1 of this series examined the dangers that this bill posed to citizens and political groups using the Internet.

Based on the bill contents and the witnesses called to elaborate on the supposed problem of "homegrown terrorism," it appears that House bill and the Senate look alike (S.1959) pose a significant threat to political expression and free speech, particularly on the Internet (see part 1 of this series Thought Control on the Internet and this collection for more detail).

Congress Brings You... Thought Control on the Internet

MichaelCollins — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:46:41 EST

By an Overwhelming Majority

Congress Brings You…

Image

Thought Control on the Internet

By Michael Collins
Washington, D.C. - Part 1

Cracking the Code – Who's to Blame for "Violent Radicalization"?

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a 404 to 6 vote on Oct. 23. Not since the Iraq War Resolution have Democrats and Republicans found such a unifying cause. We're told that House Resolution 1955 (H.R. 1955) will be an essential tool enabling law enforcement to peg the sources of "homegrown terrorism" on the Internet.

The overwhelming bipartisan support makes it no surprise that the legislation presents a significant danger to citizens and the nation. This sentence is the new heart of darkness for free speech.

Cato on Campus

Annika — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:16:17 EDT

All the cool kids on the internet are rushing to Cato's new site targeting college libertarians--Cato on Campus.

According to the really flashy explanation box on the front page says the site is

a new online resource created for students by the Cato Institute, one of the nation’s leading public policy research foundations. With extensive content of its own, this site also provides direct access to the massive online resources of Cato’s public Web site – www.cato.org.

All the content currently featured links to other, grown-up Cato pages--but thanks to the collegiate letter jacket font on the Cato on Campus site, even young people like me can understand what they're talking about!

Gimme Some Brown Sugar

SoCapDorna — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:09:13 EDT

10:45 Forget free food-a-thon. I went on a free food marathon today in my attempts to satisfy my stomach without paying. The day started at quarter to 11 with a walk to Chinatown. Courtesy of a happy coupon I received from a fellow intern earlier in the week (you see that judges? That’s called thinking ahead), California Tortilla was providing me with a free Pop-tart. Now why a Mexican fast-food joint was giving away pop-tarts was beyond me, but I know better than to look a free-food gift horse in the mouth.

The question on everyone's mind

SoCapBen — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:39:58 EDT

...was thankfully addressed today by the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies when it convened a panel on "The Economics of Internet Advertising: Implications for the Google-DoubleClick Merger." I attended that panel, and this is my story.

Pentagon Seals Soldiers Off From Family Photos

Graham — Mon, 14 May 2007 11:16:57 EDT

NYT's The Lede blog reports:

The Defense Department has decided to make it impossible to reach 13 Web sites from its network, citing an overabundance of “recreational traffic.”
In the policy released today, General B.B. Bell, commander in South Korea, said use of those sites “impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge.”

Among the restricted sites is Photobucket. I don't know about you, but all I ever see there are pictures of family gatherings and new babies. MySpace and YouTube are also banned, along with several other video sites. If they're really short on bandwidth, I can understand cutting YouTube, but c'mon folks. Let's not send our armed forces into conflict and cut them off from a common way of staying in touch with families and friends.

Digital Ethnography

Dana Goldstein — Tue, 08 May 2007 13:42:33 EDT

If you want to get all misty-eyed about just how special the Internets make this day in history--our heretofore unheard of ability to connect with one another, find information, and create content--watch this video from Mike Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. The video brings up some provocative questions about how individuality, authorship, and other cultural constructs are challenged by Web 2.0. Here's another question: Why aren't we doing more to bring Web 2.0 to everybody? When will high-speed Internet become a public utility like water or highways?

Let Facebook Change Your Life

Dana Goldstein — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:53:35 EDT

RIGHT NOW: watch this Facebook parody of those sickening Match.com commercials.

Women Online

Dana Goldstein — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:48:34 EDT

She vs. He. No, I'm not talking about the battle of the sexes, but how often these actual words appear on news pages. This fun Google tool can count those stats for any site. CNN.com, for instance, is 78 percent "he." CampusProgress.org is 73 percent "he." I think this reflects the gender breakdown of "newsmakers" in our society. And although I was disappointed to see CP's numbers, I'm confident that our "shes" are an impressive and substantive lot. And of course, this tool doesn't count the number of content creators who are women, which at CP is very close to 50 percent.

And speaking of women online, check out the new issue of Barnard's Scholar and Feminist magazine, which is all about women in the blogosphere. One of the co-editors is Feministing founder Jessica Valenti, who'll be speaking at the Campus Progress conference this year on my super awesome and exciting "Embedding Feminism" panel, which is about making the entire progressive movement more responsive to "women's issues." If you haven't already, sign up for the June 26 conference.

Diversity in Media Ownership: Facing the Internet

Graham — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:26:25 EDT

Jeff Chester makes a good point about the post-Imus discussion over diversity of ownership in media, namely that we ought to be concerned about the online media as well:

If we are to ensure that the new media landscape in the U.S. doesn’t repeat the same market models and homogeneous control we have with broadcasting, cable, and satellite, action is required—now. Powerful media behaviors are being developed that connect young people to the “always-on, always connected” online world. We must make sure that the public interest—especially diversity of ownership—is a fundamental part of this system.

This question of ownership, however, may miss the mark. The internet by nature is open to anyone, and most of the content online is user-generated. If Chester's other efforts to oppose an inequitable internet infrastructure succeed, this shouldn't change. But user-generated content is only as "diverse" (some of the worst English usage in the progressive movement) as the users are.

And users in the United States are disproportionately likely to be white. Seventy-two percent of white adults use the internet, versus 58 percent of black adults, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. (Pew has a category for English-speaking Hispanics, of whom 69 percent use the internet, but there is no figure for Hispanics over all or other groups.) It's not exactly a new idea, but this is the digital divide. Chester's focus on ownership is a useful point, but the user base is the root of the problem.

TimesSelect Now Free for Students

niralshah — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:40:43 EDT

As far as I can tell, this is a new thing. The old system involved free access for students whose University was in a Times Readership program and required some kind of access code, and a 50% discount for other students.

They seem to now be offering completely free access for all university students and faculty. If anybody knows different, please comment. Until then, I'm waiting for my confirmation e-mail, and all the ~~mind-shatteringly insightful~~ overly-simplistic tripe Thomas Friedman can churn out.

Now if they'd only get rid of that damned double-click definition pop-up feature.

Active Reading

Dana Goldstein — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 01:20:31 EST

Stop thwarting me, NYTimes.com! My friend and newly-minted Campus Progress contributor Kriston Capps has started a crucial new internet activism campaign, asking the New York Times to bring back free clicking. You know you've noticed it....the annoying dictionary that now pops up to define any old word you double click on in a Times article. Highlighting and clicking while I read online is key to my retention of information. I thought the Times would realize its folly with this useless "feature" and can it in a matter of days. But so far, no luck. So join Kriston and me in telling the Times we don't need to know the definition of "the."

And in further Internet-based moral panic....

Dana Goldstein — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:44:01 EST

Gosh, the world is strange this morning. Five psychologists have got themselves twisted up in knots because today's college students are like, totally narcissistic. They answer in the affirmative statements such as:

If I ruled the world, it would be a better place.
I think I am a special person.
I can live my life any way I want to.

Apparently, it's all Facebook's fault. But really, let's look at these questions.

If I ruled the world, would we spend half a trillion dollars war-making in Iraq while cutting the budget of the Children's Health Insurance Program? NO. Would that make the world a better place? YES.

Do I think I--and every other individual--is special enough to deserve health care and a living wage? YES.

Do I believe I can live my life with the sexual, gender, and political identity I choose, no matter what the dominant norms of my society? YES.

Tell me again why young people are so immoral?

Also Surreal

Dana Goldstein — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:33:55 EST

Did you hear about that totally humiliating public break-up, complete with acapella kiss-off, at UNC-Chapel Hill? You know, the one where hundreds of students gathered round to chant, "Slut, slut, slut!" at a broken-hearted woman and then posted the video on YouTube?

Well, I'd bet money that the whole thing was staged. Thoughts?

Addicted to the Internet?

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:23:21 EST

You've probably heard about the American parents who have their unruly teenagers kidnapped in the middle of the night and carted off to bootcamp. Sally Jesse Raphael or Maury Povich is always glad to film the subsequent humiliation. But now China has one-upped us on the tough-love. The government has created in-patient clincs to treat "internet addiction" in teenagers and young adults, and charges their parents $1,300 or more for the forced treatment. Some of the government's policies seem to make sense, like cutting off teens' access to networked games after five hours. Nobody needs to play Warcraft for longer than that, right? But electroshock treatments and IV drug drips for compulsive IM-ing? Isn't that a little extreme? Thankfully, at least one Chinese expert is willing to oppose the government's policies publicy in the Washington Post:

Guo [Tiejun] said he believes that the root of the problem is loneliness and that the most effective treatment is to treat the teens "like friends."
"Our conclusion is that kids who get addicted in society have some kind of disability or weakness. They can't make friends, can't fulfill their desire of social communication, so they go online," Guo said.
Guo is especially critical of the use of medications -- which include antidepressants, antipsychotics, and a variety of other pills and intravenous drips -- for Internet addiction because, he said, that approach treats symptoms, not causes.

Now get off Campus Progress and do your homework.