It may be true that “democracy dies in darkness,” but it can also be wiped out in blinding light. If Donald Trump is reelected, it will have been 20 years after the launch of Facebook and 18 years after the launch of Twitter—less than one generation for the “greatest invention for democracy” to be the proximate cause of the death ...
Just a few years ago, it would have been damn hard to find a random citizen who had even heard of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Now, this bit of wonky, statutory arcana is a topic buzzing on mainstream news, chirping in the Twitterverse, opining in the blogosphere, and echoing through all those extra dimensions where ...
You know how it’s offensive when a certain president uses a trope like “Do Nothing Democrats” to sling mud in lieu of articulating some kind of coherent, let alone moral, policy on any issue? Well, this same tactic is even more offensive when it’s used by people who should know better, especially people who believe they’re standing up for something. ...
As our attention turned to concerns about disinformation, hate speech, and data security after the 2016 election, it became clear that the big cyber policy on deck was going to be a fight about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (1996). For some detailed discussion about this legislation, see posts here, here, and here; but in nutshell, Section 230 ...
Photo by LisaD If it feels just a little bit like the world is careening toward the edge of a cliff with a madman at the wheel, maybe it’s because that’s what’s happening. Except the madman isn’t just some garden-variety berserker. It’s not President Trump with his incoherent tweets and unabashed lies. In fact, according to this in-depth story by Carole ...
