Verge, The

A Q&A with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

By nearly any measure, Facebook has had a remarkable year. More than 1.65 billion people use the service every month, making it the world’s largest social network by a considerable margin. Its advertising business has grown significantly faster than analyst expectations, powered by sophisticated targeting capabilities that rivals struggle to match. And in April, CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out an ambitious 10-year vision that places the company at the frontier of computer science, making aggressive moves in bringing artificial intelligence and virtual reality to the mainstream. And yet what Zuckerberg talks about most these days, in meetings with world leaders or at his live Town Hall Q&A sessions, is basic Internet connectivity. In August 2013, Facebook announced the creation of internet.org, the company’s sometimes controversial initiative to bring online services to underserved areas. Since then, Facebook’s connectivity efforts have expanded greatly. It released open-source blueprints for telecommunications infrastructure in an effort to drive down data costs. It’s testing Terragraph, which augments terrestrial cellular networks with new millimeter-wave technology that delivers data 10 times faster than existing Wi-Fi networks. And it continues to expand its Free Basics program despite setbacks. (In India, regulators banned the program, arguing that because Facebook has the final say over which services can be part of Free Basics, it violates net neutrality principles.)

In an interview published by the New York Times, Donald Trump gave a winding response to a question about cyberattacks. Trump says he's all for "cyber," although it's unclear from the conversation what exactly that means. From the Times:
[DAVID E.] SANGER: You've seen several [NATO members in the Baltics] come under cyberattack, things that are short of war, clearly appear to be coming from Russia.
TRUMP: Well, we're under cyberattack.
SANGER: We're under regular cyberattack. Would you use cyberweapons before you used military force?
TRUMP: Cyber is absolutely a thing of the future and the present. Look, we're under cyberattack, forget about them. And we don't even know where it's coming from.
SANGER: Some days we do, and some days we don't.
TRUMP: Because we're obsolete. Right now, Russia and China in particular and other places.
SANGER: Would you support the United States' not only developing as we are but fielding cyberweapons as an alternative?
TRUMP: Yes. I am a fan of the future, and cyber is the future.

[Commentary] One of the defining trends of tech in recent years has been the colonization of the real by the digital. By that, I mean the tendency for technology to overlay our experience of people, places, and things, with networks that exist primarily online. The classic example of this is the digital map. Maps have always existed separate to the physical space they represent, of course, but the ease of use and ubiquity of apps like Google Maps and Citymapper have created, in many peoples’ eyes, a disconnect between our experience of the world, and the geographies that exist solely on our smartphones. But this is just one example, and the colonization of the real is only just beginning.

Google is rolling out a new search feature on July 18 that aims to help users register to vote ahead of the November presidential election in the US. The company said that queries for the term "register to vote" will now return detailed descriptions on how to register in each US state, including requirements and deadlines. "No matter which state you’re in or how you plan to cast your ballot, you can find the step-by-step information you need to register correctly and on time — right at the top of your Search page and in the Google app," wrote Jacob Schonberg.

Google has also introduced a search tool that delivers information on the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. When users search for either convention in the Google app, the app will display a summary of the event, information about the nominee, and a list of speakers, alongside related social media posts and a YouTube live stream video.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the world wide web, is calling on regulators in Europe to protect network neutrality and "save the open internet." Berners-Lee, Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, and Harvard law professor Larry Lessig urged European regulators to implement guidelines that would close loopholes in net neutrality legislation that the European Parliament approved in October 2015. They also called on internet users to voice their opposition online, before the public consultation period on the guidelines ends on July 18th.

"Network neutrality for hundreds of millions of Europeans is within our grasp," their letter reads. "Securing this is essential to preserve the open Internet as a driver for economic growth and social progress. But the public needs to tell regulators now to strengthen safeguards, and not cave in to telecommunications carriers’ manipulative tactics." The rules approved by European lawmakers last year contained several loopholes that activists say could be exploited to undermine net neutrality. Among the most troubling, according to Berners-Lee, Lessig, and van Schewick, is a provision that would allow ISPs to create "fast lanes" for "specialized services," and a guideline that would allow for "zero-rating" — a practice whereby select apps and services are exempt from monthly data limits.

The killing of Alton Sterling at the hands of police in Baton Rouge (LA) has sparked national outrage after a video showing the incident was posted online. That video was the result of an organized effort by local activists, who use smartphones to monitor and record violence.

A nonprofit group in Baton Rouge, known as Stop The Killing, tracks crime through police scanner apps. When members of the group hear about an incident, they drive to the scene to document it, recording and producing videos to draw attention to violence in the community. There are seven or eight people in the organization that all regularly listen to the scanners — several different versions of police scanner apps of those that are publicly available — for reports of violent crime. "Sometimes we get to crime scenes before police," says head of the group, Arthur "Silky Slim" Reed. Stop The Killing tries to record a scene three or four times a week, Reed says, and has uploaded some of its footage — much of it showing graphic incidents of crime scenes — to YouTube.

Six legal cases helped to shape the Internet into what it is today.

1. Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997): This case protected online freedom of speech.
2. Zeran v. America Online (1998): This case allowed website owners to host third-party content without having to worry about being prosecuted if someone published something illegal on that website.
3. Zippo Manufacturing Co. v. Zippo Dot Com (1997): The web is "worldwide," right? So which courts get to decide if a certain website has violated the law? This case paved the way toward establishing standards in that regard.
4. ProCD v. Zeidenberg (1996): If you clicked to agree, it’s official: You agreed. This case confirms it.
5. Religious Technology Center v. Netcom (1995): This case established that linking to another site didn’t equal stealing content from that site.
6. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com: Ever hear of Google Image Search? Of course you have. This case is why it and other similar services are allowed to exist.

Google has been working on a suite of tools that would let kids more easily use its services with permission from their parents, including a child-safe version of YouTube.

Under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, sites that want let kids under 13 sign up need to get permission from their parents. But if companies actually build out products and services that let parents constructively manage how their kids use their sites, it's far more likely parents will actually sign up and give permission upfront.

What is causing the Internet congestion that is degrading service to Netflix consumers? Level 3 -- which helps carry that Netflix traffic to Verizon's network in Los Angeles -- says the problem could be solved in five minutes and for a very small cost, but that Verizon is refusing to make these upgrades, because it wants to extract a fee from Level 3 instead.

Verizon's story matches up pretty well with the one being pushed by Netflix and Level 3. It's saying that Netflix traffic has overwhelmed the points of connection between the ISP and the middlemen who deliver this data for the streaming video giant.

The key difference is that Verizon says Netflix could solve this problem easily by spreading its traffic over multiple transit providers. Level 3 is arguing that the best solution would be to simply upgrade Verizon's network, a process it claims to have offered to pay for.

The New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) has released a copy of proposed "codes, rules, and regulations" for companies that buy and sell bitcoin and other virtual currencies roughly a year after the agency announced an inquiry into regulating bitcoin.

The proposal, which outlines requirements for a special "BitLicense" (truly), will be entered into the record on July 23. The proposed rules apply to businesses that buy, sell, transfer, store, or maintain custody or control of customers' bitcoins, as well as companies that convert fiat currency to virtual currency on behalf of merchants.