Vice

To Save Net Neutrality, We Must Build Our Own Internet

Network neutrality as a principle of the federal government will soon be dead, but the protections are wildly popular among the American people and are integral to the internet as we know it. Rather than putting such a core tenet of the internet in the hands of politicians, whose whims and interests change with their donors, net neutrality must be protected by a populist revolution in the ownership of internet infrastructure and networks. In short, we must end our reliance on big telecom monopolies and build decentralized, affordable, locally owned internet infrastructure.

Eric Schmidt Says Google News Will 'Engineer' Russian Propaganda Out of the Feed

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chariman of Alphabet, says the company is working to ferret out Russian propaganda from Google News after facing criticism that Kremlin-owned media sites had been given plum placement on the search giant’s news and advertising platforms.  “We’re well aware of this one, and we’re working on detecting this kind of scenario you’re describing and deranking those kinds of sites,” Schmidt said, after being asked why the world’s largest search company continued to classify the Russian sites as news. Schmidt name-checked two state-owned enterprises.

The FCC Has Made It Harder for Native Americans to Afford Phone Service

The federal government is going to make it even more difficult for people on Tribal Lands to be connected to the wider world. In fact, most Native Americans who were counting on the Federal Communications Commission to continue with policies that many tribal communities were counting on to bring more service to far-flung tribal lands may see even cell service reduced.

Ignored By Big Telecom, Detroit's Marginalized Communities Are Building Their Own Internet

“When you kind of think about all the ways the internet affects your life and how 40 percent of people in Detroit don’t have that access you can start to see how Detroit has been stuck in this economic disparity for such a long time,” said Diana Nucera, director of the Detroit Community Technology Project. Nucera is part of a growing cohort of Detroiters who have started a grassroots movement to close that gap, by building the internet themselves. It’s a coalition of community members and multiple Detroit nonprofits.

Nearly Half of Colorado Counties Have Formally Rejected a Comcast-Backed Law Restricting City-Run Internet

After Nov 7’s elections, a total of 31Colorado counties have voted to be exempted from a state law against municipal broadband networks. 

Ajit Pai’s dream of killing net neutrality may soon turn into a nightmare

It’s entirely possible Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal will die before being implemented. The first obstacle could arrive as soon as July. Should Democratic-leaning FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn leave the FCC at the end of June as expected, it would leave the body one commissioner short of a quorum, meaning the FCC wouldn’t be able to vote on Chairman Pai’s proposal. (Adding commissioners would likely mean picking yet another fight with congressional Democrats.)

The 1946 Administrative Procedure Act bars “capricious” rulemaking at federal agencies, and experts anticipate credible legal challenges against Chairman Pai’s proposal for not rising above that standard, especially because of how the FCC has bungled public comment.

This Is How the Free Press Dies

[Commentary] Former Motherboard editor Ben Makuch has been pursued by the Canadian government since 2014 for doing his job. For nearly three years, our colleague and friend Ben Makuch has had the full weight of Canada's intelligence agencies, federal government, and court systems bearing down on him for the crime of committing journalism.

While Ben's case has been widely covered in Canada, it has flown under the radar of the Trump-obsessed American press. But what happened with Ben is part of a global trend to prevent the free spread of information by governments that espouse democratic values and supposedly champion an open society.

Why Your Local TV Station Will Determine the Fate of YouTube TV

One of the biggest selling points for YouTube TV is live local channels. Want to watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs on NBC directly on your phone? Or the upcoming NBA Playoff matchups broadcast on ABC? No need to mess with a pesky antenna—stream locals right to your device. The problem comes when you try to spread to the smaller markets where the networks don't have full ownership of the affiliates. The deals can be both difficult and expensive, as previously discussed here. And it's what could potentially keep YouTube TV from spreading across the United States.

Trump Is About to Find Out What Happens When You Mess With the Open Internet

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, met on April 4 with broadband industry officials to discuss how best to dismantle the legal basis underpinning the FCC's 2015 Open Internet net neutrality policy. "If the FCC's Open Internet rules are directly jeopardized—either by the Trump administration and the FCC, or by Republicans and Democrats in Congress—we will work with our allies to mobilize on a mass scale," said Mark Stanley, a senior official at the progressive organizing group Demand Progress.

The inside-the-Beltway mechanics of how precisely Chairman Pai and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill plan to dismantle the FCC's net neutrality policy are already the subject of DC parlor games. But the procedural details should not obscure the core net neutrality principles at stake: Online innovation, civic empowerment, individual privacy, and free speech. It's these principles that net neutrality activists across the country are now mobilizing to defend. "It took a decade to win the fight for net neutrality, and people will not sit by silently when politicians threaten to take it away," said Craig Aaron, President and CEO of DC-based public interest group Free Press. "They will defend the open internet and the free expression, economic innovation and popular organizing it makes possible. The system may be rigged in favor of corporate giants, but Donald Trump is about to find out the hard way what happens when you mess with the internet."

Internet Activists Plot 2018 Electoral Revenge Against Republican Privacy Sellouts

Open internet advocates are developing political strategies and street-level tactics designed to hold Republicans accountable in the 2018 midterm elections for what privacy watchdogs are calling one of the most brazen corporate giveaways in recent US history. "The [Federal Communications Commission] privacy rollback bill is going to be a big 2018 campaign issue," said Gigi Sohn, a Fellow at the Open Society Foundations who previously served as a top counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. "You can't put lipstick on this pig. It's profoundly anti-consumer."

"Broadband privacy won't simply be a big issue in 2018, it will be one of the biggest," said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice. "Those members of Congress who recently took a big bite out of the protections that allow internet users to browse the web safely can expect that we will expose their positions, protest at their headquarters, and pressure all those that support them."

How Mignon Clyburn, the FCC’s Lone Democrat, Is Fighting to Save Net Neutrality

As President Trump's Republican Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai moves to roll back a variety of Obama-era initiatives, the agency's sole remaining Democrat, Mignon Clyburn, is mounting a vigorous defense of the FCC's pro-consumer policies. During a wide-ranging interview, Clyburn vowed to continue fighting to advance net neutrality, as well as her other signature priorities, including expanding affordable broadband access for low-income and underserved communities, and addressing what she calls the "extreme market failure" that forces prison inmates and their families to pay wildly exorbitant phone rates just to stay in touch with their loved ones.

The FBI Says It Doesn’t Need Encryption for Unclassified Evidence

In a list of technical requirements for a smartphone recording app, the FBI says it doesn't need to use encryption. Encryption can protect data from all sorts of threats: it can stop sensitive information from being read after it is intercepted, or may thwart attackers from getting at data stored on a device. But according to a procurement document published by the FBI, the agency says it doesn't need to use encryption for protecting unclassified audio or video evidence. The snippet is included in a 2016 document laying out the technical requirements for a smartphone recording app that the FBI requested be developed. According to the document, the app would allow both overt and covert recording and streaming.

Trump’s Immigration Policy Threatens Asians Working in Silicon Valley

Asians in Silicon Valley, whether CEOs or undocumented workers, will be impacted by the new policies. In Silicon Valley, where 60 percent of foreign-born individuals hail from India, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Asian countries, the outcry against President Doanld Trump's anti-immigration stance has been especially high-profile. And the latest immigration rules, rolled out in the last few days, have many communities on edge.

On March 3, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency announced that it would suspend the H-1B visa program, one of the main routes to employment for immigrants sponsored by tech companies. Then Trump signed a new executive order on March 6 banning entry from six countries: Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. These new rules will weaken the Asian community in the US, and its powerful contribution to the technology industry in the US. Throughout 2015, Asians made up 27 percent of the workforce at Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo (though they were underrepresented in managerial and executive-level positions). In recent years, they've also made gains in the C suite with Google's Indian-born CEO, Sundar Pichai, and Microsoft's Indian-born CEO, Satya Nadella.

The Secret History of a Fleeting Pre-Internet Digital Media Channel: Teletext

Teletext, an information service for transmitting text and graphics to a television set, was, 30 years ago, slated to revolutionize information retrieval. Back then, when the average media consumer couldn't envision reading script on a screen, well-moneyed news services were exploring teletext as an ultramodern avenue for on-demand, 24/7 news delivery to living rooms across the globe. Immediate access to stock quotes and international headlines was a sci-fi caprice that has today become a law of nature. Absentminded Yelping and indifferent glances at New York Times push notifications may now be taken-for-granted byproducts of the digital revolution. But in 1974, this user-to-information proximity was practically unfathomable, an anomaly seven years before IBM introduced its Personal Computer, the first computer of a size and price that was attractive for individual use. Teletext, according to those who worked with it, struck technologists and journalists alike as a diviner of the tech utopia to come.

Here’s How Trump’s FCC Privacy Rollback Puts Your Internet Data at Risk

President Donald Trump's newly-installed Federal Communications Commission chief moved to halt a key policy protecting online privacy and data security on March 1, in what public interest advocates called the latest Trump-era attack on FCC consumer safeguards. The data security rule was approved in 2016 by the Obama-era FCC as part of a suite of privacy safeguards designed to give consumers more power over how Internet service providers use their personal information.

The full privacy package, which is now on the Trump FCC's chopping block, requires ISPs to obtain "opt-in" consent from consumers before they use or sell sensitive personal information, including browsing activity, mobile app data, and emails and online chats. Consumer advocates say the FCC's data security rule, along with the broader privacy policy, is necessary at a time of increasing cyberattacks against internet users. The FCC's action drew a strong rebuke from the agency's lone Democratic commissioner and other public interest advocates.

Here’s Why Net Neutrality is Essential in Trump's America

"Net neutrality is not simply about technology," said Steven Renderos, Organizing Director at the Center for Media Justice. "It's about the everyday people who use it and whether they will have the right to be heard online. Two years ago, the [Federal Communications Commission] affirmed that everyone, regardless of class or race, deserves access to a media platform that does not discriminate."

Without net neutrality, these corporate giants could slow down or even block rival services, not to mention the next generation of startups that depend on internet freedom. If these broadband titans are allowed the right to stifle online creativity and entrepreneurship, it could snuff out the very engine of innovation that has generated billions of dollars of US economic activity and created millions of jobs.

This Cunning, Months-in-the-Making Phishing Campaign Targeted Dozens of Journalists, Activists

In a new report, Amnesty International details a prolonged phishing campaign against journalists, activists and campaigners who work with Qatari labor rights issues.

Here's How Net Neutrality Advocates Will Fight Trump's FCC

"Donald Trump is going to have to pry net neutrality from my cold dead hands," said Winnie Wong, a leading political organizer and co-author of the Women's March on Washington unity principles. "We will organize huge numbers of people to turn out in the streets to protect the open internet." For Wong, network neutrality means more than just commerce or inside-baseball DC intrigue. It's about free speech and the ability to reach her colleagues and constituents online to coordinate the movement of movements, and the delegation of distributed direct action across the country and around the world. "The architects of the internet and the defenders of net neutrality are the people who have created the conditions that allow progressive activists to organize and build our networks of opposition to Trump at scale," Wong said. "We will fight to defend the open internet."

The decade-long war over net neutrality has taken on new urgency with Trump's decision to appoint Republican Ajit Pai to lead the Federal Communications Commission. Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, has made clear that he intends to dismantle the legal basis underpinning net neutrality, in a move that will delight the nation's largest cable and phone companies.

Why Sprint Buying a Chunk of Tidal Scares Net Neutrality Advocates

It was just a few days ago that Sprint announced it had acquired a 33 percent stake in Jay-Z's streaming music service, Tidal. According to Billboard, the deal was worth approximately $200 million, almost four times what Jay-Z paid for the service in 2015. Why would Sprint pay so much to get a piece of the company?

Some speculate it's the original content. However, it's also possible that this is Sprint's chance to offer customers something else: free data for using content it owns, a process known as "zero-rating". It's a strategy AT&T is using with DirecTV NOW, its streaming television service, and it's a strategy that's raising concerns in respect to net neutrality. "There's a lot of evidence from other examples of how zero-rating really does change consumer preferences and behavior," said Ryan Clough, General Counsel at Public Knowledge. "That's precisely why there's so much concern here."

Trump’s FCC May Let ISPs Sell Your Private Data Without Your Consent

If you like your online privacy rights, can you keep them? Under President Donald Trump, the chances are grim. Federal regulations protecting consumers from broadband industry privacy abuses will soon be eliminated if the nation’s largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their Republican allies on Capitol Hill have their way.

The US broadband privacy safeguards, which were approved last year by the Federal Communications Commission, require ISPs like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to obtain “opt-in” consent before they “monetize” sensitive consumer data, including online browsing activity, mobile app data, and emails and online chats. As President Trump and GOP lawmakers move swiftly to remove regulations across large swaths of the economy, the nation’s biggest ISPs are working overtime to ensure that the FCC’s privacy policy is part of the regulatory rollback. The broadband industry is pursuing a dual-track strategy by pressuring the FCC to halt the privacy policy, while simultaneously lobbying Congress to rescind the rules outright. Under the recently-approved FCC policy, consumers must affirmatively give their ISP opt-in permission to use private information for marketing purposes. The big ISPs, not surprisingly, want the right to monetize such data by default, with the burden falling on the user to opt-out.

How to Protest Without Sacrificing Your Digital Privacy

If you're a peaceful protester, but you don't necessarily want your participation in a demonstration to follow you around or lead to harassment online, what sort of steps can you take around your digital security?
Bring a clean phone: “They'll be, obviously, cell-site simulators,” said Matthew Mitchell, a founder of Crypto Harlem. These devices, otherwise known as IMSI-catchers or Stingrays, can record phones' geolocation, their phone number, and sometimes the content of texts and phone calls. "If everyone is texting a couple of organizers, or calling a bunch of friends, that one friend that connected to all people could be identified,” Mitchell said.
Or bring no phone at all: The simpler, and probably more effective approach for protecting privacy, is to not bring a cell phone at all and rely on more traditional methods of activist coordination.