April 2014

Political Preferences on Social Media Sites

Social media’s promise was that people with different views and political ties could mingle in digital bliss. But some social sites are more popular with one political party than another.

According to a new survey by the Harvard Institute of Politics, Democrats love Google Plus and Twitter, while Republicans are more interested in sharing on Pinterest. Some sites showed virtually no differences between the parties.

Democrats and Republicans used Facebook the same amount, 87 percent. With Snapchat, 24 percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Republicans said they actively used the service. Most other sites were predominantly used by Democrats, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Tumblr. While it’s difficult to tell why more Republicans than Democrats have joined Pinterest, this could be because of Mitt Romney, who used Pinterest to share pictures and information during his presidential campaign. His wife, Ann Romney, was also a frequent user of the site.

Senator Franken, Comcast’s fiercest critic, tries to lure allies from Silicon Valley

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) has become Capitol Hill's loudest opponent of Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable. Now, he's trying to root out like-minded critics from Silicon Valley.

In a letter to the trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association, Sen Franken asked for the group's opinion on the $45 billion merger. If approved by federal regulators, Comcast would wind up with 40 percent of the broadband Internet market. Sen Franken said that's too much power in the hands of a single company, which could act as a powerful gatekeeper for Internet content and services into US homes.

"Your organization includes companies from many sectors of our communications and Internet economy, including industry leaders in search, social networking, e-commerce and music and video content delivery. All of these organizations depend on broadband networks to operate," Sen Franken wrote in his letter to CCIA President Ed Black. CCIA's members include Google, Facebook, eBay, Aereo and Yahoo.

Spy court hears first anti-NSA argument

For the first time, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court heard a formal argument that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of people’s phone records is illegal.

In a friend-of-the-court brief filed early in April and just declassified, the Center for National Security Studies said that the surveillance program is not authorized under current law.

“Congress has never authorized the telephone metadata program,” the think tank told court. “When the government acts in an area of questionable constitutionality, Congress cannot be deemed to have authorized that action by mere implication or acquiescence,” it added, “Rather, Congress must explicitly indicate that it intends to alter the rights and limitations normally afforded by the law.”

Yet with regards to the controversial NSA operation, Congress never “made such an explicit statement.” According to Kate Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, the brief is the first formal argument the FISA Court has heard outlining how the bulk data collection does not comply with the law. “The court hasn’t heard the opposing view on that before issuing these orders, on that question,” she said.

FBI Keeps Internet Flaws Secret to Defend Against Hackers

The Obama Administration is letting law enforcement keep computer-security flaws secret in order to further US investigations of cyberspies and hackers.

The White House has carved out an exception for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to keep information about software vulnerabilities from manufacturers and the public.

Until now, most debate has focused on how the National Security Agency stockpiles and uses new-found Internet weaknesses, known as zero-day exploits, for offensive purposes, such as attacking the networks of adversaries.

The law enforcement operations expose a delicate and complicated balancing act when it comes to agencies using serious security flaws in investigations versus disclosing them to protect all Internet users, according to former government officials and privacy advocates.

US State Department adopting social media to counter Al-Qaeda propaganda

The State Department unveiled that it is widely employing social media as a method to counter online violent extremism from Al-Qaeda and others.

Buried in an intelligence report, the government said that the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), established in 2011, produced more than 10,000 online postings globally in 2013, some of which included one of 138 government-produced videos.

"CSCC's programs draw on a full range of intelligence information and analysis for context and feedback. CSCC counters terrorist propaganda in the social media environment on a daily basis, contesting space where AQ and its supporters formerly had free rein. CSCC communications have provoked defensive responses from violent extremists on many of the 249 most popular extremist websites and forums as well as on social media," said the document, Country Reports on Terrorism 2013. The paper also said that in 2013, "violent extremists increased their use of new media platforms and social media with mixed results."

Elizabeth Warren: Internet 'Fast Lanes' Will Help 'Rich and Powerful'

Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) urged the Federal Communications Commission to enact strong network neutrality rules to ensure that all websites receive equal service.

"Reports that the FCC may gut net neutrality are disturbing, and would be just one more way the playing field is tilted for the rich and powerful who have already made it," she wrote. "Our regulators already have all the tools they need to protect a free and open Internet -- where a handful of companies cannot block or filter or charge access fees for what we do online. They should stand up and use them."

Silicon Valley Turns To An Algorithm To Fix Its Diversity Problem

In Silicon Valley, the algorithm is seen as a magic bullet that can fix almost anything. Now one company is banking on an algorithm to fix the industry's dearth of women and minorities in tech.

Entelo, which helps high-profile tech companies like Yelp and Facebook with recruiting, has launched a new product, Entelo Diversity. For $10,000 a year, organizations can target certain groups, like women, black men, or "old" people, with certain skills for job openings using Entelo's "proprietary algorithm."

Entelo assures that its technology won't lead to reverse discrimination, especially given the recent Supreme Court affirmative action ruling.

"I'm sensitive to that," said Entelo's CEO Jon Bischke. "But there's active discrimination going on today and we hope this will mitigate that." The technology claims to sift through already qualified candidates, assuring no "token" hires.

Unfortunately, the algorithm does nothing about the social issues behind the hiring imbalances. Silicon Valley's discrimination problems run too deep. Women often don't "qualify" for jobs because fewer women pursue careers and training in math and science. Multiple studies have shown that women drop out of STEM fields because of cultural, not innate, reasons.

The US supreme court needs to keep up with our cellphones -- and the NSA

[Commentary] The US Supreme Court arguments involved a seemingly basic legal question about the future of the Fourth Amendment: do police officers need a warrant to search the cellphone of a person they arrest?

But the two privacy cases pit against each other two very different conceptions of what it means to be a supreme court in the first place -- and what it means to do constitutional law in the 21st century.

"With computers, it's a new world," several justices reportedly said in the chamber. Are they ready to be the kinds of justices who make sense of it? Cellphones expose so much of our most personal data that the decision should be a 9-0 no-brainer.

The basic problem that makes it a harder call is that lawyers and judges are by training and habit incrementalists, while information and communications technology moves too fast for incrementalism to keep up. But this kind of narrow legalism simply cannot do when the world is changing as rapidly as it is today: all narrow analogies will systematically fail to preserve the values they did five or ten years ago, especially when we're walking around with all the metadata coming out of the bank/medical monitor/full-on GPS trackers in our pockets.

The world is changing, and that narrow view of constitutional adjudication will not offer us meaningful protection. What we need in these news cellphone cases is for those five justices to join together and show that constitutional vision is more than just the workmanlike competence of lawyers. Otherwise, the coming decades will become a series of lurches from one formally defensible but substantively implausible invasion to another, with no end in sight -- as long as there's another iPhone in the works.

Miguel A. Figueroa to head ALA Center for the Future of Libraries

Miguel Figueroa, former director of the ALA Office for Diversity and Office for Literacy and Outreach Services, has been named to head the new American Library Association Center for the Future of Libraries.

As the first director of the new Center, Figueroa will be responsible for identifying and disseminating information on long term societal, technological, educational, demographic trends that may affect libraries and their future The director will also promote and support the incorporation of “futures thinking” into library policy and planning in libraries of all types.

Figueroa has served as Director of Member Programs for the American Theological Library Association in Chicago since June 2012, where he has coordinated member recruitment, outreach and development, the cultivation of relationships with external partners, communications and publications and service to volunteer committees and interest groups. His work there has included creating a joint leadership meeting for committees and member leaders, the introduction of outcome based evaluation, and serving on the ATLA executive leadership team.

Remarks of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to National Cable & Telecommunications Association

We have circulated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to my fellow commissioners on the topic of the Open Internet.

There are two things that are important to understand. First, this is a Notice, which asks a number of questions and seeks input on the best way to protect and promote the Open Internet. Second, all options are on the table. Our goal is to put into place real protections for consumers, innovators and entrepreneurs that until now have been only a matter of debate and litigation.

I believe this process will put us on track to quickly get to legally enforceable Open Internet rules. There has been a great deal of talk about how our following the court’s instruction to use a “commercially reasonable” test could result in a so-called “fast lane” and Internet “haves” and “have nots.” This misses the point that any new rule will assure an open pathway that is sufficiently robust to enable consumers to access the content, services and applications they demand and innovators and edge providers the ability to offer new products and services.

The focus of this proposal -- on which we are seeking comment -- is on maintaining a broadly available, fast and robust Internet as a platform for economic growth, innovation, competition, free expression, and broadband investment and deployment. We will follow the court’s blueprint for achieving this, and, I must warn you, will look skeptically on special exceptions.

If someone acts to divide the Internet between “haves” and “have-nots,” we will use every power at our disposal to stop it. I consider that to include Title II. Just because it is my strong belief that following the court’s roadmap will produce similar protections more quickly, does not mean I will hesitate to use Title II if warranted. And, in our Notice, we are asking for input as to whether this approach should be used.

Benton

Search