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Facebook: Constitution before statutes
Constitution of America, We the People. The Facebook Oversight Board is now open for cases and I look forward to seeing the results. But I have the same question I’ve had since the planning for its...
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Trump’s scorched Earth
What we are witnessing in the Trump times is the last stand of angry, old, white men, who would sooner destroy the institutions of democracy than share them with those who will follow. Conservatives —...
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The roots of totalitarianism & Trump: To a new journalism
I do not believe most people espousing QAnon’s agitprop believe it. I believe they want us to believe they believe it. It’s performative: owning the libs, the pollsters, the media, the elites. Our old...
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Our movement
Every year at this time, I am impressed with the imagination, invention, daring, and mission of our Social Journalism graduates at the Newmark J-School as they reimagine and reinvent journalism. I am...
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Speechless: An allegory for our time
They had warned me about the silence of the City. Living in the woods these last few years, alone with my pod-family, my mind’s ear had grown accustomed to nature’s carols of birds, crickets, and...
View ArticleThe Counter-Reformation
Journalists are tying themselves in knots about what words to use, what to call the actions yesterday, what to call the people who incited and engaged in them. Choosing the words is the ultimate job...
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Trump v. Facebook
Facebook has decided to ask its new, independent Oversight Board to rule on its decision to suspend Donald Trump indefinitely. The Board will be able to make a binding determination regarding Trump,...
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Here comes the judge
The first decisions of Facebook’s independent Oversight Board make Facebook’s judgment look good by comparison. Who saw that coming? The Board has in essence said that it is OK to insult Muslim men as...
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Scissors and Murdoch’s cynicism
Just as he broke democracy, Rupert Murdoch is trying to break the internet with his protectionist legislation in Australia to force the platforms to “negotiate” and pay news publishers for the...
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In league with Murdoch
(Here is an opinion piece I wrote in Australia’s Crikey. I had offered it to The Guardian. Here is a related piece from Crikey editor-in-chief Peter Fray.) I love The Guardian. It has long been my...
View ArticleMurdoch’s law and the net
Here’s my interview with ABC News Australia and then my discussion with Mathew Ingram of the Columbia Journalism Review about the fallout from Murdoch’s media law and pressure on the platforms in...
View ArticleStatement to the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust
I was called about possibly testifying to a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust regarding technology companies. That’s not happening but I decided to submit a statement to the...
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A thank-you note to the net
I want to say something unpopular and provocative: I am grateful for the internet, especially this year, most especially amid the pandemic that still engulfs the world. In media’s telling — according...
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Someone made my father sick
My 95-year-old, fully vaccinated, deaf, dear father is in the hospital with breakthrough COVID. Someone in Florida gave it to him. That someone — someone who works in a community serving the elderly...
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Aftermath
Yes, 9/11 affected me. Arriving on the last PATH train into the World Trade Center as the first jet hit, I witnessed the second jet’s impact and stayed to report. I still cannot bring myself to speak...
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God made a social network
Chapter 1 1 God made a social network. It was called Earth. Even She could not be certain what would follow. Chapter 2 1 For the longest time, or so it seemed to the people of Earth, She allowed them...
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Studying the internet
This spring at CUNY, my colleague Douglas Rushkoff and I will teach a course in Designing the Internet. Students will propose and design a feature of the net they want to see. Some might start from...
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Disinformation is not *the* problem
Yes, disinformation is a problem. But by treating it as the problem, we can cause more: We give malign actors the attention that feeds them as we spread their messages. We defer facing society’s real...
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Continua: Lessons from two books on books
All culture is conversation. — Neil PostmanCulture is made up of what remains after everything else has been forgotten.— Jean-Philippe de Tonnac I’ve spent the last few years working on a book about...
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Web .0000012
I’ve been thinking about Matt Mullenweg’s response to Brian Armstrong’s response to Moxie Marlinspike’s excellent post about Web 3. I have some responses in return in this post based on a thread....
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