By Justin Sanders
It was a dark and stormy night when the online forum r/nosleep closed its doors to the general public. The horror story-themed Reddit forum (known as a “subreddit”) had built a massive following by curating some of the scariest tales on the internet. Its authors had a gift for the spine-tingling detail... Read more
By Ruth Vitale
Stop us if you have heard this one before: a Google-funded organization has cited Google-backed research to spout misleading piracy claims that benefit Google. This time, the guilty party is Re:Create, a purported coalition of “Innovators, Creators and Consumers United for Balanced Copyright.” They started circulating a “fact” sheet titled Copyright Infringement on the... Read more
Consider the word “use.” It can mean both to “take, hold, or deploy (something) as a means of accomplishing a purpose” or to “exploit (a person or situation) for one’s own advantage.” There’s a latent hostility to the word “use” (use drugs, use other people, use up your remaining karma),... Read more
With streaming entrenched as the dominant form of video consumption online, it’s easy to forget that piracy via the illegal downloading of actual files (AKA the old-fashioned way), remains alive and well. In fact, according to digital piracy data firm MUSO, torrent-based digital theft makes up around 20 percent of all... Read more
By Justin Sanders
Let’s be clear – it’s difficult to make a living in any creative pursuit. However, it’s especially difficult to make a living as an author. Say you have the temerity to actually, against all odds, write a book – which, for most people, takes years of toil and strife. Now, you actually have to... Read more
By Ruth Vitale
Here’s a direct plea to Google and Facebook. For too long, you’ve dragged your feet on harmful online conduct. It’s obvious that you don’t feel there are sufficient incentives (financial, legal, or PR) to make the systemic changes necessary to stop the spew of hate speech, fake news, foreign election meddling,... Read more
By Justin Sanders
“Black Belts vs. Pirates” is the last of our three-part series about what it takes to build a successful content platform in the age of streaming piracy. In Part 1, “The Black Belt,” we dug into the life and times of entrepreneur Jimmy Kane, and learned how a grainy YouTube... Read more
Another year, another series of blogs rounding up reasons for #PlatformAccountability from across the spectrum of political, cultural, and sociological discourse. Throughout the past year, we’ve regularly published posts chock full of quotes and comments describing the grave harms and indignities perpetrated by massive internet platform companies such as Facebook and Google. There has been no shortage of... Read more
By Justin Sanders
“Easy to Use = Hard to Make” is the second of our three-part series about what it takes to build a successful content platform in the age of streaming piracy. In Part 1, “The Black Belt,” we dug into Kane’s background and learned how a grainy YouTube video from his parents’ martial... Read more
By Justin Sanders
“The Black Belt” is the first of our three-part series about what it takes to build a successful content platform in the age of streaming piracy. Click here for Part 2. Before skateboarding was a multibillion-dollar industry, it was the fringe pursuit of a youth counterculture kick-flipping in backyards, empty... Read more