Big Tele’s plans to subvert the Internet
The Nation's Jeff Chester writes a dire piece about plans by cable and telephone companies where
all of us--from content providers to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received.Consider the following scenarios:
Imagine how the next presidential election would unfold if major political advertisers could make strategic payments to Comcast so that ads from Democratic and Republican candidates were more visible and user-friendly than ads of third-party candidates with less funds.**********
Consider what would happen if an online advertisement promoting nuclear power prominently popped up on a cable broadband page, while a competing message from an environmental group was relegated to the margins. It is possible that all forms of civic and noncommercial online programming would be pushed to the end of a commercial digital queue.At the heart of this thing, is the further erosion of government regulation of phone and cable lines aka broadband. Big Tele is rabidly lobbying to "to operate their Internet services as fully "private" networks." I wonder if it can really get this bad? I don't know. It's a complex issue with many players and layers. I guess if there was ever a time when myriad disastrous elements would have to allign with precision to make it so, that would be now. Continue reading
Unwriting Wikipedia
So Wikipedia has been in the news - big time - lately. There was the Seigenthaler stink, in which bogus information was inserted into the Wikipedia entry of John Seigenthaler Sr., former assistant to former Attorney General Robert Kennedy, alleging Seigenthaler's role in the assasination of both Kennedy's. The spurious allegation made its way into supposedly authoritative sites like Answers.com and Reference.com. In response, Seigenthaler wrote a vitriolic editorial in USA Today damning Wikipedia and the practice of wiki as a legitimate venue for public record. In the aftermath of Seigenthaler and other stories of erroneous Wikipedia content, Nature comes out with an expert-led, peer-reviewed investigative story that lauds Wikipedia as near on par with Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of accuracy of its science content. Where Britannica exceeded Wikipedia, the differences were not great. So I bring all this up as context to the delicate and critical position that the publicly-recorded record holds and why the latest story on Wikipedia - its infiltration by congressional staffers - is alarming. According to the Lowell Sun:
The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the "world's largest encyclopedia," The Sun has learned. The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month. Wikipedia is a global reference that relies on its Internet users to add credible information to entries on millions of topics.This wholesale wikiwiping is more than vanity cosmetics or a malicious hack - as intolerable as such transgressions are - it is the publicly-recorded record of our public servants unwriting itself. Continue reading
(VA) peer assistance for economics assignments
The student assistant who for 2 1/2 years helped me process government documents began to help her classmates with econ homework assignments by referring them to government publications such as Economic Indicators and the Economic Report of the President. Sometimes it is easier for the students to accept assistance from a peer; it was great to see her use what she had learned in our department. Maryke Barber Government Documents Coordinator Wyndham Robertson Library, Hollins University Virginia Continue reading
(VA) USA Trade online
A community patron asked for help with USA Trade Online data. He was just starting an export consulting business and could not afford to subscribe, so he was very pleased to have access to the data via our depository. He was even more pleased when we showed him non-subscription data from the ITC dataweb (with help from GOVDOC-L) Maryke Barber Government Documents Coordinator Wyndham Robertson Library, Hollins University Virginia Continue reading
New Navy Web policy includes remarks on blogging
Thanks to Secrecy News for posting the new DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY POLICY FOR CONTENT OF PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE WORLD WIDE WEB SITES. After briefly reading through this 16 page document, I came across this interesting note on Navy blogging on page 14 of the PDF file:
5. Interactivity. DON commands/activities may maintain interactive Web sites to the extent that they allow visitors the ability to query the command via electronic mail (e-mail). Commands/activities are cautioned that establishing and maintaining this interactivity can be extremely labor-intensive. a. DON commands may not operate unmoderated news groups, bulletin boards, or any other unrestricted access posting services. This specifically prohibits a publicly accessible, interactive site that supports automatic posting of information submitted by personnel other than those authorized by the command to post information. Some Web logs (blogs) may fall into this category. This does not, however, prohibit the command from posting frequent messages from the commanding officer or messages from the command’s constituents. There is also no prohibition on blogs operated by individual members as private citizens. The DON recognizes the value of this communication channel in posting current information and supporting the morale of personnel, their family and friends. As long as personnel adhere to specific restrictions on content, the DON encourages the use of blogs and recognizes this free flow of information contributes to legitimate transparency of the DON to the American public whom we serve. Continue reading