October 2013

Online leisure crowds out other, offline activities such as offline leisure, work, and sleep, finds Scott Wallsten in “?” released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Wallsten, TPI Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research, analyzed the 2003 -- 2011 data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey to determine how online leisure is substituting for other leisure activities, to what extent and how online activities are evolving. Wallsten's research reveals that time spent online and the share of the population engaged in online activities has been increasing steadily. He finds that, on the margin, each minute of online leisure time is correlated with 0.29 fewer minutes on all other types of leisure, with about half of that coming from time spent watching TV and video, 0.05 minutes from (offline) socializing, 0.04 minutes from relaxing and thinking, and the balance from time spent at parties, attending cultural events, and listening to the radio. Each minute of online leisure is also correlated with 0.27 fewer minutes working, 0.12 fewer minutes sleeping, 0.10 fewer minutes in travel time, 0.07 fewer minutes in household activities, and 0.06 fewer minutes in educational activities.

[Commentary] I am often asked whether Edward Snowden's leaking of classified documents about National Security Agency surveillance programs is protected by the first amendment. My answer is no, his handing over of classified information to reporters at The Guardian, the Washington Post and the New York Times enjoys no constitutional protection or privilege.

Snowden is a source who leaks information, not a journalist who receives leaks. The difference is crucial: in the transaction between source and journalist, constitutional protections extend only to the latter. Specifically, journalists cannot be barred by a court injunction from publishing a story based on leaked information. And post-publication, too, journalists have special protections: first amendment principles, doubts about the application of federal statutes, and a tradition of prosecutorial forbearance -- all these combine to create huge obstacles to the bringing of criminal charges against journalists for reporting on leaked, classified information. This double-standard -- exposing government leakers to punishment while insulating the journalists who publicize their leaks -- may seem unfair, arbitrary, even offensive, but the double-standard is nonetheless necessary.

[Peter Scheer is Executive Director of the First Amendment Coalition]

[Commentary] The revelations about National Security Agency monitoring of online communications have eroded trust in the Internet.

The language of trust lost, and what it means for the future of online communication, can be seen in discussions of various communities of stakeholder across the Internet. If we want users to rely on the Internet for substantial social, economic, and political uses, providers of Internet-based services need to be able to credibly commit to handling user data in accord with user expectations. By “service providers,” I mean to include everything from consumer Internet service providers (ISPs), to services like Facebook and Google Mail, to the backbone providers and those who operate the networks of routers and switches that make up the physical Internet architecture. As an initial matter, making these commitments requires understanding how users expect their data to be handled and developing technologies in line with those expectations -- this task is the subject of myriad ongoing efforts. But even more important, users need visibility into how their data is actually handled -- not just assurances that their expectations are being respected -- and they need means of recourse against Internet services that do not respect their expectations.

The question, of course, is what to do to buttress the Internet’s credibility as a trustworthy communications medium. A first step is the development of technologies that better allow users and service providers to specify how data is to be treated. If the Internet is to support complex social and economic institutions, we need to think carefully about the functions that the network architecture needs to support in order for those institutions to work.

Facebook lifted a ban on a violent video circulating across its network, one in which a woman is beheaded. While the company immediately came under fire from child-protection groups and family online safety advocates, Facebook defended its stance with a familiar argument: “Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they’re connected to controversial events on the ground, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism and other violent events. People share videos of these events on Facebook to condemn them.”

In positioning itself as a bullhorn for free speech, Facebook is beginning to look and sound a lot like Twitter. On the one hand, this is a benevolent act. If Facebook wants to promote its platform as a protected one for free speech, that’s a win for activists. But it is hardly entirely altruistic. Facebook also wants to be seen as the place to go for discussions about less-controversial topics, such as live media events or TV shows. It is adjacent to those discussions that Facebook can sell ad space to brands, just as Twitter does now.