December 2015

A Q&A with Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig.

The latest chapter of Lawrence Lessig’s career ended in November, when the Harvard Law School professor concluded his bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. That effort centered on his campaign to reform Congressional politics. Prior to that, Professor Lessig’s scholarship, teaching and activism focused on technology policy and the Internet. He has argued for greater sharing of creative content, the easing of restrictions in areas such as copyright, and the concept of Net Neutrality. Lessig, who founded the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, is the author of numerous books on technology, including “Code: and Other Laws of Cyberspace,” and “The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in a Connected World.” CIO Journal asked Lessig for his thoughts on how technology policy, which is at multiple critical junctures around the world, can and should evolve. Privacy, surveillance, and international governance of the Internet and telecommunications networks will approach milestones in 2016, with implications for business and beyond.

When asked, "Do you think that the concept of Network Neutrality, which advanced during the Obama Administration, will survive coming challenges?" Lessig said, "The thing that people will resist … the slogan says regulation should be more technology neutral. I am not sure I ever heard a more idiotic statement in my life. There is no neutrality here, just different modes …I don’t think the law should say here is what services can do and not do, because the technology is so (fast-changing) the law could never catch up. But that (we want) to avoid are certain kinds of business models, a prison of bits, where services leverage control over access to content and profit from that control over content."

Twitter has clarified its ban on threats and abuse amid calls for a tougher stance on extremists' use of the platform. The social media company announced that it will deactivate the accounts of users who engage in “hateful conduct” or whose "primary purpose is inciting harm towards others.” Twitter has regularly faced accusations that it doesn't do enough to combat harassment by and against its users. Even the company's most senior executives have acknowledged Twitter's failings in the area.

"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform, and we've sucked at it for years," said then-CEO Dick Costolo in February. "It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day." For the first time, the company's policy now says that users "may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease."

[Commentary] It seems almost inevitable that 2016 will be a year of accelerating trends in the media world more than one in which completely new ones emerge. So if there’s a unifying theme that will tie all of 2016’s major media dynamics together, it will be velocity. Given that, here are six trends likely to take on serious force in 2016 after gaining significant early traction in 2015, along with one more granular prediction that may serve as an important model to emulate.

1. Over-the-top (OTT) domination -- Linear television is on notice: consumers have embraced over-the-top television options faster and more pervasively than almost anyone predicted.
2. Political advertising goes digital -- Borrell Associates predicts that digital will capture $1 billion of a record $11.4 billion political ad spend in 2016.
3. Virtual reality rises -- Late 2015 saw a flurry of VR experimentation among media outlets including The New York Times, Gannett Co., The Economist and ABC News.
4. Ad blockers will rewrite the advertising playbook -- Ad blockers may not yet seem like the existential threat they were initially heralded to be. But don’t make the mistake of writing them off as overblown worries in the vein of Ebola or the Y2K bug.
5. Distributed publishing will widen and accelerate -- Publishers have equivocated mightily on this phenomenon since it reared up a year ago. That equivocation may be a luxury they can ill afford in 2016 as the platform wars get more thermonuclear and major platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Google and Apple expand their presence as publishers, compelling readers and viewers to follow.
6. The Washington Post will keep beating The New York Times -- Times writers sniffed when the Post overtook the paper in unique visitors for the first time in October, then they scowled when it happened again in November, dismissively attributing the traffic surge to clickbait and other manipulative reader-grabbing ploys.