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August 2017

At Rally, President Trump Blames Media for Country's Deepening Divisions

President Donald Trump, stung by days of criticism that he sowed racial division in the United States after deadly clashes in Charlottesville (VA), accused the news media on Aug 22 of misrepresenting what he insisted was his prompt, unequivocal condemnation of bigotry and hatred. Removing his earlier statements about the Charlottesville violence from his jacket pocket, President Trump glibly ticked off a list of racist groups that he had been urged to explicitly denounce, and ultimately did two days after the clashes. But he said the news media quoted him selectively, accused him of responding too late and ignored his message of unity. “I hit ’em with neo-Nazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there. Let’s see. KKK, we have KKK,” President Trump said sardonically of his rebuke to Charlottesville racists, after being faulted for failing to condemn those groups in his initial response on the day of the clashes.

In an angry, unbridled and unscripted performance that rivaled the most sulfurous rallies of his presidential campaign, President Trump sought to deflect the anger toward him against the news media, suggesting that they, not he, were responsible for deepening divisions in the country. “It’s time to expose the crooked media deceptions,” President Trump said. He added, “They’re very dishonest people.” “The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself and the fake news,” he said. President Trump also derided the media for focusing on his tweets, which are his preferred form of communication. Pointing repeatedly to the cameras in the middle of a cavernous convention center, President Trump whipped the crowd into fevered chants of “CNN Sucks.” Members of the audience shouted epithets at reporters, some demanding that the news media stop tormenting the president with questions about his ties to Russia.

President Trump blames the media for nearly all of his problems as president

President Donald Trump stepped on stage in Phoenix (AZ) on Aug 22 with something clearly eating at him. Minutes into his style rally, we learned what: It wasn't the white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis who threw the nation into chaos and allegedly killed a woman in Virginia. Or the intractable 16-year war in Afghanistan that he just announced he's revving up. It's the media.

President Trump spent nearly a third — if not more— of his 90-minute rally rehashing his public remarks in the wake of Charlottesville and complaining that he was widely criticized for them. In fact, about the only time he mentioned the racial tensions and violence stirred up last week was in the context of defending himself. The president was so frustrated with media coverage of him that he printed out copies of some of the remarks he gave in the wake of the violence. He read them aloud to the crowd, pausing to express total disbelief that the tone of the coverage wasn't more positive.

Sinclair Fires Back at Deal Critics

Sinclair is vigorously defending its proposed merger with Tribune to the Federal Communications Commission as both in the interest of the public and of its company, which it says needs to scale up to be better able to compete with a growing number of less-regulated competitors. In fact, it says what deal opponents don't understand is that the deal will help "save" free, over-the-air TV. That came in a filing in opposition to the petitions to deny the deal, which was due by end of day Aug 22.

In the comments, Sinclair alternated between providing data to support its assertion the deal is in the public interest, countering some of the criticisms, and dismissing others as not transaction specific, or not relevant to the merger review. “Sinclair firmly believes in the mission of local broadcasting and this filing fully explains the public interest benefits that this transaction will provide as a result of the efficiencies and scale created by the combination of Sinclair and Tribune," said Chris Ripley, president and CEO of Sinclair. "This acquisition will help to ensure the future of the free and local television model for both Tribune and Sinclair’s local communities.” In the comments, Sinclair said, "At bottom, each of the petitioners is either trying to use this proceeding to stifle competition for its own economic interests or is still living in a pre-cable, pre-internet, pre-smartphone world, untethered from the economic realities of the current media market. Sinclair and Tribune ask the Commission to see these transparent and/or naïve attempts for what they are, dismiss or deny the petitions in full, and grant consent to the proposed transaction."

Sinclair-Tribune Critics Pan Broadcaster's Deal Defense

The Coalition to Save Local Media, comprising companies that want the Federal Communications Commission to block the deal, said Sinclair and Tribune have still failed to justify its approval. That came in response to Sinclair's 47-page, plus exhibits, response to petitions to deny the deal, which Sinclair filed with the FCC Aug 22 in response to those critics. That response basically restated the criticisms they leveled in their petitions to deny and Sinclair addressed in its filing. "Sinclair-Tribune has failed to explain how this multi-billion-dollar merger is in the public interest," the coalition said. "This merger continues to raise substantial legal and policy questions — including compliance with Federal Communications Commission rules — that remain unanswered by Sinclair-Tribune." Coalition members include the American Cable Association, A Wealth of Entertainment channel, Cinemoi, Common Cause, Competitive Carriers Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, DISH, ITTA – the Voice of America’s Broadband Providers, Latino Victory Project, NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, One America News Network, Public Knowledge, RIDE TV, the Sports Fans Coalition and The Blaze. “A combined Sinclair-Tribune would create the single largest operator of local broadcast stations in the country, reaching 72 percent of American households, and lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers," the group added. "Additionally, the combined company would effectively control the market for certain broadcast equipment and impede deployment of mobile broadband, limiting competition and choice for the distribution of content and broadband services nationwide."

Defending Internet Freedom through Decentralization: Back to the Future?

The Web is a key space for civic debate and the current battleground for protecting freedom of expression. However, since its development, the Web has steadily evolved into an ecosystem of large, corporate-controlled mega-platforms which intermediate speech online.

In this report, we explore two important ways structurally decentralized systems could help address the risks of mega-platform consolidation: First, these systems can help users directly publish and discover content directly, without intermediaries, and thus without censorship. All of the systems we evaluate advertise censorship-resistance as a major benefit. Second, these systems could indirectly enable greater competition and user choice, by lowering the barrier to entry for new platforms. As it stands, it is difficult for users to switch between platforms (they must recreate all their data when moving to a new service) and most mega-platforms do not interoperate, so switching means leaving behind your social network. Some systems we evaluate directly address the issues of data portability and interoperability in an effort to support greater competition.

Silicon Valley siphons our data like oil. But the deepest drilling has just begun

[Commentary] Silicon Valley is an extractive industry. Its resource isn’t oil or copper, but data. Companies harvest this data by observing as much of our online activity as they can. This activity might take the form of a Facebook like, a Google search, or even how long your mouse hovers in a particular part of your screen. Alone, these traces may not be particularly meaningful. By pairing them with those of millions of others, however, companies can discover patterns that help determine what kind of person you are – and what kind of things you might buy.

These patterns are highly profitable. Silicon Valley uses them to sell you products or to sell you to advertisers. But feeding the algorithms that produce these patterns requires a steady stream of data. And while that data is certainly abundant, it’s not infinite. To increase profits, Silicon Valley must extract more data. One method is to get people to spend more time online: build new apps, and make them as addictive as possible. Another is to get more people online. This is the motivation for Facebook’s Free Basics program, which provides a limited set of internet services for free in underdeveloped regions across the globe, in the hopes of harvesting data from the world’s poor.

A Hunt for Ways to Combat Online Radicalization

Several research groups in the United States and Europe now see the white supremacist and jihadi threats as two faces of the same coin. They’re working on methods to fight both, together — and slowly, they have come up with ideas for limiting how these groups recruit new members to their cause. Their ideas are grounded in a few truths about how extremist groups operate online, and how potential recruits respond. After speaking to many researchers, I compiled this rough guide for combating online radicalization.
1) Recognize the internet as an extremist breeding ground.
2) Engage directly with potential recruits.

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