Techdirt: Celebrating 25 Years and more!

Interesting after all these years As always, though, none of this happens without the community here and — especially since we’ve removed ads from the site — the people who directly support Techdirt and help keep it running. So, a huge thank you goes out to everyone just reading this, and doubly so to those who have supported us one way or another over the years. We literally could not have done it without you.

from the happy-birthday,-us dept

"On August 23rd, 1997, I sent out this emailed newsletter — which was then called Up-To-Date — to various business school colleagues. That was exactly 25 years ago, and that began dragging me down the path of what became Techdirt early the following year (when I realized it might be nice to have a website to post the copies of the newsletter on, rather than just sending them out over email).

A lot has changed since then, but… a lot really hasn’t.

Even just looking back at that first newsletter there are some fun snippets. I was joking about an effort by some universities to try to reinvent the internet (I referred to it as “Internet 3” — somewhat mocking another effort, called Internet2, which somehow apparently still exists). We also wrote about Experian (freshly renamed from TRW, but still with a huge legacy of doing terrible stuff) had enabled people to check their credit info online, only to discover security problems.

Some things just never change.

I also talked about how Snap!, the now-long-forgotten “portal” by CNET (which kinda still exists, though is really just a part of CBS’s web properties), was destined for failure. Of course, today Snap means Snapchat, the social media site.

Anyway, over the next few weeks, I’m going to try to look back at a few more of those original newsletters. We’ll also have a few other anniversary related things going on — culminating in a fun, interactive live (virtual) event on September 9th (details to come soon). That event will be open to anyone subscribed to one of the current ongoing (monthly or yearly) Techdirt Insider packages (Crystal Ball, Watercooler, or Behind the Curtain — or the equivalent levels via our Patreon). If you’d like to attend and are not a subscriber, now would be a good time to join.

It’s kind of wild to think that, in some way or another, I’ve been doing this for 25 years. When I wrote that first newsletter, I wasn’t even sure there would ever be a second, let alone 25 years worth of content which now includes almost 80,000 total posts (~51,000 of which are mine). And, I don’t plan on slowing down much either. There are still lots of things to talk about, and the things I’m talking about these days seem a lot more important and relevant to a lot more people than joking about random internet things two and a half decades ago."

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from the meet-the-new-boss... dept

The writing has been on the wall for a while, but streaming TV has finally surpassed traditional cable in terms of overall viewership numbers for the first time ever. According to viewership tracking firm Nielsen (who once upon a time called the cord cutting revolution “purely fiction“) streaming saw a 34.8 percent overall viewership in July compared to 34.4 percent for “cable”:

The shift has been an easy prediction for at least a decade, but it’s finally here. After decades of being over-charged for giant bundles of expensive channels they don’t watch, consumers have understandably flocked to streaming alternatives that offer greater freedom of choice for generally less money (despite the stories whining about how expensive streaming is if you subscribe to every service in existence).

The end result: July saw the highest rate of streaming content consumption on record:

In addition to claiming the largest viewership share during the month, audiences watched an average of 190.9 billion minutes of streamed content per week—easily surpassing the 169.9 billion minutes that audiences watched during the pandemic lockdown period back in April 2020. Excluding the week of Dec. 27, 2021, the five weeks of July 2022 represent the highest-volume streaming weeks on record, according to Nielsen measurement.

Data suggests that the nation’s biggest cable TV providers lost nearly two million paying subscribers in the second quarter alone.

Again, I’m old enough to remember when Nielsen spent a decade pretending this shift wasn’t actually happening, despite very obvious evidence that it was. Then we watched as Nielsen belatedly realized that as a video viewership tracking firm they might just want to stop telling cable TV executives (also in longstanding denial) what they wanted to hear and actually start tracking streaming viewership as well.

The trick now as the streaming industry consolidates is to avoid embracing the greed and hubris that made traditional cable TV so open to disruption in the first place.

Filed Under: cable, cable tv, competition, disruption, streaming, video

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from the imagine-being-forced-to-platform-this dept

The Florida Politics site has a report on what appears to a be truly despicable individual running for the Florida state house with horrifically dangerous ideas — who has now been banned from Twitter. The article notes that he’s still on Instagram and Facebook, though it looks like the same message that got him banned from Twitter has been taken down from both Instagram and Facebook (plenty of other, equally incendiary, messages remain, however). Here’s the message that got candidate Luis Miguelus banned:

If you can’t see that, it says:

“Under my plan, all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other feds ON SIGHT! Let freedom ring!” – Luis Miguel, Republican for Florida House

His other messages may not be quite as directly threatening, but they seem equally unhinged. He has one saying “the time to stand back and stand by is over…” And he appears to demand that Ron DeSantis ignore a federal court declaring the Stop WOKE Act unconstitutional:

He says that Bill Gates is a traitor who needs to be arrested for the crime of… working on a bill to lower inflation, build better infrastructure, and protect people from the impact of climate change?

He also claims he will kick all federal agents out of Florida (and in one message appears to imply that he will push for Florida to secede from the United States). He also wrote an article praising DeSantis’ quest for authoritarian power, and talks about how he wants Trump to “unleash a Dark MAGA storm” to punish the libs.

Honestly, his views look so silly and so disconnected from reality, I’d almost think it was satire or someone parodying your everyday GOP candidate. But apparently it’s real.

And that brings us around to the point of this post. The other DeSantis bill that has been ruled as an unconstitutional infringement of 1st Amendment rights, the social media content moderation bill, Twitter would not have been able to kick him off for advocating killing federal agents, and Facebook and Instagram could not have pressured him to remove those posts with similar language.

As you may recall, that bill had a specific clause banning websites from moderating political candidates:

A social media platform may not willfully deplatform a candidate for office who is known by the social media platform to be a candidate, beginning on the date of qualification and ending on the date of the election or the date the candidate ceases to be a candidate.

In other words, under that law, none of the social media platforms could claim that literally advocating murdering federal agents was against their terms of service, and would be required to host that speech.

Thankfully, the law has been blocked (though we’re still waiting to see if Florida appeals).

Anyway, thanks to candidate Miguel for giving what I’m sure will be a very useful exhibit in the filings from folks trying to explain to the Supreme Court the problems of Florida’s law.

Filed Under: content moderation, florida, luis miguel, ron desantis
Companies: twitter

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from the nice-of-him dept

So, look, I’ve been pretty clear that for as much as Elon Musk refers to himself as a “free speech absolutist,” his actions suggest otherwise. He has regularly punished people for their speech, he recently embraced the EU’s highly censorial plans for social media regulation, and his filings in the Twitter case suggest that he is quite upset that the company is fighting for free speech in India. Indeed, all of the actual evidence suggests Musk is actively opposed to free speech, not supportive of it. LP

As we noted in our article about Musk’s criticism of Twitter’s lawsuit challenging India’s blatantly censorial Information Technology Rules, 2021, Musk has repeatedly claimed that his view of free speech is to follow whatever laws a country passes regarding speech. But… that’s not supportive of free speech at all. The greatest threat to free speech is always the government so letting governments define free speech is not being supportive of free speech — its giving the power to the censors themselves.

Speaking of which, Musk seems to have no problem cozying up with censors. Last week a bunch of publications were a bit taken aback to find out that Musk had written a column for China Cyberspace, a monthly magazine run by the Cyberspace Administration of China — also known as the chief internet censorship agency in China. An English translation of the article shows that it’s not about speech, but a kind of advertising pitch for all the various companies Musk runs. I mean, it’s all a giant ad… from the man who claims to hate advertising.

I want to do everything we can to maximize the use of technology to help achieve a better future for humanity. To that end, any area that contributes to a sustainable future is worthy of our investment. Whether it’s Tesla, Neuralink, or SpaceX, these companies were all founded with the ultimate goal of enhancing the future of human life and creating as much practical value for the world as possible—Tesla to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, Neuralink for medical rehabilitation, SpaceX for making interstellar connections possible.

This all seems notable given that over the last year, China passed a series of increasingly draconian censorship laws that have taken the crackdown on speech to even higher levels than in the past. And it looks like even more draconian (and dystopian) new censorship ideas are being pushed — including requiring websites to pre-censor all comments.

Now, you can argue that since he’s not talking about speech here there’s no issue. Indeed, Musk’s fawning fanbase doesn’t even bother to mention who he’s writing for here as they excitedly promoted the new essay and calling it an “honor” that China’s regulator allowed Musk to publish his article.

But it is legitimizing perhaps the world’s largest censor. And that seems like an odd thing to do if you’re a “free speech absolutist.”

Of course, Tesla has a major — and kinda fundamental to its business — factory in China, and Musk is desperate to keep the Chinese government happy these days.

And… thus, it seems that the principle of “free speech” is the first one that gets tossed out the window if it means helping Tesla (and with it, Musk) make more money.

Filed Under: censor, censorship, china, elon musk, free speech
Companies: tesla

MesaZona > Table of Contents : Here's The Menu. Enjoy

23 August 2022