News of the Week; March 14, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, The Finale (Michael Geist) 
2. Why Canadians oppose blacklisting “pirate” websites
3. FCC must defend net neutrality repeal in court against dozens of litigants: Lawsuits filed by tech firms, states, and advocates were merged into one suit.
4. States Take Sides on Net Neutrality
5. Calif. weighs toughest net neutrality law in US—with ban on paid zero-rating: Bill would recreate core FCC net neutrality rules and be tougher on zero-rating. 
6. Telecom Lobbyists Whine About State Net Neutrality Efforts They Helped Create 
7. Terrified Of Losing In Court, ISPs (With Senator John Kennedy’s Help) Push Hard For A Fake Net Neutrality Law
8. When slow downloads hit an app developer, only Comcast customers suffered: Comcast and Cogent fight again, and customers lose with slow Internet service.
9. Comcast gets FCC’s help in $3.5 million battle against small cable company: Wave Broadband paid Comcast millions and won’t get refund; FCC rejects complaint.
10. Verizon Forced To Briefly Give A Damn About Its Neglected Broadband Networks
11. Verizon agrees to fix failing broadband networks to settle investigation: Verizon will fix NY copper lines and potentially upgrade more than 30,000 homes.
12. AT&T/Time Warner merger will raise TV bills $436 million a year, US says: AT&T scoffs at “insubstantial 45-cent monthly increase, all of 0.4% per bill.”
13. ‘Intense distress’: Lawsuit from Seth Rich’s parents details trauma from Fox News hatchet job
14. Cable’s Top Lobbyist Again Calls For Hyper Regulation Of Silicon Valley
15. When Monsters Exaggerate 
16. Broadcasting: A Key Brexit Priority
17. Pakistan Court Declares Mobile Data Disconnections By The Government Illegal

DIGITAL

1. Back to B.C.: Court Re-examines Google Takedown Order In Light of U.S. Ruling (Michael Geist)
2. College Athletes Appeal to Seventh Circuit Against FanDuel’s and DraftKings’ Use of Images 
3. How Isis And Russia Won Friends And Manufactured Crowds: The Islamic State built a global brand using the power of social media. Now, Russia is following a similar playbook—and it’s all too easy.
4. Russian Propaganda Remains On Reddit
5. House Committee Report Highlights Russian Use of Social Media to Disrupt Pipeline Projects
6. Russia Censors News Reports About Anti-Putin Ice Graffiti, Leaving Its Contents Entirely Up To Our Collective Imagination
7. Rian Johnson: Russian Bots Targeted Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Save General Hux
8. If The US Government Can’t Figure Out Who’s A Russian Troll, Why Should It Expect Internet Companies To Do So? 
9. Egypt sets up hotline for complaints against ‘fake news’: Egypt’s government press centre has called BBC report on human rights abuses ‘fake news’
10. Bad Actors Are Using Social Media Exactly As Designed
11. The spread of true and false news online (Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, & Sinan Aral)
12. The science of fake news (David M. J. Lazer, Matthew A. Baum, Yochai Benkler, Adam J. Berinsky, Kelly M. Greenhill, Filippo Menczer, Miriam J. Metzger, Brendan Nyhan, Gordon Pennycook, David Rothschild, Michael Schudson, Steven A. Sloman, Cass R. Sunstein, Emily A. Thorson, Duncan J. Watts, Jonathan L. Zittrain)
13. When WhatsApp’s Fake News Problem Threatens Public Health
14. Be The (Online) Change You Want To See 
15. Trump Issues Order to Block Broadcom’s Takeover of Qualcomm
16. Trump issues order blocking Broadcom takeover of Qualcomm, citing national security 
17. President Trump blocks $117 billion Qualcomm takeover: Singaporean rival Broadcom prevented from buying US chip firm over “national security” concerns
18. President Trump blocks Broadcom takeover of Qualcomm despite re-domiciliation efforts
19. President Trump halts Broadcom’s bid for Qualcomm, citing “national security”: Last week, Treasury official argued deal would let China dominate 5G development.
20. Is China Discriminating against U.S. Firms Related to Technology Transfer, IP, Trade Secrets, and Innovation? 
21. Court documents reveal 238 gender discrimination and harassment complaints filed against Microsoft: Microsoft facing lawsuit over “unchecked gender bias that pervades its corporate culture”
22. “Women at Microsoft are sexualized by their male managers,” lawsuit alleges: Of 108 gender discrimination complaints, Microsoft concluded just one was legit.
23. Microsoft Helps Get A Computer Recycler Sentenced To 15 Months In Prison For Offering Unapproved Recovery Disks
24. YouTube Shows Dennis Prager’s Claim Of Discrimination Against Conservatives Is Laughable
25. YouTube Will Link Directly To Wikipedia To Fight Conspiracy Theories
26. YouTube To Clamp Down On Conspiracy Theories With Wikipedia-Sourced Text Boxes
27. Wikimedia’s Transparency Report: Guys, We’re A Wiki, Don’t Demand We Take Stuff Down
28. It’s Not Just The US — The Indian YouTube Community Has a Fake News Problem, Too
29. Twitter’s Attempt To Clean Up Spammers Meant That People Sarcastically Tweeting ‘Kill Me’ Were Suspended 
30. Rage against the Machine! CMA sets up a new on data unit to investigate online anti-competitive behaviour
31. Five Senators Agree: Search Engines Should Censor Drug Information 
32. Cannabis website to California: Section 230 protects us from your demands – Prof: “It is difficult to see how Weedmaps could be held liable for these ads.”
33. More People Realizing That SESTA Will Do A Lot More Harm Than Good
34. Just As Everyone’s Starting To Worry About ‘Deepfake’ Porn Videos, SESTA Will Make The Problem Worse
35. If You Think SESTA Will Help Victims Of Sex Trafficking, Read This Now
36. Sex Workers And Survivors Raising The Alarm About SESTA: It Will Literally Put Their Lives In Danger
37. Sri Lanka Blocked Facebook This Week for Allegedly Spreading Hate Speech and Violence
38. News Publishers Ask For Monopoly Powers To Fight Back Against Google/Facebook Monopoly
39. Facebook Didn’t Kill Online Sketch Comedy—The Entire Internet Did
40. Facebook has signed a deal to stream 25 afternoon MLB games
41. Facebook Watch Will Exclusively Air 25 Weekday MLB Games In 2018
42. Facebook Reportedly Pays At Least $30 Million For Rights For 25 Weekday Afternoon MLB Games
43. MLS, Twitter Announce Three-Year Live Streaming Deal
44. YouTube TV Wants To Woo Sports Fans, So It Will Sponsor Two More World Series
45. Judge Rules In YouTube’s Favor In Zombie Go Boom’s Adpocalypse Lawsuit
46. YouTube Reptile Vlogger Charged With 23 Counts of Illegally Possessing Venomous Snakes
47. YouTube’s Robert Kyncl On Logan Paul Controversy: “We Should Have Done Better”
48. YouTube Star Jake Paul Talks To Marco Rubio, Pledges $25,000 In Quest To Stop School Shootings
49. YouTube’s Human Moderators Will See Limited Four-Hour Shifts To Preserve Their Sanity
50. The Price Of YouTube TV Is Officially Up To $40 Per Month, With Existing Customers Grandfathered In
51. Penny’s Notes on the Rising Influence of Influencers
52. Vice CEO Shane Smith To Be Replaced By Former A&E Chief Nancy Dubuc (Report)
53. How To Make A Clean Break With The Clingiest Social Networks
54. Today’s Debate Over Online Porn Started Decades Ago
55. Ad-Blocker Ghostery Just Went Open Source – And Has A New Business Model
56. AI Has A Hallucination Problem That’s Proving Tough To Fix
57. The Quest To Make A Robotic Cat Walk With Artificial Neurons
58. It’s Really Hard to Give AI “Common Sense”
59. Four AI composition tools easy enough to soundtrack your film masterpiece: AI creativity now extends to music composition tools that anyone can access.
60. Come Harvest Time, Who Owns the Fruits of Machine Learning? 
61. Sierra Leone Just Held the World’s First Blockchain-Powered Election 
62. Bitcoin Is Ridiculous. Blockchain Is Dangerous
63. Is The Blockchain Hype Over? (Andres Guadamuz)
64. Beware the use of crypto-currencies
65. Cryptocurrencies fall as Google announces ad ban: Facebook banned ads for cryptocurrency from its ad networks in January.
66. There’s a currency miner in the Mac App Store, and Apple seems OK with it: Popular Calendar 2 app mines Monero by default, but at least it discloses it. 
67. Taxation of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
68. The Obamas Are In “Advanced Negotiations” With Netflix For Political Series Slate
69. Netflix may sign the Obamas in exclusive content deal: Apple and Amazon are reportedly also interested in working with the former president.
70. Netflix Piloting Feature That Lets Kids Earn Virtual Rewards For Streaming
71. Spotify Enlists Its Users to Add Music Metadata
72. Killing The Golden Goose (Again); How The Copyright Stranglehold Dooms Spotify
73. Apple is acquiring the Netflix of magazines: The service had “hundreds of thousands” of subscribers as of 2016.
74. Apple Buys Texture, the Netflix for Magazines
75. Eddy Cue On Apple’s Video Vision: Unlike Netflix, “We’re Not After Quantity”
76. Operation Bayonet: Inside The Sting That Hijacked An Entire Dark Web Drug Market 
77. The Long-Awaited Interactive Adaptation Of ‘WarGames’ Has Premiered 
78. Inside The Vatican’s First-Ever Hackathon

CREATIVITY

1. The Supreme Court’s Decision in Livent: a Framework for Deciding Auditor’s Negligence Cases 
2. Can Mattel be prevented from making its own Frida Kahlo Barbie doll?
3. Playboy Decides Not To Appeal Silly Boing Boing Lawsuit In The Most Petulant Manner Possible
4. Copyright, Censorship, Pepe & Infowars
5. Pay attention to the “moral rights” of visual artists  
6. Research Shows That Published Versions Of Papers In Costly Academic Titles Add Almost Nothing To The Freely-Available Preprints They Are Based On 
7. Court Orders Copyright Troll To Post $10,000 Bond After He Lied About His Client’s Licensing Agreement
8. Domain names: getting real 
9. Federal Judge Says Business Names Provided By Reviewers At A Review Site Are Contributory Trademark Infringement
10. Nevada Supreme Court Overturns Lower Court’s Abysmal Ruling On Las Vegas Shooting Coroner’s Reports
11. Iowa Town Threatens Critical Resident With A Lawsuit, Gets Sued By The ACLU Instead
12. Trump’s Lawyers Apparently Unfamiliar With Streisand Effect Or 1st Amendment’s Limits On Prior Restraint
13. Is Jediism a recognized religion in Canada?

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. California district court rules social media company cannot dismiss non-users’ facial scan privacy claims 
2. TSA accused of searching domestic travelers’ devices with no warrant: TSA has failed to fully respond to FOIA requests from the ACLU.
3. FBI Documents Show More Evidence Of Agency’s Sketchy Relationship With Best Buy’s Geek Squad
4. FBI Director Says It’s ‘Not Impossible’ To Create Compromised Encryption That’s Still Secure
5. Yahoo’s ToS limitations of liabilities challenged in Cyberbreach of 3 billion users! 
6. Judge Says Yahoo Still On The Hook For Multiple Claims Related To Three Billion Compromised Email Accounts
7. There Are No Guardrails on Our Privacy Dystopia: If tech is going to infiltrate, influence, and shape all of society, it is unacceptable for tech and pure market forces to decide the limits of the surveillance state.
8. Potent malware that hid for six years spread through routers: Nation-sponsored Slingshot is one of the most advanced attack platforms ever.
9. Senior ex-Equifax executive charged with insider trading: CIO allegedly sold $1 million worth of stock 10 days before public learned of breach.
10. Router-Hacking ‘Slingshot’ Spy Operation Compromised More Than 100 Targets
11. Weighing Privacy vs. Security For The Internet’s Address Book
12. Keeper Security Reminds Everyone Why You Shouldn’t Use It; Doubles Down On Suing Journalist

GAMES

1. White House meeting over violent video games accomplished little, say attendees 
2. Opinion: Trump’s video game ‘summit’ reminds us who the enemy is
3. Trump’s Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
4. After industry meeting, Trump highlights alleged game violence effects: Democrats accuse president of using games to “change the subject” from gun control.
5. IGDA: Blaming gun violence on games is a distraction, but a chance to educate  
6. Yelling at “scumbags” – inside the White House’s last gaming violence summit: When gaming executives meet the executive branch, the discussion can get a bit bumpy.
7. What to expect from Trump’s game industry summit today: Attendee list suggests a vigorous debate between pro- and anti-gaming voices.
8. These are the people attending the White House’s game violence meeting
9. ZeniMax, Take Two CEOs to meet with President Trump: White House sources have confirmed two attendees of today’s meeting on gun violence
10. Trump meeting with game execs yields “significant progress” – Legislator: Missouri Representative Vicky Hartzler gives her assessment as ESA thanks president for “receptive and comprehensive approach”
11. Trump White House’s Horribly Violent Video-Game Reel Goes Viral
12. This alternate montage challenges the White House’s violent games reel 
13. Watch the industry’s response to Trump’s violent video games reel: Games For Change compiles montage of beautiful and emotional moments from The Last of Us, Zelda, Minecraft, Abzu and more
14. Devs of violent games in White House reel “should be ashamed” – Spector: Warren Spector calls supercut of gory titles “simply disgusting,” says those titles hurt the industry
15. ‘The American Dream’ Parodies US Gun Culture, Launching This Week at a Key Moment in Gun Rights Debate
16. What would Trump’s trade war mean for the games business?: The high-profile summit on game violence is a paper tiger; the industry should take the opportunity to persuade the President on trade issues instead
17. Super Seducer blocked from release on PlayStation 4: The BBC has claimed that Sony “banned” the controversial seduction game
18. “Dating coach” game Super Seducer barred from PlayStation 4: Available on Steam, game using live-action video to “teach” pick-up techniques.
19. Voice-acting rights halt effort to put Fallout 3 inside Fallout 4: Converting licensed vocal files falls into a legal gray area.
20. Fortnite Players Are Getting Fraudulent Charges For Hundreds Of Dollars
21. Fortnite players receiving refunds after accounts were hacked  
22. Fortnite’s cross-platform play will not work between Xbox and PlayStation: Sony appears to be the holdout again as Epic’s multiplayer hit adds cross-play between PC, Mac, console and new mobile versions
23. Fortnite Battle Royale will have the “same gameplay” on mobile devices: PS4 and Xbox One can play with PC/mobile, but not with each other.
24. Blog: Making a multiplayer PC game playable cross-platform on PS4
25. Microsoft claims Sony is stopping Xbox One and PS4 cross-play
26. ModDB has restored and relaunched GameFront
27. Fully restored GameFront relaunches: Modding hub is back online after two years, with completely restored content and new features
28. Game Developer Embraces Modding Community So Much They Made Their Work An Official Release
29. PUBG Corp acquires MadGlory to enable community developer tools: New subsidiary will launch online portal for custom-made APIs, matchmaking engines and esports systems
30. PUBG is third highest-earning Steam game of all time, according to Gabe Newell: Valve boss points to Bluehole’s phenomenon as proof of how Steam benefits the industry
31. Op-Ed: Australia’s gambling crackdown signals choppy waters for loot boxes
32. Happy Wars shutting down Xbox 360 and PC servers this year
33. Devs celebrate women game devs on International Women’s Day
34. Here’s how the games industry is honouring International Women’s Day: We round up all the events and other activities video games firms are hosting to celebrate women everywhere
35. Ubisoft and Microsoft Women in Gaming panel pushes for clarity on how feminism fits into gaming
36. Female Overwatch League host receives death threats over Women’s Day tweet: Soe ‘Soembie’ Gschwind-Penski besieged on social media for thanking supportive men
37. Overwatch League team releases twice-banned player: Dallas Fuel cuts ties with Félix “xQc” Lengyel after he follows up suspension for homophobia with suspension for racism
38. Red Bull announces UK’s largest public esports studio: Studio launches later this month in partnership with ASUS Republic of Gamers, Noblechairs, and Newegg
39. This Stadium In China Is Built Exclusively For Esports
40. Violent video games not welcome for Olympic esports consideration: Overwatch and Call of Duty won’t be Olympic sports any time soon.
41. Alibaba backs non-violent esports for Olympic inclusion
42. Alibaba to focus on non-violent games for Olympic esports bid: First-party publishers of violent games will be “suspected of only pushing your games for your own benefit”
43. NHL Announces First Esports Draw With EA Sports Game
44. EA adds 6 Warner Bros. published games to Origin Access
45. EA adds WBIE to Origin Access: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment becomes first major external publisher added to subscription game service
46. Twitch is getting into the ‘free games for subscribers’ business 
47. Kixeye raises $20M to blend machine learning and game marketing
48. Facebook opens up its Instant Games platform to all devs
49. Dotemu opens new publishing label to support small creative devs
50. Valve adds optional ‘Plus’ paid subscription to free-to-playDota 2
51. Jason Rohrer’s “off-Steam” gamble paid off: The indie designer released his new game outside of Valve’s platform, and it eclipsed sales of his last Steam release in one week
52. Indie devs weigh the pros and cons of forgoing a Steam release
53. Analysts: Games responsible for 80% of all mobile app spending in 2017
54. Could games development transition to a complete outsource model?
55. FoxNext opens new studio to create story-driven titles
56. What’s the story at Wooga?: CEO Jens Begemann explains the reasoning for the casual games studio’s plan to focus on story-driven games
57. Call of Duty goes early to avoid Red Dead clash: Activision releasing Black Ops 4 a full month earlier than usual as Rockstar’s next is set to dominate Q4 – but will others follow?
58. Dune II and the three rules of a good licensed game
59. Oculus has a fix for the mass Oculus Rift outage
60. Oculus Publishes Repair Tool to Patch Debilitating Rift Error, Offers $15 Store Credit
61. Cities: Skylines has sold 5M copies on PC alone
62. Nintendo rescues quiet February for UK games retail
63. 3DS lifecycle extends to 2019 with Nintendo Direct surprise announcements: Luigi’s Mansion remake, new WarioWare and Bowser’s Inside Story bolsters handheld’s line-up for the next 12 months
64. Nintendo announces a bunch of 2018 games, but none as big as Switch Smash Bros.: Nintendo Direct video includes lots of ports coming to Switch, 3DS, as well.
65. Nintendo inks deal with YoYo to bring GameMaker Studio 2 games to Switch
66. Street Fighter collection revives rare multiplayer mode for Switch
67. Don’t Miss: How Nintendo designed the inviting mini-world of Animal Crossing
68. Why you should (and shouldn’t) port your mobile game to the Switch: EEDAR senior analyst Matt Diener finds that Switch players are big mobile spenders – will that lead to successful mobile adaptations?
69. Google Maps transforms into Mario Kart for Mario Day  
70. Google announces new open source multiplayer server Agones
71. Devs can now use Google Maps API to build their own game worlds
72. How to Turn Google Maps Into Mario Kart
73. Gabe Newell: Valve has always been a ‘bit jealous’ of companies like Nintendo 
74. Dota 2 card game “the first of several games” coming from Valve: Gabe Newell’s company now has “ability to develop hardware and software simultaneously”
75. Valve’s making games again: Hands-on with Artifact’s digital trading cards – Newell: “Artifact is to trading card games what Half-Life 2 was to single-player action.”
76. Valve introduces subscription model to Dota 2: $3.99 a month subscription “an evolution of the Majors Battle Pass” says Valve
77. Valve lets us loose in its new offices, unlocks the doors to a rare merch room: Valve recently moved to new offices, so we took every photo we were allowed.
78. BitGuild announces blockchain platform for online games: “The implications of having a true gaming network built on the blockchain are nearly limitless,” says CEO
79. Tencent invests up to $1bn into streaming services within 24 hours: Chinese giant poured $632m into Douyu and led a $461m funding round into its rival Huya
80. Kixeye secures $20m funding for machine learning platform: Mobile firm claims tech optimises gameplay and monetisation to solve the ‘one-hit wonder problem’
81. Looking at open world games to understand player autonomy
82. Report: Fruit Ninja creator Halfbrick cuts workforce by 50 percent
83. Outpost wants to mix games with reality TV: CEO Wright Bagwell says incorporating an audience and fame leaderboards into the studio’s SOS survival game “radically changes” player behavior
84. HQ Trivia raises $15 million in funding: Growing trivia game platform offers real-money prizes, is now worth $100 million
85. Microsoft Shows New Research in Haptics With ‘CLAW’ VR Controller Prototype
86. Valve launches VR resolution auto-optimization tool for SteamVR
87. Steam will now auto-scale VR resolution to max out your GPU: New feature aims to “take the headset out of the equation for [VR] developers.”
88. Eyes-on with the HTC Vive Pro: Not a revolution, but also more than resolution – We take a closer look at a Ready Player One event during SXSW.
89. Skyrim VR is coming to PC, and it marks a Bethesda first: Oculus approval 
90. The First Reactions to Ready Player One Are Mostly Positive… Mostly
91. The Princeton Review reveals the best schools in the world for game design: University of Southern California and the Southern Methodist University ranked top for the second year in a row
92. Meet the dev who sold his house to make a 100% for-charity game

Jon