News of the Week; January 17, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Rogers employees say managers turn a blind eye so call centre workers can lie and cheat customers: ‘We do not believe the concerns raised represent our values or sales practices,’ Rogers says
2. Judge Sweet: Fox News’s Statement that It Took “Decisive Action” After Assault Allegation Does Not Disparage the Unnamed Accused Assailant 
3. Complaint: Bill O’Reilly Breached Settlement Non-Disparagement Clause by Portraying Accusers as Extortionate Liars 
4. Trump’s ‘Fake News Awards’ could violate ethics rules: Little is known about what the president intends to do Wednesday, but some experts aren’t taking it lightly.
5. Washington Legal Issues for TV Broadcasters – Where Things Stand in the New Year 
6. After Being AWOL From The Fight For Years, Google & Facebook To Fund Lawsuits Over Net Neutrality
7. 21 states sue FCC to restore net neutrality rules: A long legal process starts now.
8. 22 State Attorneys General File Suit Against The FCC For Its Net Neutrality Repeal
9. Nebraska The First ‘Red’ State To Craft Its Own Net Neutrality Law
10. Why Are The People Who Whined About Wheeler’s Net Neutrality Rules Being ‘400 Pages’ Silent About Pai’s Being ‘539 Pages’
11. Blackburn Doubles Down On A Decade Of Lies As She Pushes Fake Net Neutrality Law
12. City-owned Internet services offer cheaper and more transparent pricing: Data shows why customers want muni broadband—and why telecom industry fears it.
13. Study finds municipal broadband is up to 50% cheaper than telcos
14. Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband: Community-owned internet service providers are cheaper and better.
15. Colorado Cities Keep Voting To Build Their Own Broadband Networks
16. Update on FCC’s Internet Freedom Order 
17. FCC Internet Freedom Order: What Changed in the Final Decision
18. Senate Hits 50 Votes in Bid to Save Net Neutrality and/or Make Republicans Look Dumb
19. All Democrats and one Republican support net neutrality bill in Senate: Senate Dems seek one more vote for restoration of net neutrality and Title II.
20. After false Hawaii missile notice, FCC launches investigation: For 38 minutes, Hawaiians had little information about what kind of threat they were facing.
21. Samsung is the latest OEM to unlock FM chips in new phones: A push for better emergency readiness leads to radio on new Samsung devices. 

DIGITAL

1. Québec Court of Appeal confirms application of French language requirements for websites
2. Search Engines Aren’t Liable for Indexing ‘Scam’ Locksmith Listings–Baldino’s Lock v. Google (Eric Goldman)
3. A Patent For Geotagging IP Packets Raises Important Internet Law Questions
4. Hawaii Alert System Accidentally Warns of Imminent ‘BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT’ [Updated]
5. The interface to send out a missile alert in Hawaii is slightly less bad: The employee responsible for the alert has been temporarily reassigned.
6. “Free TV” box lawyer says video industry is “digging its own grave”: A win for “Dragon Box” would be bad legal precedent for industry, lawyer says.
7. Netflix, Amazon, and major studios sue maker of “free TV” box: Streaming services and film studios try to stop free access to shows and movies. 
8. Tech Companies Are Complicit In Censoring Iran Protests
9. How terrorists and provocateurs are using social media against western democracies: On the digital front line are guilt-ridden Russian trolls, young women lured by Isis and Facebook Sherlocks in suburbia.
10. Facebook’s Revamp Includes an Effort to Fight Fake News: Will it work?
11. Facebook Inks Licensing Deal With Music Mogul Irving Azoff, An Outspoken YouTube Critic
12. Facebook Tweaks Newsfeed To Favor Content From Friends, Family
13. Media Freaks Out About Facebook Changes; Maybe They Shouldn’t Have Become So Reliant On Facebook
14. Investors Join Calls For Facebook, Twitter To Take More Responsibility
15. Twitter Tried To Curb Abuse. Now It Has To Handle The Backlash
16. Twitter faces trademark infringement lawsuit from podcast network: Internet broadcaster TWiT says Twitter is muscling in on its AV territory.
17. Did Twitter engineers just admit to shadow-banning conservatives? Nope: An engineer’s plan to “ban a way of talking” didn’t refer to conservatives.
18. Meet Antifa’s Secret Weapon Against Far-Right Extremists
19. Why Cloudflare Let An Extremist Stronghold Burn
20. Apple’s First Original Comedy Series To Star Kristen Wiig, With Reese Witherspoon As Executive Producer
21. Apple to pay $38 billion in US taxes on overseas cash: Republican tax bill will save Apple tens of billions in taxes on overseas cash.
22. It’s Time for Apple to Build a Less Addictive iPhone
23. Shareholder Groups Say Apple Should Do More To Address Gadget ‘Addiction’ Among Young People: Should It?
24. After slowdown controversy, iPhone 6 Plus users must wait for batteries: 6 Plus battery supply is limited, but other models are still mostly on schedule.
25. Legal risk of cloud computing
26. Eharmony agrees to pay up to $2.2 million to end auto-renewal suit 
27. Amazon Says Its Thursday Night NFL Audience Outpaced Twitter
28. Google will reportedly vet premium YouTube videos more closely
29. YouTube Will Use Human, Technological Methods To Vet Premium Ad Tier Google Preferred 
30. YouTube introduces new, stricter requirements for partners
31. YouTube Alters Partner Program Eligibility, Vows All Google Preferred Videos Will Be Human-Verified
32. Google Chrome extensions with 500,000 downloads found to be malicious: Google removes four extensions that used infected computers in click fraud scheme.
33. Chromecast and Google Homes reportedly overloading home Wi-Fi: A bug is causing Google devices to pound networks with 100,000 packets at once.
34. YouTube tightens the rules around creator monetization and partnerships
35. YouTube raises subscriber, view threshold for Partner Program monetization: Making it harder for new channels to make money off of ads placed by YPP.
36. YouTube fights “bad actors” with new content policies: New measures include manual vetting of Google Preferred videos, and a higher monetisation threshold for small channels
37. Google to monitor popular YouTube channels – Report: After dropping another big YouTuber over controversy, company will begin vetting content in Google Preferred advertiser program 
38. YouTube Content Head: 70% Of Upcoming YouTube Red Episodes Are Directed By Women
39. Jackie Aina Receives NAACP’s First-Ever ‘YouTuber Of The Year’ Award
40. Google Can Now Tell You Which Works of Art You Look Like
41. Unofficial ‘Harry Potter’ Fan Movie Approved By Warner Bros., A Hit On YouTube
42. The 30 YouTube Channels That Have Surpassed 10 Billion Lifetime Views
43. Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” Becomes 4th YouTube Video To Surpass 3 Billion Views
44. YouTube Says 70% Of All Watch Time Is Driven By Its Own Recommendations
45. YouTube finally hands down punishment to creator for posting dead body video: After nearly two weeks, YouTube removes Logan Paul from Google Preferred.
46. Top Creators Applaud YouTube’s (Delayed) Logan Paul Punishment
47. After Logan Paul incident, Google Preferred YouTube videos will face further vetting: Videos with the top ads will be examined by human moderators and AI software.
48. Blackpills Axes Logan Paul Series In Wake Of Suicide Vlog
49. Logan Paul’s Content Was Questionable Before He Ever Set Foot In The “Suicide Forest”
50. Logan Paul Says “Everyone Deserves Second Chances” Following Suicide Video
51. Kevin Durant’s Media Company Will Help Athletes Launch Their Own YouTube Channels
52. When It Comes To Gorillas, Google Photos Remains Blind
53. Crime-Predicting Algorithms May Not Fare Much Better Than Untrained Humans
54. Mechanical Turkers may have out-predicted the most popular crime-predicting algorithm
55. Taming The Golem: Challenges of Ethical Algorithmic Decision-Making
56. A Child Abuse Prediction Model Fails Poor Families
57. AI needs debate about potential bias
58. Microsoft Says AI Advances Will Require New Laws, Regulations: Increase in gig-economy jobs means tech companies have to step up to protect workers, provide benefits
59. Machines Just Beat Humans on a Stanford Reading Comprehension Test
60. Don’t Blame Social Media For Celebrity Politicians. Blame Everyone.
61. The meteoric rise of the so-called ‘Influencer’
62. Massive Data Dump Shows Flat Numbers For Snapchat’s Stories Across The Summer Of 2017
63. Snapchat’s Big Redesign, Ahead Of US Launch, Has Received Overwhelmingly Negative Response Abroad
64. Netflix could become the second-biggest media company behind Disney in 3 years, Barclays says: Barclays recommends Netflix shares, citing optimism over the company’s subscriber growth. The firm’s analyst predicts the internet streaming giant will generate annual sales growth of 27 percent through 2019 from 2016. “In our opinion, in the next 3-5 years Netflix is likely to become the second biggest media company by revenue (ignoring studios and theme parks), next only to Disney,” the analyst wrote. 
65. Social Media Giants vs Children – the truth behind social media contracts 
66. The Hidden Toll Of Fixing Meltdown And Spectre
67. The impromptu Slack war room where ‘Net companies unite to fight Spectre-Meltdown: When major security vulns go live without warning, competitors suddenly band together.
68. Spectre and Meltdown patches causing trouble as realistic attacks get closer: Driver incompatibilities and microcode problems are both being reported.
69. Here’s how, and why, the Spectre and Meltdown patches will hurt performance: Now that microcode and patches are starting to ship, a clearer picture is emerging.
70. Meltdown and Spectre: Good news for AMD users, (more) bad news for Intel – Windows patches are fixed, but microcode updates are causing even more trouble. 
71. Researcher finds another security flaw in Intel management firmware: Active Management Technology defaults allow anyone to take control of many PCs.
72. Highly Competent White House Spends 22 Minutes Trying to Mute a Conference Call
73. The corpse of Circuit City will rise again on February 15: Follows similar promises of a relaunch from 2016 that never quite came together.
74. Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000
75. Bitcoin plunges—now down 47 percent from December peak: Every major cryptocurrency has seen double-digit losses in the last 24 hours.
76. Kodak’s Supposed Cryptocurrency Entrance Appears To Be Little More Than A Rebranded Paparazzi Copyright Trolling Scheme… With The Blockchain
77. New botnet infects cryptocurrency mining computers, replaces wallet address: Attacker has generated about $2,000 in digital coin so far in a scam that remains active.
78. ‘Sex Party’ Or ‘Nerds On A Couch’? A Night In Silicon Valley
79. Website Accessibility Cases Proceed Despite Absence of Regulations
80. Boeing Decision Forges New Balance Between NLRA Rights and Social Media Policies 
81. The Griefbot That Could Change How We Mourn: Muhammad Ahmed’s grandkids would never meet their grandfather, so he made an AI version of him. How might that change our concept of death?
82. Artist transforms herself into a virtual assistant and obeys your commands: Would we rather have a human servant or Alexa? Lauren McCarthy decided to find out.
83. The Strange History Of One Of The Internet’s First Viral Videos
84. 2017 – The Year in Which Copyright Went Beyond Source Code 
85. 2017: In Review – The biggest Tech trends and events of the Year
86. Aliens, Autonomous Cars, and AI: This Is the World of 2118
87. CES 2018: Most Absurd Technologies To Come

CREATIVITY

1. Trump’s Personal Lawyer Sues Buzzfeed For Publishing Allegedly False Statements Written By Someone Else
2. For The Second Time In A Week, German Hate Speech Laws Results In Deletion Of Innocent Speech
3. Appeals Court OKs F-Bombs For Federal Trademark Protection
4. Community Backlash Leads Adult Diaper Company To Drop Its Trademark Application for ‘ABDL’
5. When the President Uses a Profanity, What Can Broadcast News Do? 
6. Psychiatrist Drops His Lawsuit Against Critic Who Left Wordless One-Star Review
7. Copyright Troll Gets Smacked Around By Court, As Judge Wonders If Some Of Its Experts Even Exist
8. Copyright Law: Overcoming Claims of Copyright Protection for Derivative Works
9. How Closed Trade Deals Ratchet Up the Copyright Term Worldwide
10. New presidency of the Council of the European Union … new position on the EU copyright reform?
11. It’s The (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age Of Free Speech  (Zeynep Tufekci)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Mandatory new Canadian data breach obligations expected to take effect in 2018
2. FTC Settles First Children’s Privacy Case Involving Connected Toys 
3. Hack Brief: Russian Hackers Release Apparent IOC Emails In Wake Of Olympics Ban
4. Trump tweet throws today’s House surveillance votes into chaos: Trump tweet appears to attack NSA spying hours after the White House defends it.
5. Trump Doesn’t Understand Surveillance Powers; House Votes To Give Him More Of It
6. Filibuster threat means Trump needs Senate Democrats to pass spying bill: The House just passed a bill extending NSA spying powers for six years.
7. After Basically No Debate, And No Opportunity For Amendments, Senate Votes To Expand NSA Surveillance
8. The House Has Voted. They Will Allow Warrantless Surveillance.
9. US Telcos Threatened With Loss Of Government Contracts If They Do Business With Huawei
10. Shooting The Messenger: Reporter Who Exposed Massive Indian Data Breach Targeted By Law Enforcement
11. FBI security expert: Apple are “jerks” about unlocking encrypted phones – “Apple is pretty good at evil genius stuff,” FBI official laments at conference.
12. FBI Says Device Encryption Is ‘Evil’ And A Threat To Public Safety
13. Major security flaw in virtual reality porn app SinVR exposes the secrets of 20,000 users
14. BitTorrent users beware: Flaw lets hackers control your computer – “Low complexity” hack for Transmission client may work against other clients, too.
15. Chinese Internet Users Start To Rebel Against Lack Of Online Privacy
16. Some international accounts alerted to Apple’s iCloud transfer in China: Update your iCloud country or region settings to prevent your data from moving.
17. Found: New Android malware with never-before-seen spying capabilities – Skygofree is among the most powerful spy platforms ever created for Android.
18. Border Searches Of Electronic Devices
19. Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens
20. Skype finally getting end-to-end encryption: It’ll use the Signal protocol, also used in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and others.
21. NFLPA President Eric Winston Likens Wearable Metrics To Health Data
22. The “Doublespeak” Of Responsible Encryption
23. Keep Calm – The GDPR is coming!
24. Using AI To Identify Car Models In 50 Million Google Street Views Reveals A Wide Range Of Demographic Information
25. Beyond the Privacy Torts: Reinvigorating a Common Law Approach for Data Breaches (Alicia Solow-Niederman)

GAMES

1. Nintendo sues mobile developer Colopl over patent infringement
2. Twitch takes legal action following spambot incident: Brandan Lukus Apple faces “mischief in relation to computer data” charge over 150,000 spam messages across 1,000 channels
3. Photographer sues IGN over Pokémon GO Photo
4. Suspect in deadly Kansas “swatting” hoax charged with manslaughter: An online dispute over Call of Duty escalated to a fatal police shooting.
5. Is Downloading Retro Video Game ROMs Ever Legal?
6. Bungie promises to rebalance Destiny 2’s loot boxes, raids: Bevy of gameplay tweaks and features planned for coming year.
7. Tencent working with Chinese police to fight PUBG cheats – report: 30 cases have been exposed as PUBG’s community is cleaned up ahead of official Chinese launch
8. Tencent enlists Chinese police in the fight against Battlegrounds cheaters
9. Video Game Lobby Group Slams Newest Trump Comments As ‘Repulsive’
10. Battlegrounds surpasses 3 million players on Xbox One
11. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds sells three million units on Xbox One: Battle royale game proves successful despite being plagued by bugs and technical issues
12. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds most covered game in December 2017: Star Wars Battlefront II knocked from top spot as PUBG enjoys official console and Xbox launch
13. Hostile workplace accusations rock PlayStation developer Quantic Dream
14. Quantic Dream on defense amid allegations of toxic work environment
15. Quantic Dream denies allegations of homophobia, racism and toxic studio culture: David Cage “shocked” and “outraged” as preliminary investigation by Paris public prosecutor is opened
16. Games revenues expected to reach $235bn by 2022: Could reach $170bn this year, predominantly driven by mobile and PC
17. Games software/hardware $165B+ in 2018, $230B+ in 5 years, record $2B+ investment last year
18. Analyst: Mobile game sessions decreased by 16% in 2017
19. Eight of the top ten mobile publishers in 2017 were game-related: Mixi’s Monster Strike top grossing mobile app for third consecutive year
20. The cost of games
21. Selling used PC games through the blockchain? We’re not buying it: Robot Cache has some interesting ideas and some important hurdles.
22. How to keep a charity gaming marathon going for 160 hours straight: Behind the scenes with the tech and people behind Awesome Games Done Quick
23. Nintendo announces DIY Nintendo Labo for the Switch
24. Nintendo’s Labo playset slaps the Switch into build-your-own cardboard toys: Coming April 20, “crafted for kids and those who are kids at heart.”
25. Nintendo Labo brings DIY approach to Switch: New Switch line will let users build peripherals with cardboard kits and use them in included games
26. Nintendo Direct has transformed the company’s relationship with its fans: The firm has learnt to embrace its demanding fanbase
27. Hackers seem close to publicly unlocking the Nintendo Switch: Coders are rapidly finding exploits to open up Nintendo’s new console.
28. Nintendo Switch is the fastest-selling games console in France: French MD reveals Amiibo and software sales figures in new interview
29. Nintendo adds Mario Tennis, Donkey Kong, Hyrule Warriors and Dark Souls to 2018 Switch line-up: But fans left to wait on Metroid and Pokemon
30. Dark Souls, Donkey Kong Country lead a wave of Nintendo Switch ports: Plus – New Mario Tennis, free online hide-and-seek for Mario Odyssey.
31. Now On Nintendo Switch, Furi Embraces The Power Of A Good Boss Fight
32. Nintendo doesn’t seem to be “looking into” VR very much anymore: 4K update doesn’t seem to be in the immediate cards for the Switch, either.
33. GAME sales up over 5% during Christmas: Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One X the key sales drivers
34. GameStop holiday sales jump 11%: Nintendo Switch and Xbox One X drive hardware sales up 38%; used game sales down 8% as customer spending shifts to new games, collectibles
35. Activision closes only North American distribution centre: Publisher claims decision is unrelated to steady rise of digital sales
36. Activision’s Transformers games pulled from digital stores
37. Unreal hosting livestream to help devs navigate potential legal landmines
38. UK Charts: GTA V is back at No.1 226 weeks after it first came out – Price activity sends the 2013 title to the top for a 14th time
39. Revealed: The 100 best-selling UK boxed games of 2017 – As always, Call of Duty and FIFA dominate. But there are a few surprises, too
40. Activision-Hasbro deal expires, Transformers games pulled from digital stores: War for Cybertron, Transformers Devastation and more no longer available to buy as download
41. Lego bringing online games to China with help from Tencent
42. Tencent strikes deal with Lego to develop online games: Deal includes potential social network aimed at Chinese children
43. MLS Enters Esports, Launches eMLS FIFA 18 League With EA Sports
44. Insights: Don’t Overlook Overwatch As E-Sports Has Its Coming Out Party
45. Blizzard boasts 10M viewers for Overwatch League opening week
46. Overwatch League Day One: Dallas vs Seoul Match Sets The Tone For The League: Viewership peaked at 415k.
47. Overwatch League attracts 10m viewers in its first week: Average audience of 408,000 per minute for opening day, concurrent viewers peaks at 437,000
48. Swedish firm G:loot receives largest esports investment in Nordic region’s history: Confident investors back esports firm for $12.1 million
49. At CES, Everyone Is Still Hunting For VR’s Killer App
50. ‘VRChat’ Blasts Past 1 Million Installs Amidst a Skyrocketing Meme Economy
51. Horizon Zero Dawn leads with ten nominations for the 21st DICE Awards – The Legend of the Zelda: Breath of the Wild a distant second, appearing in six catagories
52. Steam competitor Robot Cache hopes to woo devs by slashing platform fees
53. Games with pornographic ads sneak into the Play Store, get 3 million downloads: Google removes 60 apps packing the “AdultSwine” malware.
54. Spanish government gives indies funding boost with new $7.9M grant
55. Spanish government confirms €6.5m grant for indie devs: More funding available following news that €2m grant had been scrapped, reviving a market that lost 30 studios last year
56. Video games crowdfunding raised $25m in 2017: ICO Partners estimates show only three projects raised more than $1m last year
57. Devs answer: What were the overlooked gems of 2017?
58. Horizon Zero Dawn and PUBG among top 2018 D.I.C.E. Award noms
59. Developers share their favorite indie games of 2017
60. 6 of the most significant mobile game trends in 2017
61. Here are Gamasutra’s predictions about the game industry for 2018
62. Madden NFL 18 and Horizon Zero Dawn among Writers Guild Awards nominees
63. TIGA publishes guide to forthcoming changes in data protection law: The General Data Protection Regulation to replace the Data Protection Act on May 25
64. Ultima Underworld and the freedom to make bad choices: Why I Love: Quantum Soup’s Chris Payne gets lost in the many innovations of The Stygian Abyss
65. Games Done Quick raises $2.26M for the Prevent Cancer Foundation
66. An appreciation of games that click back and change the gamers who love them: From The Dig to Pillars of Eternity, gaming does something no other pop culture medium can.
67. Behavioral Profiling: How to Build Useful Player Models

Jon