A pirate site is blocked through a court order yet like a chameleon it changes its colour (and IP address or URL) and is back up again tomorrow under a different guise. This is the reality that rights-holders have to face repeatedly in dealing with slippery pirate operators. But relief is coming. Continue reading “Tightening the Screws on Pirate Websites through Dynamic Website Blocking Injunctions”
Cloudflare, the Silicon Valley based company that provides online protection for websites against cyber-attacks (among other services) has been in the news–yet again–because they finally fired 8Chan as a client, removing the protective wrapping that had allowed the website so closely associated with hate speech and racist rants to exist on the internet. 8Chan has become the vehicle of choice for the mentally deranged and disaffected social misfits who have perpetrated a number of killings, including the mass murders at a mosque in Christchurch New Zealand and the shooting of mainly Mexican shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso, TX. But this blog is not about 8Chan (which is a topic unto itself), but rather about Cloudflare, its enabler. Continue reading “Cloudflare the Enabler: It Needs To Make Some Hard Choices”
My wife and I had just been visiting our daughter in her new home when we turned on the car radio. It was an interview on CBC with Andy Parker, whose daughter Alison had been murdered, live on TV, by a deranged former employee, back in 2015. The killer recorded and later uploaded video of Alison Parker’s death to the internet, in addition to the live broadcast of the tragedy. The radio story was about the trials of a father who was being trolled by hate-mongers and conspiracy theorists, and about his ongoing efforts to get the videos of his daughter’s murder taken down by YouTube. My heart went out to him. I understood what was driving him, what helps him get up each morning. It is to give some meaning to his daughter’s death by trying to make the world a slightly better place. And one of those things, in addition to better gun control, is to try to bring Google, owner of YouTube, to account for its actions, or rather, its non-action. Continue reading “Google is Monetizing Human Tragedy: Why Aren’t They Held Accountable?”
Who will win the next election? That is the $64, $64 thousand or $64 billion question (depending on which generation you represent), and is the question on which political pollsters like to think they provide some insights. Which election are we talking about? If you are American, it is clearly the 2020 Presidential election, but if you live in Canada, it is probably the general election on October 21 of this year. If you are British, we’d be talking about the election that Boris Johnson may call to sort out the Brexit mess, and if you are Australian you might be thinking about the most recent election where, once again, the actual results confounded the pollsters. In fact, when it comes to political polling and the “next election”, we could be talking about any country where public opinion actually counts (i.e. not China) and where reading the pulse of the electorate is part of the political process. Not that pollsters get it right most of the time these days. Continue reading “Polling Data and Copyright: Who Will Win the Next Election?”
Hugh Stephens Blog 