Media Bits and Bytes - September 10, 2019

Busting Google; Taxing Amazon; Indie Media; Those Darn Pundits; Who Owns Spider-Man?; Epstein's MIT Buddies; Remembering Gene Crick; Build Tech We Trust

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Google Facing Antitrust Investigation

September 10, 2019
CBS News

Fifty state attorneys general, led by Texas, have announced an investigation into Google's "potential monopolistic behavior." Nine of 10 online searches are conducted through Google, and the company has been criticized for prioritizing its subsidiaries in search results.

 

Is Amazon a Nation-State?

By Edward Ongweso Jr
August 29, 2019
Vice

Amazon is levying taxes on French businesses after France approved a tax on the tech giant.

 

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Another Network is Possible

By April Glaser
August 3, 2019
Logic

Indymedia defined an early era of networked protest — and showed us another way the web could work.

Why Conservative Pundits Are Always in Demand

By David Atkins
August 31, 2019
Washington Monthly

Media giants hire never-Trump conservatives like Bret Stephens who don’t actually represent very many people, but who won’t implicitly encourage violence against women and minorities.

Spider-Man: Intellectual Property or Public Domain?

By Peter Robson
September 2, 2019
Green Left Weekly

Iconic characters in popular culture such as Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and Frankenstein's monster are in the public domain, allowing anyone to use them to create new stories. Spider-Man should be too.

 

Epstein and Techno-Elite Culture

By Evgeny Morozov
September 7, 2019
The Guardian

The MIT-Epstein debacle shows ‘the prostitution of intellectual activity’. Time for a radical agenda: close the Media Lab, disband Ted Talks and refuse tech billionaires money.

 

Remembering Cyber Activist Gene Crick

By Karen Gullo
September 4, 2019
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Gene was a tireless advocate for digital rights for everyone in the state of Texas. He worked to bring free Internet access to communities, especially rural and underserved areas, and advocated for broadband access for rural communities.

Tech Leaders Decry Online White Supremacism

By Megan Rose Dickey
August 13, 2019
TechCrunch

Build Tech We Trust refers to itself as a collective of tech CEOs, activists, changemakers and workers who are committed to countering hate and terrorism.