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Monthly Archives: December 2022

User Generated Content and the Fediverse: A Legal Primer

EFF: “A growing number of people are experimenting with federated alternatives to social media like Mastodon, either by joining an “instance” hosted by someone else or creating their own instance by running the free, open-source software on a server they control. (See more about this movement and joining the fediverse here). The fediverse isn’t a… Continue Reading

Document: Report on Trump’s Tax Returns

Ways and Means Committee report on Trump Taxes Joint Committee on Taxation summary of Trump’s returns. WSJ$ – Donald and Melania Trump Reported Negative Income In Four Years From 2015 Through 2020. “The Trumps paid some form of taxes every year, but paid $750 or less in income taxes in three of the six years.”… Continue Reading

No free PACER as U.S. lawmakers exclude proposal from spending bill

Reuters: “U.S. lawmakers have left a proposal to make the federal judiciary’s PACER online court records system free out of a sprawling, $1.66 trillion spending measure unveiled on Tuesday, a setback for advocates as the current Congress nears its end. Supporters of the Open Courts Act had been pushing to get the stalled, bipartisan legislation… Continue Reading

22 findings from the Reuters Institute’s research in 2022 still relevant in 2023

From news avoidance to audience trust and newsroom diversity, our researchers have covered key issues in the past 12 months – “2022 has been a challenging year for journalism. While reporting on Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and on the last stages of a global pandemic, news organisations struggled with loss of interest, news avoidance… Continue Reading

Jan 6th Committee Releases 34 Witness Transcripts

Release of Select Committee Materials Dec 21, 2022 Washington: “Today, the Select Committee had made public 34 transcripts [with redactions] of witness testimony that was gathered over the course of the Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. These 34 records can be found on the Select Committee’s website.” Continue Reading

Face Recognition Tech Gets Girl Scout Mom Booted From Rockettes Show — Due to Where She Works

NBC 4 New York: “A recent incident at Radio City Music Hall involving the mother of a Girl Scout is shedding light on the growing controversy of facial recognition, as critics claim it is being used to target perceived enemies — in this case, by one of the most famous companies in the country. Kelly… Continue Reading

Forever connected: the realities of parenting and growing up online

Password and Malwarebytes: “Forever connected: the realities of parenting and growing up online Have you posted those baby photos?” Decades ago, this would have sounded like gibberish. Today, we hear it all the time. Underneath these words is the understanding that we’ll share nearly everything online. And kids face the same expectation to build and… Continue Reading

Big oil is behind conspiracy to deceive public, first climate racketeering lawsuit says

The Guardian – Lawyer in a civil lawsuit launched by towns in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico describes why it is using laws used to target mob bosses – “The same racketeering legislation used to bring down mob bosses, motorcycle gangs, football executives and international fraudsters is to be tested against oil and coal companies who are… Continue Reading

This Super-Tree Could Help Feed the World and Fight Climate Change

WhoWhatWhy – “Feeding the world without frying the world would be a miraculous achievement. Somehow, we’d need to grow far more food with far less environmental impact while using far less land. We’d also need to grow far more trees, so we could store more carbon on earth and reduce the amount of carbon in… Continue Reading

Summary of Trump Taxes Released

Axios: “House Ways and Means Committee Democrats voted Tuesday to release to the public several years worth of Donal Trump’s tax returns in the days ahead, ending the long-running battle over the documents’ secrecy. “Lawmakers said it would take some time to first redact sensitive information from the documents, such as Trump’s Social Security number… Continue Reading

Fierce ‘bomb cyclone’ to disrupt holiday travel, unleash Arctic outbreak

Washington Post: “Fierce ‘bomb cyclone’ to disrupt holiday travel, unleash Arctic outbreak. The storm could bring blizzard conditions, ‘life-threatening’ cold, extreme wind chills and travel headaches for large parts of the Lower 48 states. A massive storm system is set to snarl holiday travel and bring an onslaught of wintry weather to millions across the… Continue Reading