LinkedIn to Pull Out of China

LinkedIn said it would end service in China after the platform censored posts to keep operating but still came under government scrutiny.

"The operating environment in China has also become more difficult. Since President Xi Jinping took the reins of the Communist Party in 2012, he has repeatedly cracked down on what can be said online. Presiding over the rising power of the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator, Mr. Xi turned China’s internet from a place where some sensitive topics were censored to one where critics face arrests for a constantly shifting set of infractions, like jokes at Mr. Xi’s expense.

See NYTimes  and South China Morning Post

First Amendment and Social Media

Social media and First Amendment issues were debated in oral argument before the US Supreme Court in Packingham v. North Carolina.

See:  http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/packingham-v-north-carolina/

Issue:  Whether, under the court’s First Amendment precedents, a law that makes it a felony for any person on the state's registry of former sex offenders to “access” a wide array of websites – including Facebook, YouTube, and nytimes.com – that enable communication, expression, and the exchange of information among their users, if the site is “know[n]” to allow minors to have accounts, is permissible, both on its face and as applied to petitioner, who was convicted based on a Facebook post in which he celebrated dismissal of a traffic ticket, declaring “God is Good!”

In oral argument on 27 February 2017, Justice Kennedy drew an analogy between social media and the public square.  Justice Ginsburg said restricting access to social media would mean being cut off from a very large part of the marketplace of ideas.  The First Amendment includes not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information.

You Can't Say That on The Internet

A BASTION of openness and counterculture, Silicon Valley imagines itself as the un-Chick-fil-A. But its hyper-tolerant facade often masks deeply conservative, outdated norms that digital culture discreetly imposes on billions of technology users worldwide.

See NY Times

Trial By Social Media

See article in SMH and in B & T magazine.

JotForm Shut Down by US Secret Service

The strange case of the US Secret Service having a website taken down, by having the domain name registrar (GoDaddy) block the use of the domain name.
See here and Wired and eWeek.
Maybe a good reason to use a non-U.S. domain name registrar?

Law firm sues over bad online review about it

A Dallas law firm has filed a lawsuit seeking to learn the identity of a commenter calling himself “Ben” who posted a bad online review.

The Lenahan Law Firm claims defamation and seeks $50,000 in damages, Texas Lawyer reports. Partner Wes Black says the suit will allow the law firm to subpoena Google to learn the commenter’s identity.

Ben wrote in his comments on Google Review: "Bad experience with this firm. Don't trust the fake reviews here.” Ben also gave a bad review to an Oregon cleaning company and may have intended to post the negative review about a different law firm closer to home, the suit(PDF) says.

Black tells Texas Lawyer the Lenahan Law Firm gets most of its clients from searches, and the bad review won’t help. "The issue isn't trying to recover tons of money,” Black tells Texas Lawyer. “We just want the review down.”

See: ABA

Content Regulation - Government Launches Classification Review

See ABC article

"The Minister responsible for classification, Brendan O'Connor, said technology is fast moving and the review will examine how the classification can cater for further advances into the future.

"A lot has changed in recent years. Australians now access content through the Internet and mobile phones and that poses challenges for the existing classification scheme," Mr O'Connor said. "We're also seeing the convergence of different technology platforms and the worldwide accessibility of some content, which also creates new concerns," he said.

"Australians need to be confident that our classification system will help them make informed choices about what they choose to read, see, hear and play," Mr O'Connor said. "That's particularly important for parents who rely on the National Classification Scheme to make sensible choices for their children," he said."